i^viu (iliuuUy 'JStlirtiny
The NEW BEKN
FUBLISHID WIIKLY
IN TNI HBAirr OF
■ASTERN NORTH
CAROLINA
VOLUME 15
1^4
NEW BERN. N. C. 28860, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1973
5c^ ■
NUMbcrt 46
Back yonder in the long ago,
Mdien we were aomewhat Uttler,
m«t anywhere you chanced to
look you’d see a happy whit-
Oer Relaxed, and sort of
comfy like, armed with a
bwlow knife, he jrnred off curly
shavings, as he gave his views
on life.
Youngsters in the neigh
borhood would listen with
delight, marveling at the thi^
he carved, his blade so sharp
and bright,...He fashioned
fancy walking sticks, and boats
complete with sails, and whUe
he whittled he would pin the
gallest kind (k tales.
Conversation didn’t lag, when
whittlers got together, on those
wintry evenings, or in sultry
summer weather They
whiled away the j>leasant hours^
praising and belittling,
discussing weighty world af
fairs, all the time a whittling.
Today we do things dif
ferently, we’re in a scrambled
age, and we end up being
jumpy, like a squirrel inside a
cage....we get no fun from being
still, we’ve got to be a going,
belter skelter here and there,
always to and froing.
Home ain’t where the heart is,
it’s where we hang our hat, and
home we find in times like these
we’re seldom ever at....We’re
folks plumb Alii of fiCtets, we
try a pace that I^, too
doggone much commotion is to
blame for lots of ills.
Perhaps there’d be few
ulcers, and mme folks would
stay well, if instead of all the
fretting we cut shavings for a
spdl.....So of late we’ve been a
wondering if it weren’t a better
life, when there were fcdks who
whittled with a good old barlow
knife.
++++-!-
Yesterday was when Martha
Royall, who thousands of New
Bernians . knew only as
Vegetable Martha, rattled
residential windows for many
blocks around, as she peddled
her fresh coUs^, com, butter
beans, and newly dug potatoes.
If Gabriel’s trumpet blares
forth louder than Martha’s
voice used to, waking the dead
won’t be a problem. She sang
her sales pitch in the manner
that other blacks did in days df
old,' along Charleston’s Catfish
Row.
However, no one to the south
of us, in the genowtion that
inq[>ir^ George Gershwin to
write Porgy and Bess, had lungs
to compare with hers. Am
plification of her voice was a
needless as gilding the lily.
Short and plumidsh, she was
renuurkaUy agUe «nd appeared
to be tireless. Before noon she
covered much if not aO of the
town. There were other black
pedders on the street, but only
one Martha.
She was as much a part of the
local scene as the Poet Office
(now City Hall) dock, male
juveniles skinny dipping in the
Neuse off guano docks, and
courtly Confederate veterans,
the few that were left.
Down at Central School, the
kids listened for her each
morning. To such an extent that
Mr. Smith considered it
distracting, and asked her to
(Continued on page 8>
SWEETS FOR THE SWEET
—Photo by Eunice Wray.