55 pages • 1 hour read
Jimmy CarterAn Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 3-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary: “Hard Times, and Politics”
The most frequent travelers the Carters saw were itinerant laborers and unemployed persons who either rode in train boxcars or walked along the road. Most were men; a few were families. In 1938, one in four Americans was unemployed, many displaced by mechanization. Lillian never turned away anyone who asked for food or water. They were polite and often offered to do yard work in return for a meal. Lillian learned from one of them that the itinerant laborers had a system of symbols that showed who was likely to provide food. She found the symbols on her mailbox post and left them there.
Chain gangs, Black and white men chained together, worked on the road. Most of the prisoners were white, since crimes by Black people against white ones were rare, and landowners would intercede to keep good workers on their land. White people were also more likely to do white-collar crime.
Carter and his friends were fascinated by gangsters and played games in which they fought FBI agents. Lillian once offered lemonade to the guard and the chained men. Carter also watched the railroad repair gang, all members of the AME church who took pride in their work and sang together.
Prices for cotton dropped below the cost of production, propelling Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal to victory in 1932. Congress rushed through the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, but it coincided with an excellent crop, and as a result part of it had to be destroyed. Farmers took cash payments and plowed up as much as half their crop. A friend of Carter’s recalled a mule that was too confused to plow in the wrong place and destroy the plants. Cotton prices increased, however. Carter’s father was forced to comply but violently disagreed with this restriction, which eventually extended to peanuts, and the requirement that they slaughter and burn 200 young hogs.
By 1934, the New Deal programs had increased farm income, but income from cotton was still only 45% of its 1929 level. Poverty strained relationships between Black and white citizens as landlords sometimes withheld government payments from their tenants. Government relief money was disproportionate in the belief that Black families could live more cheaply. Honest landlords, like Earl Carter, fell back on hiring day labor rather than sharecroppers. Farm foreclosures were frequent. Carter says this was his “first picture of the difference between political programs as envisioned in Washington and their impact on the human beings [he] knew” (67).
Earl Carter detested Roosevelt but supported Georgia’s Democratic governor, Eugene Talmadge. Talmadge opposed New Deal policies, so Earl would take voters in his truck to “Gene’s” rallies. Carter went to one and remembers the barbecue pits, crowds, and speakers. Talmadge ended his speech by showing his trademark red galluses (suspenders). Carter says he never dreamed he would one day follow Gene to the Governor’s Mansion.
In 1938, the Rural Electrification Administration brought electricity to some of the local farms, including the Carters’. They also had an electric refrigerator and stove. Earl was elected to the Sumter Electric Membership Corporation, a powerful force that set rates and decided where power lines would run. At 16, Carter worked for the Agricultural Adjustment Administration to make sure farmers were meeting government standards with their cotton and peanut crops. He could drive the family car as his mother was home with his baby brother, Billy. One farmer beat him for trying to “cheat” him out of his government payments. Carter was relieved to go to college the following planting season.
Carter could recognize some emerging trends in agriculture. Federal oversight was increasing and benefits were “flowing” to the larger landowners. Mechanization was slowly coming to South Georgia. Still, Earl Carter didn’t buy his first tractor until a year after Jimmy left for college. Looking back at the tenant system and the slow progress, Carter understands why his parents never tried to keep him on the farm. They agreed instead that he should have a naval career.
Chapter 4 Summary: “My Life as a Young Pup”
Carter’s best friend on the farm was Alonzo Davis or A.D., who lived on the farm with his aunt and uncle. When Carter first met him he had “kinky hair, big eyes, and a tendency to mumble when he talked” (73) but this shyness vanished when the boys were on their own. He was carefree and exuberant. Like Carter’s other playmates on the farm, A.D. was Black. Unsure of A.D.’s age, his aunt gave him Carter’s birthday so they could celebrate together.
A.D. was “slightly” bigger and stronger than Carter, but not as fast or agile, so their wrestling and running contests were fairly equal. They also enjoyed working, fishing, trapping, exploring, and building things together. Carter obeyed A.D.’s uncle and aunt the way he did his own parents. When the boys were young, A.D. also felt at home in the Carters’ house.
Carter and A.D. also played with A.D.’s cousin, Edmund Hollis, and two brothers who lived half a mile away, Milton and Johnny Raven. They had one friend, Rembert Forrest, who was nursed back to health by Lillian Carter after a serious illness.
Carter began school at age six, getting up early to work or play before schooltime and rushing home afterward. Since his mother was often busy nursing, the full-time babysitter for Carter and his younger sisters, Gloria and Ruth, was a young Black woman named Annie Mae Hollis. Carter reflects that his childhood world was “really shaped by Black women” (74) as he played with their children and often ate and slept in their homes. He believes they helped him to understand the natural world.
Rachel Clark, Jack’s wife, was the most remarkable person who lived near the Carters on the farm and the one who “made the most significant and lasting impact” on him (74). He believed she came from African royalty. She was famous for her ability to pick cotton. Rachel taught Jimmy how to fish and as they walked for miles together, she identified flora and fauna and stressed the importance of caring for God’s creation. Carter believes she taught him how to behave properly, according to religious and moral values. Carter felt at ease in their home, although they did not fight bedbugs as obsessively as his mother did.
Although Earl knew what his tenants earned and owned and Lillian was frequently nursing them, Carter was the one who lived and ate with them. They would often pass messages to Earl Carter through his son.
Carter went barefoot from March until late October and wasn’t required to wear shoes to church and school until he was 13. He disliked the feeling of hot topsoil when he was pruning watermelons, fertilizing crops, and poisoning boll weevils. He didn’t mind walking through manure as he helped catch and harness the mules and horses, fed the chickens and hogs, and milked the cows. They had no insect repellent except citronella and were plagued with mosquitoes and flies.
He describes common illnesses including ringworm and hookworm. Lillian’s nursing expertise kept the worms from moving to his intestines. An untreated splinter put him behind on his chores, causing his father to call him “Jimmy” instead of the usual “Hot” or “Hot Shot.”
Dogs were a constant in his life as companions and hunters, although he often feared rabies and saw several infected dogs. Rabies shots were mandated, and dogs without inoculation tags could be destroyed on sight. 10-inch barn rats, called “wharf rats,” were also common. Keeping them out of the grain was a constant struggle. The family kept tame geese to control insects in the cotton fields, and they could be quite aggressive.
Carter helped Jack Clark with milking for many years. He would take three of their herd of 8-12 cows and Clark would milk the rest. They sold cream and flavored milk drinks locally. The family raised chicken and other fowl for eggs, a form of currency, and for eating.
With his friends, Carter gathered local wild fruit, berries, and nuts. The boys also played with homemade hoops, slingshots, and toy guns. For his seventh birthday (October 1st) his father gave him a Shetland pony, which Carter named Lady. He and A.D. rode her around, and Carter got to keep half the amount from the sale of her colts.
The Carters enjoyed movie excursions to Americus. When Carter went with his friend A.D., they had to part on the train and again at the theater to sit in segregated seats. He describes how the boys were “united in friendship though physically divided” and how he doesn’t remember “ever questioning the mandatory racial separation, which we accepted like breathing” (94).
Carter and his father enjoyed learning about the Indigenous Americans who once inhabited western Georgia. Carter knew that his ancestors had displaced them, and he constantly looked for flint points and pottery fragments. He continued to look for arrowheads when he walked with his wife, Rosalynn. The earliest he found dates back more than 12,000 years.
The men and boys of the farm and town were all obsessed with hunting and fishing. He and his father would shoot doves with a group of men, and Carter’s job was to retrieve the birds shot by Earl. Hunting bobwhite quail was the “ultimate” outdoor sport, and the hunters prized good bird dogs.
Every farm family had at least one hound dog and a shotgun. Carter was trained to shoot from age six. He was so excited to bag his first quail that he dropped his shotgun, and Earl had to look for it. Earl did not let his tenants shoot his quail and doves but allowed them to take rabbits and squirrels. Tenants also hunted raccoons and opossums at night. Carter was often invited along because he could climb trees and shake the prey down from them. Carter also owned an excellent squirrel-hunting dog, Bozo. When Bozo was struck by a car, Earl went to the schoolhouse personally to give Carter the news, then helped him bury the dog.
Fishing was second-best to hunting. The land had many flowing springs that merged to form creeks and rivers. Both men and women fished, and Carter had different experiences when he fished with friends, Earl, and Rachel Clark. Earl took him fishing in Southeast Georgia, and he felt closest to his father on these trips. He was honored to be the only child on the trip. He tied their string of fish to a belt loop and one day caught such a large fish that it pulled the belt loop off. When he told Earl, crying, what had happened, his father said “Let them go, Hot. There are a lot more fish in the river,” and Carter “almost worshiped” him (106).
Chapters 3-4 Analysis
The Gap Between Washington and Plains is an important theme in Chapter 3. Carter saw the effects of the Depression firsthand as unemployed men and families streamed past his home in search of work and food. Roosevelt’s New Deal brought the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) of May 1933, but the demand for farmers to plow up as much as half their crops horrified many of the thrifty, hardworking men like Carter’s father. Carter’s anecdote about the mule that is too confused to plow valuable plants captures their feelings.
The AAA was also ripe for misuse. Not only did Black farm families receive less relief money in the racist belief that they could live more cheaply, but unscrupulous landlords could cheat their tenants out of their government pay. Carter criticizes these dishonest men. He presents his father as a contrast to show that not everyone treated their tenants this way, even though Earl loathed Roosevelt’s policies. The intention of these policies in Washington and their misapplication or failure in the South creates a juxtaposition between how citizens far from the center of power did not always benefit from policies in the way the government intended.
In Chapter 4, as Carter describes his life as an active young boy, he is still in the Eden-like years of colorblindness with his best friend, A.D, continuing his thematic exploration of The Devastating Impact of Racial Segregation. Carter repeatedly emphasizes that he, more than anyone else in his family, had extremely close personal relationships with his Black neighbors, such as A.D.’s guardians and the Clarks, and enjoyed spending time in their family homes. Despite these friendships, Carter admits that he failed to challenge the mores of segregation in his relationship with A.D., which once more speaks to how even white citizens with close relationships with their Black neighbors often failed to address the injustice and unequal power dynamic between them.
Carter also invokes The Role of Family in Shaping Personal Identity in his portraits of his parents. Lillian Carter’s giving nature is further developed in Chapter 3, as she feeds the unemployed laborers and provides lemonade to a chain gang. The fact that she left the symbols on her mailbox marking the Carter home as one friendly to people in need speaks volumes about her nurturing character. Similarly, Earl’s words to Carter at the end of Chapter 4, “There are a lot more fish in the river” (106), are a rare reminder that Earl was much more than a hard businessman, with Carter portraying his father as capable of generosity and warmth towards his son from time to time.
Bare feet are again a motif in Chapter 4 to show Carter’s nostalgia for his early childhood. He associates bare feet with freshness, rebirth, and freedom. Significantly, he says he never had to wear shoes to church and school until he was 13. Bare feet also brought a risk of tetanus, and much of Chapter 4 is devoted to the sometimes-life-threatening health hazards that farm life posed. The list of common ailments, especially hookworm, is voluminous, and the disease-bearing pests are ubiquitous. Carter uses a series of dots to set off the episodes in each chapter; rabies and rats get their own episode as he discusses the hazards each posed.
The 10-inch rats in the barn were disease carriers, but rabid dogs were an even bigger fear. Since 1960 there have been fewer than 10 human deaths a year from rabies, both because dogs are so often vaccinated and because post-exposure treatment is highly effective. In Carter’s boyhood, however, the threat of rabies was “even worse than […] the threat of pneumonia or polio” (84). The gruesome details he provides of the way rabid dogs were killed and the 21 shots used to treat rabies victims show how close the farm families lived to possible death.
