When asked how he took up the banjo, Charlie liked to tell this story.
On Wednesdays the company man came for the rent: fifteen cents a room, sixty cents a house, not counting the privy, which was easy not to count because it was shared by four houses.
At each house, the company man made a big show of counting out loud the quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies, mostly pennies, before dropping them in his bag, checking off the name in his ledger and moving on down the street. He said this was to keep anyone from claiming cheat later, but it had other uses as well. First thing in the morning the company man moved silently, and his loud knock startled people, even those who had been expecting him, dreading him. Toward dinnertime, however, you could hear him jingling three houses away, and he
