live down in the pit

Until Charlotte was six, they had lived belowground in what was now the foundation. Charlotte had thought nothing of it at the time, since they were far from being the only ones. A lot of families started out that way if they wanted their own place. Folks would buy themselves a little scrap of earth, maybe no more than one-fifth of an acre, dig a foundation, put a tar-paper roof over it, stick the pipe from the potbellied stove-used for heating as well as cooking-up through the tar-paper roof, and live down in the pit until they could scrape together enough money to build aboveground. - I am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe, page 21

это примерно в 1980-м году, North Carolina

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