All God's Dangers (47 page)

So, he got shed of that place—and that was the end of his marriage. He woulda stayed with that woman if she woulda stuck with him, but she weren't a woman of that type. She was more than he could handle. But before him and her married
he
was ill to all of his wives, far as I knowed. He was ill to my mother, he was ill to TJ's mother—that's all I ever stayed under my daddy, durin the time he was married to my mother and my stepmother. He was ill to em. And he weren't ill to em neither bout talk; I've seen him beat my mother up scandalous when I was little. It didn't take nothin to start him—God have got all sorts of people in this world, don't you know; think over it. He got low-down ones, he got people here that won't treat theirselves right much less you. The only man or woman that's blessed in this world—the Bible says, best that I can understand it, “Suffer little children to come unto Him because they are such as the kingdom of heaven.” Devil don't work out in children—God's good to all from the start—but they follows the route their parents walk and they lost, a heap of em.

My daddy had a mean temper in him and all like that, quick, but he never would fight nobody that I knowed of, he wouldn't fight em. Of course, his wives who he could run over, he roughed em up. But his last wife didn't give him a chance. Bonnie Tubbs went on about her business when she found out who he was—and she was the devil herself, too, before he married her. We children and everybody that knowed him and had any sympathy for my daddy, didn't want him to marry that woman. But he went on and married her. He ought to have considered: if you marry in this world, what do you marry for? Do you marry to better your condition or do you marry to turn out to be a slum? And always into it and can't agree with your wife and your wife can't agree with you. God don't want that: He wants peace and pleasure on this earth. We ought to consider when we marry what we marry for. Not just marry a woman to linger between her legs—there's more to a married life than that, there's more profitable things to it than that. Now I loved women; when I was young I loved em for more than to just linger between their legs—and I knowed when I got old enough and took a notion to marry and wanted to marry, I considered that my marriage weren't goin to be what most folks cracked it up to be, mine was goin to be a lifetime journey.

But they don't do that today, and they didn't do it yesterday. I could call several marriages right through this country here: the man just took his old hat and walked out, or the woman, she didn't waste no time sayin goodbye. No more left to them marriages. Well, what do I want to mess myself up thataway for? A man can't prosper here by hisself; he can't get ahead less'n he stays around and holds on to what he has. I want a woman that wants to stay with me until I die or I'll stay with her until she dies—let death part us.

When my daddy died he died without a wife. I visited him, I hauled him to the doctors, and the evenin he died—he died just a little before first dark—where was I at? Sittin down in a chair and me only, right by his head. He was lyin there on the bed and I was sittin there with a peach tree brush, keepin the flies off of him when he died.

I got the word one evenin—he was livin out there in Apafalya on the back streets and his two little grandsons was livin in the house with him, Sadie's boys: when she died I taken the oldest one, Davey, and my daddy taken the two youngest ones. And also, one of his daughters was livin in the house, child he had by TJ's mother, one of TJ's sisters, Amy; her name was Amy. And Amy had one or two children at that time herself. Well, that whole crowd stayed in the house with my daddy out yonder on the back streets.

One evenin I was down on the back of the Pollard place with one of my boys—the older boys was sawin logs down on the river. And this boy, I kept him at home that year on the farm with me; he was big enough to plow good. So we was down on the little old backside of the plantation one day and I said, “Frank”—Francis, he lives in Philadelphia today—“Frank, we better try to save a little of that fodder down on the creek.”

Well, he was right with me. We got down there and we went to pullin fodder. And first thing I knowed, I looked back up through the corn patch down close to the little creek and here come Tommy, my sister's boy, the biggest boy that was out at Apafalya livin with my daddy. I thought mighty quick somethin must be wrong. Tommy come on up to me; he said, “Uncle Nate, Papa—” he called his granddaddy “Papa,” since he took them two little boys—“Papa is sick, somethin the matter with him. Amy cooked some greens yesterday for him and he et some of them greens and some of em he never did swallow good. They in his mouth now and he's layin
there on the bed and some of them greens is comin out of his mouth. He won't speak, he can't say nothin, look like. He's low sick. I come, Uncle, to let you know.”

I just laid everything aside and went on back to the house. Didn't change my clothes—I was in a hurry. Cranked up that Ford car and hit the road right to Apafalya. I parked my car in my daddy's yard, got out, and went in the house. I looked at him. He was in the shape Tommy said he was. I looked at him and I called him several times. And if he answered, that little old Ford car answered. Just layin there catchin his breath. Well, the flies was mighty bad but I wouldn't move, I was goin to stick right there with him. And every once in a while I called him; never did answer me. Flies was bad after him, his head and mouth. I walked out the house and there was a peach tree settin out there. I just cut me off a peach tree branch bout long as my arm. Went back in and took my seat right by his head, watchin him, brushin them flies off him. He was just layin there breathin, very slow. Every once in a while I'd say, “Papa, Papa.” Long as I called him, several times, if he answered that peach tree branch answered. And I watched him close: he got weaker and weaker, he was just absolutely dyin, that's all. I stayed there until the last, set right there and kept the flies off him until the last breath went out of his body. I felt him and I seed he was gone. I tried my best to get him to answer me and there was nothin I could do.

The last time he was at my house, he come there on a Sunday evenin. I sent one of my boys at him on that Ford car. He come into my house and set around there—I had very bad feelins at the time, I begin to feel that he was weak. He et a little bite of breakfast, next mornin, that Monday mornin, but he didn't eat much. And his oldest daughter by TJ's mother, TJ's sister, Lorna, she lived right up the road at that time. Ralph Courteney and her stayed up there on Mr. Mosley's place. So, my daddy got up from the table that Monday mornin and said, “Son, I wants to go to Lorna.”

I said, “Well, Papa, I'll take you or I'll send you by Calvin.”

So he got ready that mornin after mornin things was off and he et breakfast. He got his stuff ready—and he come out of the room, one of the bedrooms where the fireplace was, and come on through and come on into the dinin room and walked by me and stopped and talked with me a minute or two—and it was shown to me that mornin that was close time for him, my old daddy, and
he might have felt it too. Calvin had the car out and was ready to carry him to Ralph's and Lorna's. And he walked out there very stooped that mornin, walkin slow. I walked on out the door with him. And the last words he told me in this world—he looked at me. said, “Son, pray! Pray! Pray, boy, pray!”

I told him, “Papa, I will. I will.”

I didn't go for a Christian man at that time with my Savior; I was just a sinner man. I'd been pretendin to pray for a long time but pretendin don't convince God. You got to give God this heart of yours and talk to Him in earnest. Well, I taken quite exception to what my daddy said, and I thought, ‘What could he mean?' The Lord was a stranger to him as far as I knowed, but of course, he weren't no stranger to the Lord. He went on out, I went on out the door with him, pokin along. Got on the car and Calvin brought him right over to his daughter's and put him off there and come back. That was on Monday. And blessed God, Wednesday evenin I got the message—he was in bad shape—and I rushed there.

Had his funeral at Elam Church. We got his body in the church and the preacher got up there explainin all about the death of him. And the preacher told all my daddy's children that was there to straighten up and not live a sinner life—my wife jumped up. I was a sinner man, I was her husband; she jumped up and clapped her hands and said, “Lord, you got so many here that aint of Christ. O, you got so many.”

That hit me like hotcakes because I knowed I was amongst the many and I was her husband. It hurt me, but it hurt her more than it hurt me.

Now I didn't have a mother or father livin in the whole world. I was on my own, lookin out for myself. I'd been lookin out for myself for a long time, too. I learnt that under my daddy's administration, had to. And when they buried him I was thinkin bout myself and how I come up under him and what times we children had had in his house.

T
HE
night my daddy died, I stayed there the balance of the night, studyin and plannin on how to take a hold, run around and see about all of his connections. I got back home that mornin and first thing I done when I drove in the yard, I stretched my eyes toward the barn and I seed my boys down there with a yearlin
hangin up. My wife walked out and told me— We was milkin a couple of cows and I had a Guernsey cow there that strictly belonged to my wife. I bought that cow from a colored fellow by the name of Warren Todd. She was a good cow, Guernsey cow, I give Warren Todd fifty dollars for that cow—my wife gived me the money and I bought the cow, it was her cow then. I had other cows there but she wanted a good milk type to furnish milk and butter. I just figured it was mine to take care of and use but if ever the cow was sold or anything happened to it, it was her cow. She was a large cow, a heavy milker. Vernon went with me over to Warren Todd the mornin I bought that cow; lived out there between me and Apafalya on what they called the Joe Grimes place.

So, when my daddy died, I rushed back home from Apafalya that mornin and when I drove in there around the back yard to the car shed, two-car shed—had two cars at that time—my wife come outdoors and I said to her when she got to where I could see her, “What's the matter at the lot?”

She said, “Darlin, Fanny killed my heifer this mornin—” that was the cow, Fanny; she said, “The boys milked this mornin and they turned Fanny out knowin that she was ill, and my heifer—” She had a nice heifer there, it weren't Fanny's calf, neither; it was a heifer from another one of my cows. So, my wife told me there in the yard that mornin: Fanny was ill. She walked out of the lot and this heifer was standin out a piece beside the fence. Soon as Fanny walked out there—she had short horns, a short-horned cow—she walked right up to that heifer and all at once before the heifer thought, Fanny lunged into her side and busted a hole right behind that heifer's leg, right front leg; when she horned that heifer she busted the hide and went through. One of the boys had just turned Fanny out and he was standin there lookin at it. He went and runned her away. But this heifer stood there and trembled and walked off and fell. My wife told me all about it quick as she could tell me. The boys had to kill that heifer. They seed she couldn't make it after Fanny done hooked her in there somewhere close to the heart. They got around her after they seed they had to kill her—that heifer happened to be fat and pretty, and when I got there they had that heifer hangin up, done near bout got her skinned. I went on down to the lot and helped em finish the job. Then I took my saw and sawed her down, then I sawed her half in two. Well, I treated that meat and hung it up, sold a little of it
but kept the biggest part of three quarters, both front quarters and one of the hind quarters. Other hind quarter, I prepared a place in the back of my car and quick as I could I took off back to Apafalya with one of them hind pieces in there, carried it to Mr. Ed Pike. He jumped on it and bought the whole hind quarter; weighed it and gived me from fifteen to twenty cents a pound for it. That was the steak part—I figured I could sell the hind quarter better than I could any part of the front. I didn't need all that beef for my private use. And what I reserved for myself I had to cure the biggest part of it: hung it up, salted it, put a small fire underneath that meat and my wife put pepper in the fire—flies couldn't stand it. That beef lasted—there was twelve of us in the family at that period of time: nine children of our own plus my sister's child made ten, me and my wife made twelve.

I stayed on the Pollard place as long as I did—I had a pretty good old house there, best house that ever I lived in. And what held me there was this and only this: I had plenty of good stock and makin a good livin by rentin other folks' land, smooth land, clear enough of rocks so you could work it good. I went out in the piney woods and worked some on Miss Cordy Vail's place, and some on Mr. Thurman Groves' place—made good crops every year, regardless to the price they was bringin, and that weren't much. And by lingerin along and not havin no serious trouble noway, and havin plenty of good land to work by rentin other places, I was doin as well as any poor colored man could do in this country.

I considered many a scheme to profit my farmin in the limits of what a farmer could do. Hit or miss, it gived me great pleasure to try out myself.

I started off raisin hogs—had a hog pasture down in the swamp west of the barn. I had raised hogs down there on the Bannister place, didn't have but one sow. And when I moved to the Stark place at Two Forks, I cut down on my hogs, broke up my hog raisin. But when I moved back toward where I'd come from, to the Pollard place, I opened up then raisin more hogs than ever I had before. I didn't haul no hogs over the country for sale or allow people from all over the country to come to my house and buy em. I didn't supply the settlement with hogs. I raised em for meat purposes in particular and just sold a few along.