All God's Dangers (68 page)

I said, “I aint givin you this money to lay up and save for me. It troubles me how you all are gettin along. I'm givin you this money for the every day.”

She said, “Well, there's one thing, darlin, I want you to do. Don't let the children know that you're givin me money. I don't want em to know it. Them two youngest children in the house, Garvan and Louise, if they knowed you was givin me money, I couldn't keep a nickel.”

I told her, “Well, I aint goin to tell em.”

Now I didn't feel at all like she meant any harm by not lettin the children know it—but there was a hereafter that could arise. I was watchin her health then and the matter struck my mind that she might just set down and die right at once, the way she was complainin. Told me she felt weak and tired most of the time. She'd never been sickly but now she was goin to the doctor a whole lot. But the doctor never did tell her what was wrong with her. Don't know as he knowed what it was until it matured.

The thought come to me like this: if she would happen to drop off and die—now I was livin under the impression that I just didn't know how it would go, but I didn't have much confidence after she started to complain that she would live too long. And if she happened to die or anything serious would happen that she couldn't speak up for me—you mustn't take chances like that. So, at that particular time I studied over the matter. I had care and respect for my wife, doin all I could for her and obeyin her to a point. Thought come to me: ‘Well, you givin her money a little enough to help her. Supposin she was to die and you off over here in prison? You go bustin
home quick as you can and get to tellin these children what you'd been doin—the death of her causes you to explain these things, what you done as a benefit to her, bein your wife and a mother to your children. Some of em might just jump up and tell you, “Well, Papa, we didn't know nothin about it; Mama didn't say you was givin her nothin,” and might consider the thing to be a lie, that you just runnin up sayin that because you stand condemned at the death of her because you never gived her nothin while she lived.' It was revealed to me, one way or the other, I was goin to miss my wife.

You don't know nobody's heart; you just know your own heart and that's all. But the main point was, I wanted my children to know what I was doin. So I come home one Tuesday in the week—how come I come home on a Tuesday? Captain Oliver Cook was goin to Beaufort to pick up some of the warden's furniture that she'd put up there when she come out from her home to the prison department. Miss Phoebe Burnside, the warden I went free from under—she was born and raised up there at a little place between Wetumpka and Clanton on out toward Birmingham on the Birmingham road, called Marbury. But she'd lived last at Beaufort before she taken the job as warden at Wetumpka prison. Truck driver was goin to carry the boss man up there and he was goin to tote her furnitures back to Wetumpka. Boss man come to me and said, “Nate, do you want to go home tomorrow?” He quickly told me what they was goin through there for. Said, “If you want to, you'll get a chance to spend awhile with your people.”

So the next mornin, I got on that state truck and got off at Beanville where the road we was on met the road goin up to my folks; and kept them on a straight route toward Beaufort. And I'd made a nice basket for the boy that run off to Tuskegee, Calvin; he'd come home every once in awhile and let em know how he was. And I made him a nice basket and brought it home that Tuesday mornin when I dropped in unexpected to em. Got there directly after they et breakfast, walked in the yard, stood there a few minutes talkin with my wife and the little children, Louise and Garvan. I asked my wife, “What's become of Eugene?”

She said, “He gone down there to Vernon's.”

Vernon lived right below, in callin distance, him and his wife. He'd rented a place convenient close around his mother. Well, I'd had breakfast before daylight at Wetumpka and I decided I'd just
go down to Vernon's too, spend a little time there. I looked at my wife close—and I walked on down there amongst my boys with all these studies on my mind about her condition. My mind kept tellin me to tell my big boys about the situation and what I was givin their mother. I didn't tell nobody what I thought—but a heap of things that you take in when somethin strikes you, it's not a fact yet, it's only a impression, maybe trouble in it and it's a warnin. And I was well warned of her death. It dwelled in me.

So, Vernon and Eugene was in the back yard at Vernon's place, close by the woodpile when I first seed em. I come through the house and spoke to Vernon's wife and his two little girls. Then I went right on out to where my boys was. I howdyed with em and I said, “Boys, I got a secret to tell you—” I didn't want no mistakes and no lies, I didn't want no disbelievin. Vernon and Eugene was grown at that time. Vernon was good and grown; he come of age in '32, on the thirtieth day of May.

I said, “Boys, now don't worry your mama about this and don't let her know that I told you. What I got to tell you—up until this mornin, I have given your mother a hundred and fifty cash dollars since I been at Wetumpka. And I expect to give her money as long as I'm in prison—” Vernon didn't say a word from the beginnin to the last, he just stood there listenin. I said, “Up until this mornin I have given her a hundred and fifty cash dollars right out of my pocket above buyin things over there at Wetumpka and totin em home to her. And I want you all to know it, you all are grown boys. But Garvan and Louise, they are underage chaps and they might not let your mother keep a nickel of it if they knew. Now I don't want you to confuse her bout how she spends her money or where she gets it. And don't scold her for throwin money away—she aint. That's money I gived her to help you all along if necessary and help herself.”

Eugene spoke. He said, “Papa, I been thinkin somethin; now I know it. I been wonderin—sometimes Mama gets in a tight for money and she asks me or Vernon, whichever she wants, she asks us if we got any. And we say, ‘We'll let you have it any time.' And we watch—I have, I have watched definitely and when the time comes that she promised to pay this money back to us, we know for certain the money she gives us aint the money we let her have. And in that, I got to watchin and wantin to learn how did she get any
money to pay back what she got from us. I wondered how that was, and she aint able to work and don't work to get it.”

I said, “Yes, son, that's where she's gettin her money—” outside of what the organization was sendin her. I said, “I know you two boys won't try and get it from her just because you know I'm givin it to her and you know she's got it.”

Vernon aint parted his lips; he aint parted his lips.

I got my word in then and I was satisfied. I went back to Beanville that evenin to meet the state truck. Boss man told me to meet him there about four o'clock—I aint seed that prison truck this mornin. I didn't know what the trouble was; I just went on back home. I told Eugene, “Well, I don't know what's the matter with that truck I come here on. My time is out. I went over to Beanville and waited before the hour come and until a long time after, and I aint seed em. Son, there's been a change in plans. I want you to carry me back—”

He took me on the car and carried me to Wetumpka safe and sound and I got off. Night come, I went to sleep. Next mornin, I went out and found the boss man at home, Captain Oliver Cook. He said, “I'll tell you Nate, we had some trouble with the truck and got belated. And when we got back, we heard that you done been here and reported in. I'm happy for your sake that you done that, Nate, I'm happy for you.”

Mr. Cook went for a Christian-hearted man. He
had
to be happy for me.

I said, “Well, sir, my sentence is nearly up, twelve long years, and I'll be goin home a free man, thoroughly free. That's the day I'm lookin to. Yesterday don't count with me; today don't count, in a way of speakin. So, yes sir, I come back here when I was supposed to regardless to what avoided you from gettin back. I depends on myself to act just suchaway.”

F
RANCIS
left for Philadelphia just before I got out of prison. That was the first boy I had to leave this southern country, and it didn't surprise me that his mind were so inclined. He always was a curious child—he weren't meddlesome, he just would stay at a thing until he learnt all there was to it and he weren't afraid about what he didn't know.

He come to see me one Sunday and he brought his mother with him. He told me, “Papa, I thought I'd come to see you here in prison before I left this country. I'm leavin in a few days, though when I'm gone I'm comin back along. Maybe at that time you'd have done served all your time and I'll find you livin back home with Mama.”

And he offered me some money. I told him, “There aint no use in you givin me no money, son. I appreciate it, I appreciate your offer. But you goin to the northern states and I feel your sympathy as a father. Someway I'll stay in touch with you. You leavin your mother well, and I'll hear from you if you live. And I hope you'll get along good in your travels. There aint no use for you to give me no money. I'm makin a little money nearly every day I stay here in prison.”

My wife said this: she set there and looked at Francis and looked at me, said, “Darlin, why don't you take the money? He wants you to have it—it'll make him feel better about leavin.”

I didn't want to take it. He were fixin to travel and I told him, “Son, I don't want your money. And I don't mean to show you disrespect by not takin it. But your money don't tickle me. You been a good son to your daddy and a good son to your mother; that's all that washes with me. Take your money and spend it on your travels; that will suit me better than to give it to me.”

Told me, “Papa, I'm leavin—” Him and his wife had separated—married while I was in the penitentiary, separated while I was in the penitentiary. Had five children when they separated; him and his wife stayed together until they had two girls and three boys, and the oldest boy is named after me, Nate Shaw. He's in the north and all of his brothers is in the north, and one of the girls stays in Atlanta.

Francis had got his wife in a family way before he married her, then he didn't want her—and if he done it, he aint the only one ever done it. My wife told me, she come to prison one Sunday, said, “Francis is married. This girl he married, her mother insisted on him to marry her.”

I knowed the girl's parents—Junius Gresham, Cora Gresham. Junius was quiet, he didn't have much to say, he weren't a fussy man. And this boy of mine, my wife told me, this gal he was goin to see of Gresham's was goin to be confined and it was Francis's baby. And the old lady begin to chew the bit about it. Francis
looked like he was sort of flackin off from the girl. And my wife tellin him all the time, “Go ahead and marry Amelia, go ahead and marry Amelia.” Went on and married her. But he had it in him someway that he didn't want Amelia, he wanted a girl by the name of Irene. And that's the girl he got now—went on and married again. Been married twice—Amelia, that's his first wife, stayed with her long enough to have five children. Then they separated and he married again. He kept fishin back here until he got this other woman that he was goin with before he married Amelia. She jumped up to Philadelphia one year—it weren't long after he left here, neither—and he married her.

Once, when I was comin home from prison on weekend parole, I caught the bus in Wetumpka, as usual, and I noticed, on the route home, the bus stopped over there at Two Forks and picked up Amelia. We howdyed and shook hands and she “Papa Nate this” and “Papa Nate that” and “Papa Nate the other”—and they was separated then. And from that day till this, Amelia aint told me how come Francis and her parted, and Francis aint told me.

O
NE
year I come home on Christmas parole, fully intendin to go into the church, be baptized. I'd become in the knowledge of Jesus in Beaufort jail—God spoke to my dyin soul and been standin there ever since, standin right there in that gap ever since. God spoke to me and
redeemed
my soul—surely that helped me through prison.

The Bible tells you, you got to take on the full arm of faith—that's the reason for baptizin. So I gived myself in to the church, Pottstown Baptist Church, where my wife and what children was home at that time belonged. And the preacher accepted me. When I got there that day, some of the head ones, deacons, already knowed that I wanted to join—my wife had told em what I was comin home especially for. Got ready to testify and the preacher come down amongst the congregation and talked with me. Everything seemed plumb agreeable and satisfactory.

I stood up before em and gived em my testimony, told em all about what taken place with me and how it taken place. And I told it with a earnest heart: “I was prosperin along in this world very well. But I was just like a hog goin from one tree to another, eatin the acorns off the ground and never lookin up to see where
was they fallin from. Then I fell”—they knowed all that
about
me but they didn't know what it
meant
to me—“and I hit the bottom in Beaufort jail. That's where Jesus answered my lonely calls and parted me from my sins. The Bible says you must lay off your mortal ways and put on immortality—accept of God in your soul and live it. I won't tell a lie on God—He freed me from my sins. He put the finishin touch on me. I am a true born child by the blood of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I aint goin to let you catch me drinkin; I aint goin to let you catch me gamblin; I aint goin to let you catch me walkin the road and tellin lies, runnin after women worse than a hog'll run at a pot of slops. O, you can enjoy yourself; it's not a wrong thing to do, but carry it on in a decent way. If you are a man, God put you here to love woman. Your mother was a woman, my mother was a woman—and He put woman here to love man; He did. He put you here, He put man and woman here on this earth to create and enjoy one another. If God hadn't intended that He wouldn't a put us here so close together. But He didn't put you here to run after every woman you see, or woman, after every man. Let us act like a nation of people should act.”