All God's Dangers (7 page)

All right. Soon as our school closed down cotton would be ready to chop. We little colored children had to jump in the white man's field and work for what we could get, go choppin cotton, go to hoein; white folks' schools runnin right on and the white man's children goin to school while we workin in his field.

My daddy, when he had the opportunity, never did send me to school long enough to learn to read. If he sent his children he'd have to supplement the teacher's salary. But if he don't send his children, it don't cost him nothin and there's nothin said. But it wasn't entirely my daddy's fault that I didn't get a education and I don't believe either that the government was the cause of it. The money was just squandered and gone the other way. “Send the colored children to school till we say quit and when we say quit”—whoever it was sayin it in Beaufort—“quit!” Into the white man's field we'd have to go. None of my brothers and sisters, not one by name, got a good book learnin. And all I can do, I can put down on paper some little old figures but I can't add em up.

As a whole, if children got book learnin enough they'd jump off of this country; they don't want to plow, don't want no part of no sort of field work. That's the way it runs here. The biggest majority runs off to some place where they can get a public job.

I reckon my daddy was scared I'd leave him, so he held me down. Of course, I don't blame no man for not wantin his children to get away from around him but—there was a preacher used to come out of Tuskegee down there. His name, his initials was BB, BB Fletcher. He used to travel through right by our home when I was a boy. And he'd stop and visit with us on his way to Somerset, Alabama, to a colored church up there, they called New Mornin Church. He was the pastor of that church. One day he told my daddy, “Brother Shaw, give me that boy”—that was me—“give me that boy. I see somethin in him.” I was standin there listenin. “Brother Shaw, give me that boy.”

He wanted my daddy to give me up, let me get off to where I could get a better chance and have better treatment. Probably I would have let one of mine go off since I've looked through that thing as I have. Preacher Fletcher told my daddy, “Brother Shaw, let me have him, I see somethin in him. If you let me have him I'll let him learn any kind of trade he wants to learn, if you'll just give him to me.”

There's a old word I used to hear my daddy speak: “That man just as well to been singin songs to a dead hog.” Wasn't a way in the world that preacher could get me out of there. My daddy was dependin on me, education or no education, to work. Called me many a time, “Nate.”

I'd say, “Sir?”

“Do so-and-so-and-so, do so-and-so-and-so.”

That's what he wanted me for. He didn't know nothin but to work me. The way he acted showed he had a poor attitude to a education. And my dear mother, she died before I was nine years old; she didn't have no say. And my stepmother, she never did talk against my daddy and he asked her nothin about it. My daddy, what he took a notion to do, I had to fall in there and they had to fall in and do what he said do. And he never did look out for nothin that was good for the future; couldn't see ahead. The man just wasn't able that way.

M
Y
daddy was a free man but in his acts he was a slave. Didn't look ahead to profit hisself in nothin that he done. Is it or not a old slave act? Anything a man do in a slum way and don't care way,
I just lap it right back on slavery time days. It's that old back yonder “ism.” Slavery just taught the colored man to take what come and live for today. And the colored man held his children back as he held hisself.

And I have heard my daddy describe how the colored people hurt themselves. I've heard my daddy say
hisself
—he seed the time he could have bought land around here in the piney woods for fifty cents a acre. For fifty cents a acre! And some few ones here and yonder about got em places, too. But my daddy didn't get nothin. The colored man lost—he dropped his candy right there. My daddy used to tell me when he was a young man he traveled all about the country after surrender; never did put hisself on a farm and settle down and go to work. Travelin around when he was a young man, before he married, through different parts of the southern states, makin good money. He'd come home—I heard him tell it and I heard my grandmother, his mother, tell it—come in many a time, walk in home to his mother—didn't have no daddy then—and turn first one pocket to her then another and just rake out money in her lap. Made it public workin, diggin ditches all around, clearin woods and swamps, every whichaway. Just rake out money from one pocket then the other into his mother's lap. Well, then he ought to been buyin some land when he could have got some cheap. But he was blindfolded; didn't look to the future. Just throwin his money in a dead hog's ass and takin shit. No forethought about it. He had got them old slavery thoughts in him, couldn't learn nothin from his experience. He had money but—whenever the colored man prospered too fast in this country under the old rulins, they worked every figure to cut you down, cut your britches off you. So, it might have been to his way of thinkin that it weren't no use in climbin too fast; weren't no use in climbin slow, neither, if they was goin to take everything you worked for when you got too high.

True, I seed my daddy cleaned up twice; everything he had they took away from him. Lloyd Albee done it once and after he took all my daddy had and put him in jail for selling mortgaged property, my daddy had to go up with Mr. Jasper Clay and lose a year's work. He moved right back down here after that and Mr. Clem Todd, the man whose place he was livin on before he traded with Mr. Albee, he took my daddy up and helped him to make another
crop. And then my daddy decided he'd go to dealin with Mr. Akers in Apafalya, and that's twice he was cleaned up.

First time the white man stripped my daddy we was livin on Mr. Clem Todd's place and Mr. Lloyd Albee from Newcastle was furnishin him. And it was about ten or eleven miles my daddy had to travel to Mr. Albee to get what the man was furnishin. And my daddy had—when my mother died he had five or six head of cattle and he kept them cattle but Mr. Albee had a mortgage on all of em. Well, Mr. Albee wanted my daddy to move on his place. And in that, he was already controllin my daddy, had a mortgage on everything he had. Told my daddy—and I'll tell you what a trick that was; I was big enough to understand it thoroughly.

Old white gentleman by the name of Walker, lived way back down in the country, he come to my daddy and he wanted to buy one of them cows. My daddy went to Mr. Albee a few days later and asked Mr. Albee's release about sellin the cow before he sold it, knowin that Mr. Albee had a mortgage on em. He wanted to know could he sell a certain cow to Mr. Walker. Well, Mr. Albee give him a release to sell it. And when my daddy sold that cow, he carried the money to Mr. Albee and give it to him, as the man had a mortgage on the cow. Mr. Albee took the money and then turned around and sued my daddy for sellin mortgaged property. You see, here's the proposition—I understand a heap of things today more clear than I did in them days—if my daddy'd had the release in writin maybe he couldn't have been messed up that way. But he only had Mr. Albee's word, trustin him on it, and the man done him in.

So Mr. Albee jumped up and ordered my daddy to move over there close to Chapel Ridge on one of his places. My daddy told him—he was a pretty game old man still—he weren't goin to move over there, just weren't goin to do it, noway. Mr. Albee jumped up and sued my daddy then for sellin mortgaged property and put him in Beaufort jail. Well, he gived my daddy a release on that cow, told my daddy he could sell it and considered it done; he ought to have been honest enough to mark the cow's name off the book—he even had the names of the cows wrote on the mortgage. But he put my daddy in jail for sellin mortgaged property. Well, they smuggled the thing around and Mr. Jasper Clay, blood kin man to the Clays we lived close together with—these Clays over
by us wanted my daddy to let Mr. Jasper Clay—he lived way up there at Gem Stone—get him out of jail. Well, my daddy agreed, not knowin definitely what he was agreein to. Mr. Jasper Clay went to Beaufort with a mind to buy my daddy out of jail. And when he got him out, he moved my daddy to Gem Stone then and put him to work on his place.

And Mr. Jasper Clay, it was known, had killed old man Henry Kirkland, the year before my daddy moved up there—shot the old man dead. He got on his horse one day and went over to where old man Henry Kirkland was livin, on one of his places, way up yonder in Crane's Ford beat. Old man Henry Kirkland had three boys and one daughter livin there with him and his wife. And this youngest boy of his had a pretty good book learnin—his name was Emmet—and he was keepin books, an account of everything his daddy got from Mr. Clay. Well, when it come time to settle, crops been gathered and come time to settle, Mr. Clay got on his horse and went over there. He had several mules and a saddle horse, he got on that horse and went over there to old man Henry Kirkland and got to talkin bout what he owed him and so on,
tellin
him what he owed him. Well, the old man knowed that his son had a statement too. But they didn't never go by nothin like that, nothin but what the white man might say accordin to his figures. No nigger would show anythin against em neither. But old man Henry Kirkland called Emmet's attention and told the boy to go in the house and get his figures and bring em out there to Mr. Clay. O, Mr. Clay didn't like that one bit. He flew in a passion—he toted his pistol all the time—he flew in a passion over that book business and throwed that pistol on old Uncle Henry and deadened him right there.

So, when he killed the old man on the spot, then he throwed his gun right on Emmet and shot Emmet through the lung someway, but Emmet got over it. That was old man Henry's baby boy—he married one of the Courteney girls after that, left here and went north with her. All them Kirkland boys left this country—and some of Henry's boys said when Mr. Clay shot their daddy, his horse reared up and almost threw him.

Well, they put Mr. Clay in jail but he didn't stay there very long. There was a company in Opelika that furnished Mr. Clay—he was a big man, big farmer—they furnished everything he needed
for his hands and they had a mortgage on everything
he
had. Mr. Clay was a regular farmin man and they was holdin books against him for what he owed em—Davis and Podell, in Opelika. And when they put Mr. Clay in jail, here come Davis and Podell and got him out.

He lingered along, lingered along, and when my daddy got into it with Mr. Albee, Mr. Clay needed hands down at his place, so he went to Beaufort and bought my daddy out. But I have heard several of em say that it didn't cost Mr. Clay a penny; he just got him out. They runs a friendship business amongst the white race here. When he called on the jail and got my daddy out, then my daddy had to move up there on his place as a cropper, workin on halves. And when my daddy got up there he couldn't do nothin but what the man who so-called paid to get him out of jail said do.

Mr. Clay put my daddy to plowin with a squad of plow hands. He had one hand up there, colored, on his place and my daddy made the second colored fellow. George Porter and his mother and sisters—didn't one of them women have a man in that crowd—George Porter was old lady Nancy Porter's son, and they was workin there with Mr. Clay, old lady Nancy Porter's son and her daughters and also old lady Nancy herself was able to work. Put em all to work. And Mr. Clay's own boys was plowin on the premises. This crop over here went for my daddy's and over yonder was George Porter's and over yonder still was Mr. Clay's that was worked by his boys; but everybody floated through and through the field and kept up one big crop.

Mr. Clay was known—my daddy was scared, too—he was known to take it all, the whole crop. My daddy caught on to what was goin to happen. Mr. Clay didn't feed us on nothin but sorghum syrup and corn meal. I was big enough to work then, I was about fourteen years old and I made a hand choppin and hoein cotton. My daddy plowed, George Porter plowed, and Mr. Clay's two boys plowed, Floyd Clay and Matthew Clay. Mr. Clay had white and colored plowin together and he got it all. My daddy was sharp enough to catch on; he knowed he weren't goin to get nothin for his labor, just somethin to keep us alive while he was workin for nothin.

So my daddy looked for a way to get away from there. He knowed Mr. Clay done killed old man Henry Kirkland and shot old man Henry's youngest son. My daddy weren't lookin for that kind
of trouble so he waited and he studied his points. He really was scared to ask the white man for anything, he plumb dreaded him. Mr. Clay would come to the field a many a time, sit down on a terrace and talk about killin old man Henry Kirkland—that worried Mr. Clay, seemed to eat away at his mind.

We moved up there in winter, started to work and worked until the crop was laid by. Then my daddy made Mr. Clay a offer. It was the best thing he could do because he weren't goin to get none of that crop nohow. My daddy was a basketmaker just like I am; he learnt me the trade, whipped me up about it too. So, he got on the good side of Mr. Clay and told him how many baskets he'd make for him to gather that crop—picked cotton in baskets in them days—how many baskets he'd make for him to get away from there if he could. In fact of the business, make him all the baskets he wanted if he'd just discharge him and let him move back down to where he come off of Mr. Todd's place. Mr. Clay accepted the offer. My daddy moved on out before the crop was gathered and he got down to where he wanted to be and he made so many baskets it was trouble to count em. And he carried em from down there on Sitimachas Creek up to Mr. Clay. Mr. Clay took em all but my daddy got away from there then.

So Mr. Clay got all my daddy's work that year for nothin and got the baskets too he needed to gather his crop. My daddy didn't get enough out of that crop to wrap his fingers around. But he got away from Mr. Clay and saved himself for the years to come by makin baskets for the man to gather his crop—the crop that my daddy helped to make but didn't get a bit of it.