All God's Dangers (70 page)

I said, “Why, sure she would, son. If that big mule of your'n gets gone, that'd stop my two-horse wagon. I'll keep that mule here if you want me to keep her and I'll have somethin to hitch with that big mare, and haul when I want to haul.”

He said, “Well, you can keep her then. I know you'll take care of her.”

And he quit. He stayed right on in the house with me and his mother but he didn't have no part of no crop and he hardly never looked to the field.

I took that big mule and worked her, 1948. And I hired a boy to help me, named Jules Gresham. Well, Jules—I offered to hire him and he hired hisself to me. Through work time he stayed there in the house with us, but he didn't give satisfaction.

Well, before he come to take a hold of the job, Garvan had a bicycle there and Jules wanted it. And Garvan wanted nine dollars
for the bicycle and Jules wanted me to pay Garvan for it. I went ahead and paid Garvan and Jules got the bicycle and carried it right on home. He was livin at his grandma's, old lady Nancy Gresham.

I kept right up with the boy; I told him, “Now Jules, I done bought that bicycle for you. Don't get too deep before your time comes to start work—” We agreed that I was goin to give him thirty-five dollars a month. Well, the little rascal fooled around and he weren't no account. I repented the day I hired him. And when he come to go to work, he had done got a little more from me on his first month's pay. I had to stick right by him and talk to him; told him, “If I give you any more, you'd be done took up a month's labor here and aint started to work.”

I put him to plowin Garvan's mule and I plowed the big gray mare that my wife had turned over to me—Lord, I talk and study, that was quite a difference to what I was before I went to the penitentiary. I had mules and anything else I wanted, all in the name of mine. They used them stock and used em till they used em clean out, and as dandy a pair of farm mules as there was in the whole country. Good mules—but I had to come down from that. Still, I worked in a way to hold a level head and had trouble doin it—

So, he sidled around there and he tried out that mule and the mule cooperated, and just as pretty and fat—I kept that mule in good shape. But sometimes I'd see Jules actin ill with the mule. I'd say, “Jules, don't hurry that mule. If you just follow, she'll do a day's work, you'd be done a day's work if you follow.”

Well, plowin cotton, I checked Jules' plowin. And one day, I was plowin right with him and I seed he was frettin that mule and she was yelpin and the plow jumped out of the ground and he just slid that plow on top, makin a scratch to the end of the row. Weren't no plowin in that, that plow just plowin the air. I got at him about it and he never would give me back words because he knowed he was wrong. I told him, “I don't want you to hurry, just want you to plow by the mule's time. She knows; give her a chance. She'll plow enough. All you got to do is follow.”

So one day, we was plowin in the field together again. Left the end of our rows at the same time, goin to the far end. And that was a long way distant. And there was goin to be one more row to plow when we got back to the startin place. I turned around at the end of my row and started back. Jules weren't keepin up with me. I knowed that mule he was plowin would walk as fast as that mare.
So I stopped the mare and looked back to see what the mule was doin and what the reason was he wasn't keepin up with me. And Jules had done stopped that mule and he standin up between the plow handles. I just stood there and looked at him, stood there and looked at him. After awhile, I seed him peep around that mule to see what I was doin. He just standin there to give me time to catch that extra row when I got to the end. I said, “Jules, drive that mule on to the end, plow on to the end. I know what you stopped and watchin for. You want me to turn back on that row, last row, and plow while you stand up. Plow that mule on till you get to the end!”

He come on to the end then; looked like a sheep killin dog, head down. I said, “Jules, what sort of way you tryin to do me? You standin up peepin at me to get to the end way ahead of you so I'd plow the last row. Well, I'm goin to plow the last row, I'm goin to plow it. You carry that mule and plow to the barn; take that mule out, put her in the lot, and get your hoe and go to hoein the potato patch.”

I turned and went on and plowed the last row and when I got to the end he had finished his row and gone. I just drove right straight through to the house. And Jules hadn't got in the tater patch; made out like he'd forgot what I told him. I said, “Jules, you just shoddin off now. I don't know what I'm goin to do with you; I know what it looks like I'm goin to have to do.”

I got me a hoe and went on to the tater patch, went to hoein potatoes. Next plowin we had to do was gettin up right in the week commencement come off at Tuskegee. Jules didn't say a word to me bout wantin to go to commencement till we brought the stock out and put em in the lot. He told me that mornin, “Mr. Nate, I never told you nothin bout I goes to commencement every year.”

I didn't want to sit down on the boy; I didn't want to dog him.

He said, “I want some money, please. I hadn't said nothin to you before; I'd just forgot to and let it go.”

I said, “Well, Jules, you oughta told me about all that and you wantin to be off. Now we need to be in the field regular every day.” The boy looked pity-mouthed at the ground. I said, “But you can go ahead to commencement.”

He said, “I want some money, too.”

I looked at him, said, “How much money you want? You done got way above your wages already.”

“I want eight dollars.”

I said, “Good God, Jules, that's too much money for you to fool and frolic out in a day's time down there. You shoulda told me about it before now and maybe it'd been better on you. But like I'm runnin it with you, you just gettin in debt.”

He dropped his head again. I just runned my hand in my pocket—Mr. Van Kirkland was furnishin me money and it weren't takin all he was givin me just for groceries; when I dropped back home I commenced a raisin my meat and lard again, and vegetables. Didn't have to live out of a store like I do now—I runned my hand in my pocket and I gived him eight dollars. I said, “Jules”—the grass was gettin rampant in the field—“Now I'm lookin for you in the mornin. You aint got to break your neck and get here before sunup or nothin, but I'm lookin for you to be here and eat your breakfast at field time.”

“Yes, Mr. Nate, I'll be here, I'll be here.”

Well, the next day dinner, twelve o'clock come, Jules aint showed up. Me and Rosa Louise, my baby daughter, was in the field choppin cotton and we took out of the field and went to the house, et dinner, and just as quick as I could get back in the field, I was back. I excused myself and went on out to the field and went to work; didn't say nothin to the girl bout hurryin, let her stay on at the house. Every once in a while I'd look over by the house to see was there anybody around there looked like Jules. I aint heard no Jules and I aint seed no Jules and it was evenin and I was out in the field at work— Well, I kept a lookin, kept a lookin, listenin. And way about the middle of the evenin I heard somebody goin down the road by my house laughin and talkin. I straightened up and looked hard; come to find out it was Jules. And he was with another boy, I don't know what boy it was. And they was laughin and jollyin, kickin up the dirt in the road—never stopped. And he got right even with me—I stood and looked at him good, didn't say nothin. He looked in the field and seed me—“I'll be in soon in the mornin.”

I done told him when I let him have that eight dollars I wanted him there that next mornin. He frolicked all that day. Told me he'd be there soon in the mornin. Well, he come in, and it was late in the day before he got there—lost two man days in the field. He made a plea for his job and I took him back.

So, one day we was in the field plowin corn. In that far field,
second field, we had corn planted there. And Jules was lettin that mule—she was a good plow mule, she'd mind you and smooth steppin; we was wrappin that corn up, last plowin and he lettin that mule walk right down in the single-tree and that mule single-tree rubbin against that corn, bumpin it, breakin it down. Jules aint sayin a word, just goin right on. I got at him about that. Allowed he couldn't help it. I said, “How come you don't talk to the mule and keep her away from scrubbin and layin right up against that corn row, and just breakin my corn down, goin and comin?”

So I got shed of Jules before he could work off what he owed me. He cost me more when he did work than me just payin him for not workin. And he was old enough to do anything a man could do bout plowin, eighteen or twenty years old.

S
INCE
I come out of prison, I had a white gentleman or two and their wives, would work in the field for me. White folks around here didn't like that. I had two white ladies to pick cotton—I didn't hunt em up, they come to me. Hired a white lady to pick cotton in the fall of the year I let Jules Gresham go. And after a while another white lady joined in. That made two white ladies and one of them white ladies had a grown daughter and she picked cotton too, they all picked together. I tried my best to treat em nice and no smartness out of me. Paid em a good wage, too. And when the crop wound up that fall, one of these white ladies wanted a gallon of good ribbon cane syrup. I let her have it on credit, didn't take nary a penny for it when I gived it to her. She said if she didn't pay me before I planted my next crop she'd chop cotton for me.

And so, when I got ready to chop cotton that next year, she hadn't paid me—she didn't promise definitely to pay cash. And I went to notify her at her home—her and her husband had separated and she was livin on another white man's place. Well, I went over there one mornin to see her and talk with her and get her to help me chop a little cotton. My cotton needed choppin mighty bad—

When I got there that mornin I learnt the score. They hadn't got up. This white man that owned the house that this white lady was livin in—their houses set close together in the same big yard. He had done moved out of the house he rented to her and built him a nicer house and her and her daughter was livin in that old house.
I went out there that mornin and called her several times; couldn't get no answer. Well, I thought to myself: it just wasn't allowed for a man of my race to mess with a white girl or white woman, and I must consider what would happen if somebody told somethin on me—just like playin with the screws on my coffin.

I looked out there and I seed that white gentleman that owned the place. My mind told me: don't you fool around here too long. Go out there and let him know what you're here for. So I went over and called his attention and I asked him where was the white lady that lived in his other house. I told him I tried to call her and I couldn't get no answer at all—never told him how come I wanted to talk to her. I left her house because I didn't want to be accused of nothin—didn't tell him that neither—weren't nobody there but women folks, white women, and I was a colored man. I was a old colored man at that time, but still I was colored.

He told me, “O, they in there, they asleep in bed but they in there. They'll be out directly.”

Well, I stayed on there and talked with him and after a while he looked around and said, “There she is now, comin out the door.”

So I walked over there and talked with the white lady out in the open yard. And she told me she was sick, she weren't able to do nothin and she just had the whole load to pull bout supportin herself and her daughter, and right now she's sick and been sick for several days and weren't able to chop no cotton.

I told her, “Yes ma'am, that's all right.”

She said, “And I can't get nobody to plow my little patches round here. They sufferin for plowin and there's nobody to plow.”

I told her, “Yes ma'am, it's a bad fix you're in.”

She said, “I got a husband but he don't do nothin for me.”

I said, “Missus, I'm sorry for you.”

She said, “No, he don't help me a bit.”

They was separated—I'd found that out. I said, “Well, ma'am, I have to go back home. My work is waitin for me and it won't get done without me.”

I left her standin in the yard and I haven't laid eyes on the price of that gallon of syrup today. I never did go back there askin for it. Because if I'd a kept a runnin over there, no way of knowin what'd been told on me. A colored man got to be scared to hang around a white lady's house thataway. It's dangerous as the devil.

G
ARVAN
stuck in Calusa good and heavy. The fall of '48 he come to me, said, “Papa, would you be interested in buyin that mule? I aint never goin to need her no more. You can have her if you want her.”

He was a young man at that time; he wasn't married but he was fixin to marry. And had quit farmin.