All God's Dangers (11 page)

So I stopped there like a man should do. I felt I was too far advanced to take what he was dishin out to my daddy and not holler about it. I stopped there and called for him. Old lady Polly poked her head out the kitchen window, said, “Mr. Flint aint here this mornin, he's gone. He left here bout daylight.”

Then Uncle Frank, her half-brother and TJ's mother's half-brother, he spoke a word or two with me. I told old lady Polly to tell Mr. Flint when he come in—O, I done got raw about it, my daddy settin up lettin his cows eat and destroy his corn on the creek and wouldn't say nothin to him. Shit! Only reason I wouldn't a said somethin to him about it, God woulda paralyzed my tongue.

I said, “Well, you tell him when he comes home—” I spoke stout and strong—“You tell him when he come home that
I
said keep his cows out of my daddy's corn down on the creek yonder,
and I don't mean
maybe.
” I put it on her, said, “and tell him I don't mean
maybe.
Keep em out of my daddy's corn.”

When he come back she told him every word I said and I reckon some more. He got hot as the devil about it but he wouldn't take no chances to see me. He went on to my daddy—no doubt he thought my daddy would whip me. But my daddy's time was out for whippin me then. Good God, and I was workin for Mr. Knowland, him drawin my wages just like I was a child. I beared him to do that, but time was drawin near he'd have to quit that too.

So Mr. Flint taken it on hisself and goes to see my daddy about it. And he preached his sermon to my daddy and in two or three nights I went back home, my daddy told me what the white man said. He jumped on me and boned me about it. I thought but little of him for bein that weak-kneed. I got home, first thing my daddy told me, “Son, I told you to not say nothin to Flint about his cows eatin up my corn. Now he's hot as the devil—” I set there and looked at my daddy— “Now you done went and told him what for, said somethin and he's raisin the devil about it. He come over here the other day since you been here and he told me I just ‘ought to hear the words that big man Nate left at my house for me, and I'm goin to whip big man Nate's ass.' ” Uh-oh, when he said that I had another thought— “He said he goin to whip your ass, ‘big man Nate's ass. You just oughta heard how he talked and what sort of words he left at my house for me.' ”

I quickly fell this way, humbled down like I was scared. I said, “Papa, what did you tell him?” Talkin just like a little old chap. “What did you tell him when he said he goin to whip my ass?”

“I never said nothin.”

Right there gived me a hold of a weak spot in him. If a man had walked up to my face, I don't care who the devil it was, and talk about he goin to whip one of my boys' ass, I'd tell him, “I expect you better not do that,” if nothin else. I looked right into that. My daddy weren't goin to take up for me and I was right. I admit I talked rough about it but you have to get rough in some cases; if you don't a person won't quit what he's doin against you.

So I said, “Well, I'm goin to tell you—” I changed my voice then; God in heaven is my true witness. I humble-talked him just to get his goods about how he felt toward me. Told me he didn't say nothin, just listened at the white man. And I thought he oughta told the white man, “Well, you better not try that.” But no, in place
of that he held his voice and let the man say what he pleased. Whoooooo, I liked to jump up out of the chair. I said, “I'm goin to tell you somethin, Papa—” I raised my voice; I weren't no chap, I didn't consider myself no chap. I said, “Let him jump on me whenever he pleases. I guarantee you won't nobody have to get him off. Just let him jump on me, let him do it. Don't you worry, let him jump on me. I'll guarantee you won't nobody have to get him off me.”

I just kept goin backwards and forwards through that white man's yard; never would say nothin to me neither. I wanted him to say somethin but he never said “umph” about it. Well, it was a long grudge, lasted for seven long years and it worked out and stopped. He picked at me for seven long years, Flint did. So he got to where he wouldn't speak to me, have nothin to do with me, and it's very good he didn't, very good he didn't.

1905, my daddy took me back home. Mr. Knowland wanted me back but my daddy wouldn't let me go, took me back home. I told him when I got back home, I said, “Papa—”

I had never known my daddy to do nothin that profited him much and he eventually drifted me off to Mr. Knowland in 1904. Well, that ruint me to an extent because I learnt to see further under the white man than ever I seed before; I was trusted more. Mr. Knowland weren't home more than half of the time. Hit the road and leave me there with two other hired boys like myself, colored boys, and if anything needed to be done that he wanted done, he'd leave it in my hands. And that stuck me up and made me think a lot of myself. Things went absolutely straight under my administration. Just anything Mr. Knowland put me at I could do it and did do it. That year Mr. Knowland made twenty-five bales of cotton and corn to walk on. Well, that put my britches on, put me in the lights of what I could do. Mr. Knowland done trusted me and I found out what was in me—it was just revealed to me in the work I done. I begin to feel like I was becomin part of a man.

My daddy had nothin goin to learn me but plow a old mule or old horse, chop cotton, hard labor—cut cross-ties, split rails, and all. My daddy would do a little of everything and I had to go, too. But turn the business over in my hands like Mr. Knowland done, he never would do it. And I caught on like fire to whatever Mr. Knowland
put me up to. Well, Mr. Knowland wanted me back in 1905 but my daddy wouldn't let him have me. I went on and stayed where my daddy put me; took me back to work for him so he could go on his way.

It was nothin I expected to get so much at Mr. Knowland's in the way of money, but I had more privileges and I could learn something. I told my daddy, 1905, said, “Papa—”

He didn't know what was in me but I was growin to knowledge every day. Had no book learnin to speak of but I got to where I thought I could do anything just as good as anybody else. I had a great conceit of myself since Mr. Knowland done turned me loose. I said, “Papa—”

I knowed I had never done nothin that was any value to me before I worked for that man, nothin but go day, come night, God send Sunday. I'd get a thing today and eat it up and I didn't know where anything was comin from tomorrow. I didn't like that old way no more. I told my daddy, him half workin, just puttin in half time in the field, grass eatin up his crop every year—most he ever made was six bales of cotton and I had to plow that cotton, corn too. He could have made more cotton if he'd a put his attention to farmin in place of huntin and messin around. And he didn't use much fertilize. But mostly he was slack when it come to hard work. If he'd a stretched himself out there and worked like his poor little son have had to work, he'd a made some. The year that the Akers cleaned him up and dry weather burnt his corn crop—looked over the field every day and that corn just went down to nothin. It sprout and shot and a few days after it shot it gone as far as it could go. Some of it fell into the dust, it was so weak it could hardly stand. Some of it stood up and died, dried up. Well, I looked into all that and seed there was a heap of it a man couldn't help, but a heap of it was on account of a man not workin it like it oughta been. That corn, we would have made it if it hadn't been for the dry weather. But there was so many other years the grass just et up his crops because they weren't half worked. I had all that stuck in me. I said, “Papa—” 1905 when he took me back from Mr. Knowland, “Papa—” I didn't sass him, I knowed better—“Papa, I done learnt something workin for Mr. Knowland. If you will turn your business over to my hands, I'll make you something.”

I was a stuck up little colored boy. Looked at me and said, “Son, I'm goin to do that, I'll do that.”

Show you where the disencouragement come. I said, “Now you get me what I ask for, turn the work over to me and turn them children over to me and let me work em.”

Had nothin never been made much in his hands. If that aint the truth there aint no God. I puts a terrible distress behind my words because I know I'm right.

In a week's time after he promised to swing the business my way, one mornin I got out in the yard. We done all et breakfast. His children that was able to get out there and use a hoe from time to time, he'd let em do as they pleased, weren't sendin em to the field. As he fooled around hisself, he didn't send them. They'd loll around the house; consequently, there weren't much made. If you wanted a bulky crop you had to put your children to work. Had a crowd there big enough to chop cotton and hoe all day long; two or three of em, three or four of em, big enough to go to the field, my half-sisters and -brothers, TJ was in the crowd.

I got out in the yard and commenced a callin for em to come out. “Let's get in the field, children. It's time, it's time for us to go.”

Oooooo, it just set fire to my daddy, looked like. He was snappish anyhow and he wanted to be the boss, but his bossin weren't accountin for nothin, that was his trouble. He heard me callin them children, he jumped up and come out to the door—I was callin in a loud voice too: “Come out, come out. Let's get in the field. Time we was in the field, hear?”

First one come to the door was him.

“Nate, Nate.”

I said, “Sir.”

“I want you to know I'm boss here. And if there's anything you want to do, you go on and do it. I'll tell these children what to do.”

Lord, I just sunk down in mind.

“I'm boss here.”

I said to myself, ‘Went back on his word that quick, won't keep hisself under a muzzle; just actin triflin and parleyin off and comin up in the fall of the year with no crop.'

I shied my mouth and let the tail lead the head from that day. Fall come and it was about three or four bales of cotton made. Made a good corn crop but the corn happened to be down on the creek bottoms—and it made itself. Best land I ever worked in my life for corn. It'd make corn as close as one leg to the other from one to
two ears average, just as sweet and full as you could imagine. My daddy always got a pretty good corn crop with no labor hardly. Plow that corn once, twice, and go on about his business. But corn weren't the money crop and he fell down on cotton.

Many a boy mighta left his daddy and gone on about his business. I known many a boy run away from his daddy in his teens of years. Hit the road and his daddy had to hunt him up. Wilson Rowe had a boy, his oldest, and they was livin right there in our settlement. This boy was at home, he weren't grown. And he had to milk cows for his mother—didn't have no girls in that crowd. He was a little older than me or just about my age. One Sunday evenin he took the milk buckets as was his duty and went to milk the cows and he got out there to the barn—I was well informed of it; his daddy hunted him like a dog huntin a rabbit and he told all the transactions—the boy went out to milk the cows as usual and he caught the drop on his mammy and daddy both; went out there and set the buckets down and gone! Wilson Rowe's oldest son. He weren't the only boy done his parents that way. And the old man hunted him, hunted him, and he found him way up there in a place they call Sylacauga, fifty miles north, and he forced the boy to come home. But my daddy stayed on my head and I knowed to obey him—and maybe well that I did. I didn't do nothin but he had to know what it was and where it was. He just stood over me in a position that I knowed better and knowed it was wrong to run away from him.

1905, he just disrecognized me, discounted me; wouldn't turn nothin over in my hands like Mr. Knowland did. Good God, my feathers fell then. I went through with him, I sulked and got down—but I worked. The crop had been laid by and we didn't have nothin to do but prepare a way to haul it. And my daddy didn't have no cotton bodies for his wagon. I jumped out of bed one mornin, got the hand-saw, hammer, nails—I got out there in the yard sawin planks and nailin em together, makin cotton bodies to put on the wagon and haul off what little cotton had been made. As a help to my daddy and as a addition to what had to be done, I was doin it.

At that period of time, Lorna, my half-sister by TJ's mother, and TJ, and two or three of the other girls was able to get out in the
field and work. And while I was fixin them bodies up before we all had to go to pickin cotton—the old house we lived in there on the Wheeler place had long, wide-set doorsteps—Lorna or TJ, one of em come out there first and the other one followed. And come up a hank
^*
between em—I was out there by the well knockin, nailin the cotton body planks. After a while, Lorna let in to cryin. She was older than TJ but she let in to cryin. Lorna was the first child in the family after my mother died and my daddy married again.

And they got to hankin around there so rampant—I just kept a nailin, payin no attention to em much; a cryin spell amongst children, I weren't interested in that but I did come interested in it. Soon as I looked around, my daddy run out the house and grabbed TJ—he was sittin up in the house and he come out there rough amongst em, bout that cryin, and he grabbed TJ up by the arm and held him up and laid a whippin on the child with a switch. He was already objectin to my work and now he was puttin down the ways of his little children. I didn't know how come the fracas had started between TJ and Lorna but the way he whipped TJ weren't called for by what had happened. So I stuck my mouth in there. Held TJ up by his arm and he was layin it on him, flailin him. And he cleaned up TJ to a farewell.

It attracted my attention enough—I was off there nailin right by that well, I looked over there by the doorsteps and seed him layin it on TJ. Lorna had done run in the house. When my daddy got done whippin TJ—I didn't say nothin to him while he was whippin him—he dropped him back down. I looked at my daddy, I said, “Papa, it weren't no use you whippin that child like you did—”