All God's Dangers (12 page)

And he had a knack, when he'd get mad as the devil his neck veins would just stand up. And when I spoke he got mad as the devil with me. I stopped my work and gived him my opinion. TJ was only my little half-brother; but half-brother, whole-brother or what, he whipped him more than he needed to. My daddy looked at me and squalled, “Do you take it up? Do you take it up?”

Right at that pile of lumber I was workin at, there was a old oak board that been layin out there several days before it was ever moved, about three foot long and as wide as my hand. And when I spoke against him for whippin that boy he squalled at me until
his veins stuck up and his eyes turned red. And when he got done squallin at me and darin me to take it up, he jumped off of them steps, runned across the yard and grabbed that old oak board. I still aint moved, still aint moved. He was goin to play the devil with that board; come to me right at that well with that board drawed back full force. I aint said a word, I aint said nothin. And when he got to me he hit at me with that board, right against my left arm down on my wrist. I standin there lookin at him. And just before he hit me he checked hisself and he didn't hit me as hard as he looked like he was goin to hit me; and he come down on me, checkin on that board, lightly. And it just even knocked the grain off of my wrist, bruised the outside skin, left a print there. If he'd a hit me like he drawed back to hit me he'd a broke it.

I just stood there, let him hit me, didn't say a word. Dropped the board down, back in the house he went, said no more about it. He was my daddy and daddy to the children that all lived in that house. I didn't have long to go there, I knowed that. And I knowed from the past histories of his life that if I'd a hit him back when he hit me, or if I'd a runned into that house after him and knocked heads, he woulda taken it out on the little children, girls and boys. He oughta been ashamed of himself, and he was, maybe, by him pullin back on that board before he hit me. That was all my satisfaction that day. I weren't scared of him for my sake. And he knowed, I think, that I was just as strong as he was then. I just considered what to do for the best and indulged him.

I started to correspondin a girl in 1905. The woman that my daddy married after my mother died, this girl I was correspondin was my stepmother's brother's daughter, Hannah Ramsey. She lived at that time just about two miles due west of us.

I was entered into my twentieth year when I started correspondin her and we got engaged to marry that same year. I pulled off in 1906, the year that I become of age, and the day I stood beside that girl and married her I weren't a day over twenty-one, not a day over—and not under a day. And when she married me she lacked from the time we married in the Christmas until the twenty-seventh of February of bein nineteen years old.

I had a half-sister that tried to be by me just like a whole-sister: she didn't want me to marry this Ramsey girl. It was one of my daddy's outside chaps, but he was man enough that when her mother died—this half-sister's name was Stella and her mother come from the Crabb family—and when she died, my daddy decided he'd take Stella. She was small at the time. My daddy never did marry her mother; he just plugged into that Crabb family and got a young-un, was a girl. And at the death of her mother he decided he'd take Stella and put her at
his
mother's, and he done it.

This girl's grandmother on her mother's side was named Classey Crabb, that's what they called her. And they had a lawsuit over Stella. When they had the lawsuit, this old lady, Stella's grandmother, she couldn't defeat my daddy because he was the natural father for the girl, but she was there for the argument. They questioned her some—my daddy said the laws asked old Aunt Classey Crabb who was this child's daddy? She didn't understand what was goin on and also she was contrary about it—I can't blame the old lady, you know, because it was her granddaughter.

Here's the words my daddy told me. In law, in court, they asked old lady Classey Crabb who was this child's daddy? She said, “She aint got no daddy. She aint got no daddy. The Lord's her daddy.”

Well, the Lord aint nobody's daddy. The Lord aint birthed nobody here on earth. Went on to tell em, “The Lord is her daddy, the only daddy she has.”

Well, what could they make of them words in court? Kept foolin around there and arguin and all, and the court give Stella to my daddy. Her mother was dead and the old lady couldn't take care of her proper, so they give her to my daddy. He taken her and put her with his mother, old Grandma Cealy. He put her at Mammy's—that was before I was born, that's what he said. He put her at Mammy's, Mammy raised her. She got grown and married a uncle of mine, one of my mother's brothers. So, she was my half-sister by me and her havin the same daddy and she become my auntie by her bein married to my mother's brother. And before she died—they lived way up yonder in them hills between here and Beaufort, and before she died her and Uncle Jim moved down in this settlement—Uncle Jim Culver, she was Uncle Jim Culver's wife. And she'd visit my daddy and she called him “Pappy.” And she called my daddy's mother “Mammy,” what my daddy called her too. And
she moved down on one of Alters' places from up there in the hills, and lived several years down here.

But first I knowed of them they was livin up yonder in them hills above Chapel Ridge beat. And when their first child come, my mother was willin and my daddy wanted to put me up there to rock the cradle for Sister Stella, with her daughter, first child; her name was Wanda. I stayed up there a couple of weeks, little old boy just big enough to rock a cradle good and hand anybody anything they needed. I took a notion I wanted to come home. I give em a big talk up there—every time they'd make me mad about something I'd about halfway sass em out. I wanted to come out from up there, I didn't want to be no cradle rocker. My mother and daddy found it out and they come up there and got me, brought me home. I'd come to know as much about my sister Stella and Uncle Jim practically as anybody knowed about one another as far as knowin em. I stayed with em bout two weeks—they was my mama's and papa's folks and I stayed where they put me until I got tired of it, then I hollered like the devil.

Some years after that, Sister Stella and Uncle Jim moved down here in the piney woods, smooth land country. And I kept visitin em all along—I liked em as folks regardless to bein blood kin. I'd go to their house, set down, laugh and talk, after I got to be a young man. I was at home anywhere I went amongst my mother's and daddy's folks.

Well, Sister Stella and Uncle Jim lived close to a fellow named John Ivey, and he had three girls. Sometimes I'd knock around there but I wouldn't have none of them girls, didn't need em. My brother, half-brother, Will Turpin, married one of em. He married Lula. And my sister Stella wanted me to have Alice. Shit! I always had a head of my own after I got up big enough to know myself. I was aimin to marry, and if I had my way, I'd marry Hannah Ramsey. Some pretty tough words come from Sister Stella's lips in regards to the matter.

This Ramsey girl that I was goin to see, that was my heart-throb and my choice for a wife. First time I went to see her at her house me and her got engaged—that's right. I knowed her; I'd played with her a little after my daddy married, at the death of my mother, this Ramsey girl's auntie. And she always—I watched Hannah, I always watched her; I liked her, I sure liked her and I come to love her. When she'd visit her Aunt Maggie, TJ's mother
—when she come to see her she was quiet, she was pretty. I'd look at her—I played with her some, a little bit, but very little. Sometimes my daddy'd hitch up the mule and buggy—he had a old mule or two and he kept a buggy for my stepmother to travel on and see her folks, sometimes through the week. I'd climb in there and go with her. My brothers and sisters would say, “Mama's goin to carry Nate with her.” She'd carry me over to her brother, Waldo Ramsey, and I'd play with his children, Hannah amongst em. And that gal eventually hung me. I did not meddle this girl under God's sun or be fresh around her, but it come to me just as plain as day—I fell in love with her and by the time I begin to get about twenty years old, I wouldn't have no other.

I'd meet her at church—I was fast and flip but I tried to carry myself in a nice way. Meet that girl at Pottstown or Elam Church over yonder between here and Apafalya; sometime I'd see her in a crowd of girls. It was just so, I couldn't shun her. Many a time I'd go to Pottstown—that was their membership, old lady Molly Ramsey and old man Waldo Ramsey and two or three of their children at that time. Old man Waldo was a deacon at Pottstown Baptist Church.

So I'd be goin along to Elam Church sometimes and they had to go to a spring to get their water for the church; the spring was less'n a quarter of a mile from church, good spring of water. And I'd be there, maybe not long got there, or I'd be there a pretty good while before I'd see her. But if she was there I'd arrange it, just so arrange it, I'd take a notion I wanted a drink of water—and I never did prefer a crowd of boys hangin at me. There'd be some boys sometime go along with me but if I wanted to go over yonder to see a girl I didn't need nobody followin me up. Some of em might be rowdy and I never did live, God hears me speak it, a rowdy life. I'd start off to the spring from that church and I'd meet Hannah and maybe two or three more girls with her—done that two or three times, runned into her goin for water at a heap of these churches, other churches besides Elam and Pottstown. But over there at Elam especially or Pottstown—there's well water at Pottstown and been so for years before I got grown. Anyhow I could I'd meet up with her, look at her, howdy with her. And just as soon as I seed her, just as soon as I'd spy her in a crowd of girls, I'd reach up and touch my old hat and pull the brim down over my
eyes. I weren't scared of her but I had never been correspondin her. And I'd go on, just keep a walkin and I'd meet em.

She'd ask me right off, “How is Aunt Maggie gettin along?” That was TJ's mother, her own dear auntie, her daddy's sister.

“How's Aunt Maggie and Uncle Hayes gettin along?”

I'd say, “Well, they just fine, all right, all of em well there.”

She'd smile and wait for me to say somethin next. That stuck me up but I wouldn't run up to her and ask her for her company. I'd tell her what she asked me for in a nice way and just keep on goin toward the spring. Wouldn't stand around for no long talk. I'd just go on, maybe wouldn't see her no more that day.

It got to where, in all them rounds—I was up in the world big enough and old enough to correspond her and she was up there too. Of course, she wasn't as old as I was. But I just kept travelin along, run into her a heap of times. I'd speak to her nice and everything'd be all right. She was my very heart-throb for a girl. And I soon found out she felt the same by me.

So, rocked along, rocked along—1904, one Sunday I went up to Uncle Grant Culver's. I was workin for Mr. Knowland at that time. I went home, put on my best clothes, and went right back through there by Mr. Knowland. That was the straightest route up to my uncle. So I went back through there and one of Hannah's daddy's sisters lived on Mr. Knowland's place. Right up above Mr. Knowland's house was her house, old man Waldo Ramsey's sister's house. I stopped there that Sunday on my way to Uncle Grant. I was used to her and her children because I stayed right there on Mr. Knowland's premises and she lived in callin distance of his house. Looked in there and Hannah's mother, old lady Molly Ramsey, was there. She was a mulatto woman straight. White man was her daddy—that's where her girl got her color. I didn't know Aunt Molly's parents but I heard em say many a time who was her daddy. He was a doctor, to my understandin, lived at Pottstown. And he recognized her for his daughter and kept up with her after she was birthed. Old man Waldo Ramsey was as dark as I am, a little darker man than I am. But his wife was a half-white woman; her hair'd swing down her back, long black hair.

So I happened to walk on by there, I looked in and seed Hannah was there with her mother. I stopped—round there in the field every day of my life at that time, workin for Mr. Knowland
by the month, and Hannah's auntie was workin for Mr. Knowland too. Her and her husband had been separated for several years. She went for a Milliken, Betsey Milliken, and his name was Lucky Oneal. He'd come there sometimes to visit—I'd see him—but they never did go back together.

Well, there I was, laughin and talkin with the girls and Hannah. Hannah wasn't old enough to marry at that time and I wasn't neither but we was gettin right on the border age, 1904. After a while I pulled on away like I was intendin to and went on up to my Uncle Grant Culver's.

And that was in time of plums, plums a plenty on the trees. We got some vessels after I got to Uncle Grant's and come down from his house on a ramble to the old Pollard place. Weren't nobody livin there at that time. Old man Amos Pollard and old lady Becky Pollard, I knowed em well, that was their old home place. But him and his wife had both died. I don't know what all the changes was but after they died a fellow by the name of Morris Wiley, white man, bought that place.

So that Sunday we got some vessels and went down on that vacant Pollard place to pick some plums, plum trees all around there loaded with plums. Me and Uncle Grant and his wife and one of their girls and their boy. Uncle Grant's wife was named Leafy MacFarland before he married her; then she become Aunt Leafy Culver.

We was down in the bushes pickin plums, there in the old growed-up plum orchard and I heard somebody talkin. Just kept a pickin plums—and there was a old rail fence come right up through that plum orchard. I had a idea who it was approachin—on their way home. I didn't say nothin, I didn't let it worry me. That Ramsey crowd had just left from down there on Mr. Knowland's place—Hannah and her mother and the other two small children, Mattie and little Waldo—down there on a visit, see how Aunt Betsey was gettin along. And it'd been maybe three hours since I left there. And here come Hannah and her mother and the little children—sisters Lena and Lily was married out at that time.