All God's Dangers (28 page)

I just politely walked up to Mr. Black and laid my plight to him. I said, “Mr. Black, Mr. Tucker got me barred on fertilize. Won't none of em furnish me no guano. Mr. Bishop first and then
Mr. Russell, nary one of them men will sell me a bit. Turned me down straight.”

He looked at me, said, “The hell they won't. Goddamnit, I'm goin to see to it— Go on back home and Monday mornin, when you get up, hitch your mules to your wagon and come on down here to Apafalya to the carbox and get all the damn guano you want. I'm goin to show em. They can't do you that way.”

I knows a heap and I considers things, too. He was just a different type of man. He was a white man that recognized
all
men.

Mr. Black gived me them strong words. But he hesitated in the doin of it. He said, “Go back to Mr. Tucker
one more time.
Then if he don't let you have it—”

Told me what he'd do if Tucker didn't give me satisfaction. So I went back to Mr. Tucker and I said, “Mr. Tucker, what are you goin to do about lettin me have some guano? You goin to let me have it or not?”

I was sure of myself then. Mr. Black done told me if he objected me again, take my wagon to the carbox Monday mornin and get all the damn guano I wanted. All right. I went back to Mr. Tucker and he seed I weren't desperate no more.

I said, “Mr. Tucker, I'm not tellin you what I'll do if you don't let me have guano, but it won't leave me in no hard position.”

He fell out of the box when I told him that. I was my own man; I'd found somebody that would deal with me.

“Uh-uh-uh-uh, by George, go on over there and tell Mr. Bishop I told you to tell him to sell you your guano.”

It suited me better to buy my guano from Mr. Bishop and it suited Mr. Black, too. He decided—in business, people have these thoughts—he'd buck them other white men if they was stuck down definitely on me and weren't goin to let me have no guano at all. He fretted with the problem—“Go back to Mr. Tucker one more time—” and he treated me like a gentleman and got his satisfaction out of the deal, too. Mr. Tucker cleared the way for me to get my guano and Mr. Black stayed out of my business. He didn't say he was afraid to let me have it; told me, “Come and get it.” But the way the thing worked out that weren't necessary. He just protected hisself and me too.

Mr. Black wasn't goin to let Mr. Tucker bar me from gettin guano after the way Mr. Tucker done treated
him.
Durin the years that joint note mess was runnin, I owed Mr. Black a hundred
dollars for guano I'd used on the Reeve place. The first year Mr. Tucker had a hold of me, I met Mr. Black in Apafalya one day, right about the time I was ready to start my crop.

I said, “Mr. Black, I paid you last fall thirty dollars, all that I could pay you for guano. I know I owe you justice—one hundred dollars more. Mr. Tucker has got my business in charge now, what little I got, and I just can't pay you. Thing I'm goin to do is give you a note”—but not thinkin that Tucker would keep Mr. Black roped off like he done—“I'll give you a note that I owes you one hundred cash dollars for fertilize.”

He told me, “No, Nate, a note from you wouldn't do me no good because Tucker done got your business in hand. I don't expect you'll soon have the money to pay me.”

I said, “Yes sir, I don't doubt what you say, Mr. Black, but I'm goin to give you a note anyhow showin that I owe you until I can pay.”

Fall of the year come, first year Mr. Tucker took me over, I couldn't pay Mr. Black a dime. Well, at planting time next spring I offered to give him another note. He told me, “Nate, you didn't pay me nothin, but I understand the matter.”

I said, “Yes sir, I'm glad you do. Tucker's between us. Hit or miss, Mr. Black, I'll keep you with a note showin that I owe you.”

He was a quiet man, dealt with me quiet. Said, “Your note aint worth a damn, Nate. You aint goin to be able to pay me until Tucker gets out of the way, no matter how long that is. As long as Tucker standin in the gap you aint goin to be able to pay me nothin. No, I wouldn't have a note from you.”

I said, “Mr. Black, it'd show that I owes you.”

He said, “Yeah, but owin me it makes no difference what it shows. If you can't pay it, you can't pay it.”

Left it like that. One day I went into town, met Mr. Black again. He said, “Nate—”

I said, “Yes sir.”

He said, “I got a question to ask you.”

We stepped off to the side and talked. He said, “Well, my question is this, that I want to ask you.” Looked right in my face. Said, “If I die before you pay me, will you pay what you owe me to my children?”

He had grown children, married children at that time. I gladly told him, “Yes sir, Mr. Black, I'll pay it because I know I justly owe
you that hundred dollars. I'll pay your children if you happen to die before I pay you.”

He said, “That's all, Nate, I wanted your word.”

Rocked along there five years and when I did wind up with Mr. Black—he come to see me when I paid off Mr. Tucker; Mr. Tucker put him on me. Five hundred and sixty-nine dollars I got out of three bales of cotton and I paid Mr. Tucker five hundred dollars of it. That left me sixty-nine dollars and some-odd cents. Mr. Tucker jumped up then and got the word to Mr. Black that I done paid him up on all I owed him, clear. Told him—Mr. Black told me about it—told him, “Now's your time come. Nate's got more cotton in the field and he can pay you now.”

One day Mr. Black drove his horse and buggy—had a big black mare that he drove to that buggy—come down to my house on Sitimachas Creek. Drove down to the edge of the yard and stopped and I went out to meet him.

He said, “Nate—”

I said, “Mr. Black, I been lookin out for you. I wanted to tell you that I paid Mr. Tucker up on everything I owed him and now you next. You goin to get your money. Ah, yes, you goin to get your money.”

He said, “Nate, I didn't drive down here huntin no money; I just drove down here to show myself to you and to let you know what Lemuel done. You done paid him and soon as he got his money he reported it to me. But I didn't come here after your money. I'm goin to leave it up to you and I believe you'll pay me. And I'll just wait until you
can
pay me.”

I said, “Well, Mr. Black—”

He said, “I thinks but little of Tucker the way he treated you and the way he treated me. He was the chunk in the way until now. And if he hadn't a done like he did, you woulda paid me, I believe you would.”

I offered to give him the balance of the money I got out of them three bales of cotton—he wouldn't have it. Told me, “Nate, I aint worried. I believe you'll pay me and have no diddlin around about it.”

I said, “Mr. Black, you just look for it. I'll be down there to your home this comin Wednesday and bring you your money.”

I knowed I could take another half a bale of cotton to the gin—cotton was bringin that high wartime price—and I could pay
him then. And in the wind-up of the deal I was the most deceived fellow you ever saw. I hurried up and ginned that half a bale of cotton and made a little under a hundred dollars. Went to him Wednesday to my word—Mr. Black is dead now; that's a good white man gone. I'm goin to hold em up if they done right; if they done wrong, I aint scared to tell it—Wednesday come, I told my wife, “Well, I've got to go now and give Mr. Black his money. He wouldn't have what I had here when he come a few days ago. Left that in case I'd a got in a tight, I'd a had a little money. And I promised to go down there today and take him his hundred dollars.”

Hitched one of my mules to the buggy, jumped in there, and drove out to Mr. Harry Black. He lived out in the country on the west side of Apafalya on a pretty straight line between Apafalya and Tuskegee. Didn't have to go into Apafalya to get there. Got down there and I called to him. His wife come to the door. She said, “He's gone to Tuskegee and I'm lookin for him any minute.”

I told her, “Yes'm. I come here to pay Mr. Black what I owe him. Miz Black, I'll just hitch my mule out here and wait till he comes.”

After awhile, I looked down the road and here come Mr. Black, drivin that big black mare and she was fat as a pig. He drove up to the yard and one of his boys come out of the house and took that horse and buggy over. Mr. Black walked right up toward me and I walked part of the way up to him.

I said, “Hello, Mr. Black, I'm here with your money.”

He said, “All right, Nate.”

I run my hand in my pocket and counted it out to him—one hundred dollars.

He looked it over; he was satisfied. Now what did he do? Somethin I wasn't lookin for! When I counted that hundred dollars into that white man's hand he looked at me, said, “Now hold out your hand—”

I couldn't imagine hard as I tried what he meant by tellin me to hold out my hand.

He said, “Hold out your hand. Hold out your hand.”

Counted fifty dollars of that money back in my hand, half of what I'd just paid him. And said, “Now, Nate, I know you've had a hard time. Take that money and go on back home and buy your wife and children some shoes and clothes, as far as it will go with that money. Nate, don't spend it for nothin else.”

When I got home with that fifty dollars I gived it to my wife and told her what Mr. Black told me. And that's what it went for—shoes and clothes, clothes and shoes.

I was registered for army service durin the war but I had too many children for em—that's what caused em to lay off. Some of the white folks got around and worked to hold me out; they thought it would be better for the state of Alabama me stayin with my wife and children than me goin off and leavin em to beg on the state.

I didn't definitely know who it was in war in them times. And it wasn't clear to me what that war was all about. But after the battle is fought and the victory is won—I'm forced to say it—it all goes over to the whites. What did they do for the niggers after all these foreign wars? The colored man goin over there fightin, the white man goin over there fightin, well, the white man holds his ground over here when he comes back, he's the same; nigger come back, he aint recognized more than a dog. In other words, it's the same for him, too, as it was before he went. What did they do to the niggers after this first world war? Meet em at these stations where they was gettin off, comin back into the United States, and cut the buttons and armaments off of their clothes, make em get out of them clothes, make em pull them uniforms off and if they didn't have another suit of clothes—quite naturally, if they was colored men they was poor and they might not a had a thread of clothes in the world but them uniforms—make em walk in their underwear. I know it was done, I heard too much of it from the ones that come back to this country even. You a damn nigger right on, didn't give you no credit for what you done.

I've had white people tell me, “This is white man's country, white man's country.” They don't sing that to the colored man when it comes to war. Then it's all
our
country, go fight for the country. Go over there and risk his life for the country and come back, he aint a bit more thought of than he was before he left.

But the war was good to me because it meant scarce cotton; and scarce cotton, high price. Cotton reached forty cents and it held up for several years. It fell off war prices by the time I moved off of the Tucker place in 1923. It fell to twenty-five cents and a little less and it kept on fallin and cotton never brought as much any year after that as it had brought the year before. Speculators run that
thing and they run it in their own favor and against the farmers until the government took hold of it. Every time cotton dropped it hurt the farmer. Had to pay as much rent, had to pay as much for guano, but didn't get as much for his crop. The price just fell out of my hands—never was really in my hands or in any of these white folks' hands in this country that I knowed.

O
NE
day I told my wife, “Darlin, I'm goin to Apafalya to get me a load of cotton seed hulls for my cows and some meal.”

She said, “Darlin, you goin to town, I want you to get Rachel and Calvin some shoes”—they was the two oldest.

Told her, “All right. I'll do that.”

She didn't know what number they wore but here's what she done: she went and took the measure of their foots and told me to get em shoes just a little longer than the measure from the heel to the toe. Well, I was fully determined to do it—and that was some of my first trouble.

I drove into Apafalya, hitched my mules, and walked into Mr. Sadler's store to get some shoes for the children first thing; then I was goin to drive on down to the carbox at the depot and load me a load of hulls and meal. Had my cotton bodies on my wagon—

I went on into Mr. Sadler's store and there was a big crowd in there. The store was full of white people and two or three colored people to my knowin. And there was a crippled fellow in there by the name of Henry Chase—Mr. Sadler had him hired for a clerk, and several more, maybe three or four more clerks was in there and some was women clerks. I walked in the store and a white lady come up to me and asked me, “Can I wait on you?”

I told her, “Yes, ma'am, I wants a couple of pair of shoes for my children.”

And she took the measures and went on to the west side of the store and I went on around there behind her. She got a ladder, set it up, and she clumb that ladder and me standin off below her. There was a openin between the counters—and I was standin down there, just out of the way of the little swing-door and she was searchin from the front of that store nearly down to where I was.

And this Chase fellow, he was kind of a rough fellow and it was known—a heap of his people there in town didn't like him. So she was busy huntin my shoes and she'd climb that ladder and take
down shoes, measurin em, and she'd set em back up if they wouldn't do, didn't come up to that straw measure. And she was just rattlin around there, up the ladder and down it, and this here Chase fellow was standin off watchin. After a while he come around there, showin his hatred, showin what he was made of, that's all it was. And there was a old broke down—it had been cut in two at the bottom—a old, tough brogan shoe sittin there on the counter, a sample, you know. And he walked through there by me to get behind that counter where she was. I was standin on the outside waitin on her patiently, weren't sayin nothin. And he didn't like that white lady waitin on me, that just set him afire—I knowed it was that; I'd never had no dealins with him, no trouble with him noway—and he remarked, “You been in here the longest—” right in my face.