All God's Dangers (30 page)

I went on up there and pulled my mules back and hitched the traces and untied em from the post they was hitched to—both of em hitched to the same post and them inside traces dropped—set up on my wagon and went just as straight, just as dead straight right back down through Apafalya as I could go. Uncle Jim was standin there and he told some fellow, “There that boy goin right back through town and I told him to get his mules and wagon and go on back home.”

But I was game as a peacock. I just went straight to his buggy and got my shoes out and carried em to my wagon, hitched my mules back, crawled up in the wagon over them high bodies, right down dead through town I went. And when I got down close to where the railroad runned under that bridge there in Apafalya I turned to my left and went on down to the depot. Loaded my hulls and meal—and when I left, I had a straight way right out from there up the back streets of town toward home.

One day after that, Uncle Jim got at me bout goin back down through town. I told him, “I aint no rabbit, Uncle Jim. When a man's mistreated thataway and he got friends and they proves it, he don't need to be scared. Of course, it's a dangerous situation and if I'd a been guilty of anything, why, I'd a took low.”

There was a old colored fellow down at the door at Sadler's store the whole time this ruckus was goin on inside. Mighta been inside himself at the start but he runned out if he was; he acted like he runned out. And he stood where he could see me. And do you know he just stood there and beckoned to me that whole time, he
beckoned to me to run out. That just roused the whole store up. The old man tickled me. He was a pretty heavy-built old man and he weren't as high—his head, he could have walked under a tall horse and never touched it. Heavy-built old colored man. And he had on one of these old frock-tail coats and it hit him just below the knee and it was cut back like a bug's wings. And he just stood there and bowed and beckoned for me to run out there. And every time he'd bow, that old coat would fly up behind him and when he straightened up it would hit him right back there below the bend in his legs. Tickled me, it tickled me. I thought it was the funniest thing I ever saw. He was scared for me and wanted me to run out of there. I didn't run nowhere. I stood just like I'm standin today—when I know I'm right and I aint harmin nobody and nothin else, I'll give you trouble if you try to move me.

H
ENRY
C
HASE
'
S
daddy kept a hardware store—Mr. Henry Chase. The boy was named after his daddy; only child Mr. Chase had as ever I heard of. I bought a lot of stuff from old man Henry Chase—he always gived me a straight deal. I bought my two-horse plow from him; I bought a Oliver Goober from him, iron-beam plow; and I bought my middle-buster plow, but that middle-buster's wings wore off and I just dogged it out. So I bought them three plows from old man Henry Chase. And durin of the years when I was haulin lumber for the Graham-Pike Lumber Company I bought a cook stove from him; it was called to be a Wetter's range and I carried it home to my wife. Cost me a little more than fifty dollars. And I bought a brand new dinin safe to hold dishware; that thing cost me thirteen dollars. I bought a rubber tire buggy from Mr. Henry Chase, had him to order that buggy on my word, special-built buggy, a Dixie buggy. I gived him a hundred and eighty-seven dollars and a half for that special-built buggy. Mr. Lester Watson, he had buggies and wagons to sell but I didn't want none of his buggies because they was nothin but red painted buggies and this here one I bought from Mr. Chase, it was between a black and a blue color buggy all over. And I bought a pair of heavy mule bridles, fancy everyday bridles made out of good leather, highest priced bridle in the house—O, I spent a lot at his hardware store. And them stores where they kept shoes and dry goods and so on, buyin for my children. Bought a
sewin machine for my wife and also she bought a record player, cost sixty-some thin dollars at the time. Even our Bible, it's only now beginnin to get frail, I bought
it
when I was haulin lumber.

At the time I was tradin with Mr. Chase his son weren't in that store, little Henry Chase; I didn't expect to meet up with him there. So one evenin, I'd gone down to the lumberyard, planin mill, and unloaded and I drove back up through town and stopped at the store. And old man Henry Chase weren't in there; young Henry was in there, his son. That was the first time I seed him since him and me got into it down there at Sadler's store and I was surprised to see him. He looked me over—didn't move his head at all, just lookin at me with his eyes. He said, “Shaw”—first words he spoke—“I want some fryin-size chickens; I want some nice fryers. Do you know where you can get me up any? I'll give you a good price if you can get me up six fryers; I want six fryers, nice fryers.”

Told him, “Yes, I think I know where I can get em.”

He said, “Well, if you have a idea where you can get em, look right around out here to the west side of the store and you'll find some chicken crates.”

I went on around there and I found two or three nice chicken crates. Picked up one and set it on the hounds of my wagon, throwed my chain over it to hold it still. And I said, “I'll bring you some fryers when I come back to town.”

I was doin good for evil, tryin to. I watched my way through the world and watchin a heap to stay out of trouble, and I couldn't see no tricks in his thoughts. So I went on home with his chicken crates and I told my wife about it. She had some nice fryers and her mother had some nice fryers. I said, “That crippled Chase fellow in Apafalya that I had some trouble with a little while ago, he wants some fryin chickens and he asked me could I get him some. Darlin, you got a lot of fryers here, you want to sell some of em?”

She said, “Well, I can sell some if you think he really intends to buy em.”

“Yes,” I said, “I think he does.” That was a good woman, kind woman, too; she was lookin out for my and her benefit. I said, “Well, I told Henry Chase that I'd bring him six fryers. Tell you what I'm goin to do. I'm goin to give your mother a chance at it too. You catch three of yours and I'll go to your mother”—she generally kept fryers, especially at that season of the year—“and I'll let her put in
three, and you all will make out his number, how many he wants, your three and your mother's three.”

So, Hannah put in three and her mother put in three—she was glad to do it—and I set them chickens on top of my lumber and drove on to Apafalya and set em off, unloaded my lumber, then put them chickens back on the hounds and drove right on up to Henry Chase's hardware store and delivered em to little Henry Chase. And he told me where he lived, on the street goin out of town toward the Baptist church, white people's church. And he said he lived in a certain house, goin out there on the west side of Apafalya. Wanted me to drive out there and put em off and he paid me nice for em.

So I went on down there to his house and went around to the back door and called. And when I called at the back—he had done come right on down there behind me and when I hitched my mules back and unhitched the traces and tied my lines so they couldn't get away and went around to the back of his house and called, I heard somebody comin across the floor in the hallway—thump, thump, thump, thump, thump. I looked in the door and seed it was him.

“Hi, Nate, glad to see you found me some fryers.”

Well, he already knowed that; I done brought them chickens to his daddy's store and he told me to bring em on down and put em off at his house and here he was. He come to the door when I called and acted just like it was news to him. And when I got ready to leave, he told his wife—her name was Celia, John Buchanan's daughter, and he told her, “Celia, this here's the man I been tellin you about. Him and me got into it down at Sadler's store”— wouldn't tell her what we got into it about—“He lacks respect”—he smiled—“but he aint too big to bring us some fryers.”

Right to her face. She looked at me and smiled. They both smiled. But I didn't let it worry me; I said, “Well, Mr. Chase and Mrs. Chase, I'm sure these fryers will suit your purpose.”

He said, “Yes, Nate, if they don't you'll hear from us.” He laughed at that and she just smiled. I got on my wagon, turned them mules out to the road, and hit out for home.

I had people to tell me, “I wouldn't a carried him no chickens.”

I said, “I weren't scared of him and I'd favor anybody with kind deeds. He wanted chickens and he promised to pay me nice for em and he did do it. Yeah, I carried em—”

They said, “I wouldn't a carried him no chickens noway.”

First work I done for the Graham-Pike Lumber Company, Mr. George Pike, who run one of the company's mills, Mr. Ed Pike's brother—had nine big mills in this country and Mr. George Pike run one of those mills right joinin my daddy-in-law's place. And he seen me drivin up there with my mules, good pair of mules, he knowed em, and he come and asked me if I would haul logs for the mill. I bought them mules to farm with—that's strictly what I bought em for—but I meant to patronize that company and to make me somethin workin round them sawmills; I meant to make me a speck if I could and then go back to my farm, quit and go back to my farm.

They started to haulin after the crops was laid by one year and they gived every man a job that had a good pair of mules. White and colored, took em all if they'd work. Had a white snaker and a black snaker; had a white man haulin lumber, had a black man haulin lumber—put anybody to the jobs if they could handle em, if they made em a hand; and if they didn't make em a hand, they'd turn em off.

And Mr. George Pike put me in the woods. As the snaker would snake them logs up to the docks and roll em on the drays, he put me there to steady them logs on the drays—that was my first job—and somebody else snakin. I'd hook them logs up on the docks and help load them drays out as they come to them docks in the woods.

Mr. Ed Pike soon put me to haulin logs. Knowin that I had a good pair of mules that could swing it, it was, “Nate, I want you to haul logs.” Hauled logs to the mills two or three days, boss man Ed Pike told me, “Soon as you catch em up good with logs, go on to haulin lumber.” They had a yard of lumber with about two hundred and fifty thousand feet, right southeast of my house on the creek. And I started on that haulin regular from the yard to the planin mill in Apafalya. I stuck to that lumber haulin job too; didn't haul logs at all except to catch the mills up when they'd fall behind. Logs was heavier—it was first logs or no lumber, you understand.

Hauled lumber on my wagon up from the creek and out from under them mountains and all and stocked it on top of the hills where the trucks could pick it up. Taken the body off my wagon and
set it down somewhere about my house and run a couplin pole in that wagon from the front axle, where it fastened down with a stay-pin, back. Long couplin pole. When a wagon's first bought it's got a short couplin pole just to fit that body; and you can take it out and use a couplin pole to fit the different lengths of lumber you haul—ten-foot lumber the length of that body, twelve-foot lumber, fourteen-foot lumber, sixteen-foot lumber, twenty-foot lumber.

White men drivin them big GMC trucks would pick up them loads of lumber where I left em on the road, done carried em out from under the hills where the sawmills was and hauled it up and out of places them trucks couldn't successfully pull. Them big GMC trucks, had two of em—good God, you might meet em on the road with a load of lumber, looked like a house comin. Mr. Clint Moffat, from Apafalya, he was one of them GMC drivers; Lyman Ridley was the other driver at that time.

I was paid three dollars per thousand feet to haul that lumber up out of hard places and leave it for the trucks. I drawed every week and I commenced a checkin and puttin the weekly amounts together and I drawed as high as two hundred and twenty-five dollars a month, haulin lumber, just me and my mules and wagon. I put up eight months haulin a year at that figure, or near that. It was a lot of money but I had one breakdown with a mule—I gived two hundred and fifty dollars for her. And I was supportin my family—I had a wife and a houseful of children. And I bought that rubber tire buggy from Mr. Henry Chase in Apafalya, and house furnitures. Well, all that et up my money. I hauled lumber for Mr. Ed Pike, Graham-Pike Lumber Company, from Christmas to Christmas for four long years and for parts of other years. And I hauled from two different yards, where there was anywhere from two hundred and fifty thousand to three hundred thousand feet of lumber at each of em at one time. Cut the timber back to where it was a long ways to haul it to the yard and they'd move the mill. So they had lumberyards over this whole country, from the Tukabahchee River clean back to Apafalya; lumber, lumber, lumber, all bought up by the Graham-Pike Lumber Company.

I loved that work. I always was a man that liked workin in the free air. If the sun got too hot I'd set down if I wanted to. Nobody to tell me not to. And if it was rainin, well, he didn't want you to load it and haul it in there wet. After it'd stay in the yard where it'd be sawed and stacked and dried out, he'd have it hauled to the
planer in Apafalya for dressin and shippin. And if that lumber was good lumber, it was a pleasure to load—it'd load smooth and it had a nice scent. It waked you up to haul that lumber.