All God's Dangers (31 page)

I hauled lumber—I wanted to come in possession of somethin that would profit me but I never did settle my mind on no certain thing. I wanted to boss my own affairs; but I never did let it hit me to want to be a big man, ownin this, that, and the other. I was workin for a livin and I wanted to get to the stand to help myself, regardless to what I accumulated and regardless to what I lost. I wanted to have more privileges, back myself up without havin to beg my way. I was a worker; this whole country knowed me for my work.

One Saturday evenin I was late gettin in to Apafalya with my load. There was always a man in the company office to tell me where to put the lumber. I knowed after I caught on—each grade of lumber to its place. They had a shed covered several acres and in there was lumber on top of lumber, stacked up accordin to the length.

Walked in late that evenin, bout first dark, and there was a heavy-set white gentleman in the office there talkin with Mr. Ed Pike. Mr. Ed turned from him and spoke to me, told me, “Well, Nate, I aint got enough cash without a right smart number of pennies in the deal to pay you. It's too late to go to the bank, it's shut. If it wasn't I'd give you a check. I've got enough money here if you'll accept pennies.”

“That's all right, Mr. Ed. Come along with your pennies if you desire. I aint goin to back off.” I would always pay my bills around when I drawed my money, if I owed any there around the town. I said, “It's perfectly all right, Mr. Ed, let your pennies roll.”

He got busy and counted me a handful of pennies, then paid me the bills. White man standin there lookin. When Mr. Ed gived me them pennies, this white man said, “Ahhhh, you'll be all set for the crap game tonight.”

Mr. Ed said, “Uh-uh, uh-uh, not this darky. What he works and makes he carries it home to his wife and children.”

Mr. Ed took him up before he could get the words out of his mouth. I don't know who that white man was, meddlin and throwin off on me because it looked like I was a
Negro.
But I didn't let it worry me, I couldn't: it was too common, too common. I just went on my way.

Somedays I'd get ready and unload there at the planer in Apafalya, I'd drive around up through town, fasten my mules to where that they couldn't pull off, go in the store there—Mr. Richard Tucker's store, Lemuel Tucker's uncle—go in there and get me a nice lunch to eat, some sort of canned goods and cheese; but whatever I'd buy, things that suited my taste best, I'd call for enough for my wife and children, and of evenins when I'd go in with my last load of lumber, I'd be thinkin of them at home, where they'd be eatin plenty, which was home grub—they weren't sufferin for nothin—I'd hurry up through town, if I didn't buy it while I was there at day dinner and keep a check on it, take care of it to bring it home, I'd go up there then and call for two or three times the amount to what I would eat, same stuff, put it on the wagon and carry it home to my family. I was a fool about it. I'd buy cheese and other nice tasty things; I wouldn't buy less'n a pound, pound and a half of good cheese—I was born and raised lovin cheese. I loved sardines. Cheese, sardines—I'd carry em home to my family for a special delight. When I'd get home with that cheese, it'd done greased the paper wrapper through and through. Real cheese, crumbly cheese, cheese with a hole through the center, sharp cheese, mild cheese.

I hauled lumber for the Graham-Pike Lumber Company, worked at the sawmill some, and I had to quit. I had a good team and I was rentin a place to farm and I had to do somethin about it. I couldn't buy mules and stand em in the lot and me workin at the sawmill. I had to put them mules to plowin. I told the boss man at the mill, Mr. George Pike—now his brother Ed was the head of the whole thing, but Mr. George Pike and Mr. Jim Pike, Mr. Ed's brothers, they was runnin the mills. And I told Mr. George on Saturday as we was knockin off, at dusk, “Mr. George, I'm sorry to tell you, but I just have to quit and go home and start my plows. I'm forced to quit. I got a place rented that I'm livin on and I got a pair of mules there and I have to go to plowin them mules; they standin in the lot on me since haulin slacked off. And they'll stand there as long as I let em stand and aint carryin on plowin and farm work. I'm sorry I have to quit, I hate to quit, God knows I do, but I can't keep both jobs. My boys is too little to manage the farm.”

He put in and prevailed with me, begged me not to quit,
promised to raise my wages—they was well pleased at my labor. I'd work anywhere they put me—haul logs, haul lumber—done more of that job than any other—work at the sawmill. We was sawin on Mr. Oneal's place at the time.

“Well, Mr. George, I hate it, but I'm between two straits. I got to quit. I got my mules standin yonder in the lot and me public workin. My children can't handle them mules and I got to raise a crop on that land.”

I had my business cut and dried for farmin; I couldn't do that sawmill job and my farmin both successfully. I'd just as well to sell both my mules outright at that point and take what I could get for em. I had good money tied up in them mules and I couldn't let em stand in the lot and not plow em. And I absolutely had my heart in farmin. I knowed that what little lookin out I had done on the farm brought me up to them high-priced mules and I didn't know definitely at that time bout what the sawmills would bring me. I had it planned at home to make a livin and that's where I decided was my best hope. And so I told him I was goin back to my farm. And he told me to my head—I knowed it was a joke; I had sense enough to know jokes when I heard em—“Nate, you think because you got a damn good pair of mules you goin to come back and haul lumber when the lumber gets dry enough to haul.”

I looked at him and laughed.

He said, “Well, I aint goin to let you haul a bit.”

I knowed that if he didn't let me haul I was goin to live right on. Mighta been tight or mighta been good, I knowed I was goin to live. Sawmill work weren't goin to keep me eatin. But he was just jokin with me—and besides, he weren't the boss. They done found out what there was to me. So I went on and quit, went on back to my farm.

N
EW
ground, just as soon as you get done gatherin your crop, at your leisure time break that new ground up; if you get a chance, maybe break it twice—the more you break it the better it will work when it comes time to make your crop.

But before you break your land, you better go ahead, knowin that spring is comin after winter—you got to cut and saw you up enough wood and haul it up and cord it to do you that crop season
comin, so you'll have no trouble and no outside work to take you from your crop. That's one thing you got out the way; you got your wood prepared even before you start breakin your land.

New ground, you must tear it up before Christmas. The average way to do it, put you on a scooter, diamond-point scooter or a bull-tongue scooter—you got to use a small plow in there amongst them stumps. If you plow deep you'll stall that mule workin new ground that way, owin to the size of the mule and his weight—you can fix any of them plows in a way that a animal just can't hardly pull em. If he pulls em he aint goin to last pullin em. New land, fresh land, it aint been plowed of recent years, you can break two to three acres a day as well as it's due to be broke with one plow and a good animal.

Any boy that's big enough to plow can break new ground or he can plow in old land where it's clear of stumps. But I didn't put my chaps in rough places and look for my work to be done; I hung around there and helped. Some jobs I'd do em by myself, let the boys hang around there enough to see how it was done.

When I was a boy comin along, and I seen plenty of it after I got grown, a man would get out there and take a hickory club about the length of a good long walkin stick, somethin that'll stand, and beat them cotton stalks down, along in January. Walk on his feet across his land, and if he aint got a stalk cutter, take that seasoned hickory stick or seasoned oak stick, somethin stout that won't break easy, walk them rows, just gradually walkin steady, and beat down two rows at once. Them stalks done got dry and brittle in winter, and doggone it, if he can't eat em up and cut em low as his ankle to the ground. But the best way to get them stalks is to take a stalk cutter, hitch a pair of mules to it, and drive all over that field—there's a seat up there for you to sit on—that stalk cutter just eatin up them stalks. Pick your chances when them stalks is dry and in just two or three days you'll cut your stalks, cuttin stalks with a cotton-stalk cutter on a two-horse farm.

Now you got your stalks cut down, or if it's new ground that you done broke up once or twice in the fall, you ready to make your crop. Catch a seasonable time when the ground's in good shape to plow, as early as you can—don't plow it wet. There's a time to all things; you mustn't plow your land wet, wait until it gets in the right attitude to plow. Sometimes it don't make no difference when you plow; big rains will pack it back just as hard
as it ever was. You got trouble on your hands then, you got to re-plow it.

I plowed, in plowin my mules, I'd take my two-horse plow, jump in there right after Christmas, take my stalk cutter, hitch my mules to it, and cut my stalks just as soon as they was dry enough that they'd break good. When that was done, I'd go on and get my wood all in for my year's cookin; then get my land broke with my two-horse plow—I've tried it all sorts of ways. Sometimes I'd break my land maybe two or three weeks, a month before I got ready to plant. I'd go back, that land was just like it never been plowed. It showed it'd been plowed, but doggone it, it was packed again tight as wax. Some years I broke my land early—that gived the vegetation and the cotton stalks a chance to rot up some; and the land would pack back or not pack back, accordin to conditions I couldn't control.

I don't say breakin your land and gettin it ready in January is the only way. You got plenty of time, you on time if you have it prepared by the first of April. But if you don't, you better hustle like the diggers to get it ready or you'll make a feeble crop. Jump in there the first of April and you might have a little you want to rebreak or even a patch that aint been broke, but the majority is ready for plantin. The best way, if you don't want to lose a corn crop, regardless to the cotton, if you want to make a cotton crop and corn crop too, successfully, you get out there and hustle and watch the time, be on time the first time because sometimes you might have to plant that crop over; you don't know. If you can't be on time—you must use your time, a heap of times, when God gives it to you. God's a man, you can't start His time, you can't stop it. Some folks don't use the time God gives em; that's why they're liable to come up defeated.

You done got that land broke and prepared. Your last preparin before your plantin come along is this: you take a middle-bustin plow—that land broke, in good shape—that's a plow that carries two wings, throwin dirt each way, makes you a nice bed. Take your middle-bustin plow and go over your land and lay it off. Whatever width you want your rows, if you a plow hand and knowin what to do about it, you can make your cotton rows three and a half—that's the average cotton row—three and a half foot wide. And it's owin to the land; if it's rich land you better not crowd it up there too close. Rich land, well-prepared land, sure-enough good land, better
not lay your rows down under four foot, four-foot rows; if it's thin land you can close them rows down to three foot. Rich land, grows a big weed, you usin a whole lot of fertilize, that'll make that cotton get up and get.

You a mule farmer, runnin plows, walkin behind em and doin your own plowin, if you make a big crop or a little crop, you have everything set by April to get your seed in the ground. You can go ahead and plant your cotton first if you want to; you can plant your corn first. As a rule, if a man is fitted up for farmin, he's got a good cotton-seed planter. I've owned two different kinds of planters. I've owned what they call a rake planter and I've owned what was a one-armed planter, one arm just worked off the side of the seed box droppin the seeds. But this rake planter has two arms to it and a box that'd hold a pailful of seed to start off. You don't have to put down many seeds to a row to get a stand if the weather's suitable. And it'd just drop them seeds right along regular, them two arms runnin.

I'd always run my planter myself—any particular job you want to get a decent stand you put a careful hand at it—and one of my boys maybe, if he was big enough to work at it, he'd take a spring-toothed harrow—it's a tool that you walk behind just like a plow stock and it carries a whole line of teeth, one mule pullin it; it aint no trouble for one mule to pull. You can catch hold to it and lay them teeth clean back on each side so it sits in the shape of a V; and everything them teeth catches on that bed it'll shed off like a comb. I've seed people take a old heavy slab of oak and bore a auger hole through it and drive a heel-bolt in there and put it on a scooter plow stock to use in place of a harrow. If it's smooth land that slab will drag the bed off level.

That planter, rake planter or some other grade of planter, hitch a mule to it right behind your harrow. That rake planter has a spoon bout as wide as my two fingers that runs into the ground just ahead of them seeds and them seeds feedin out right behind that spoon. Don't just go out there in that field with that planter and let it wiggle and woggle every sort of way. If you do, your stuff aint goin to come up to no sort of line. Notice your business, know how to go at it—I always tried to grow straight lines of crops and if I didn't succeed it was just because I put the wrong boy to handle the plantin if I didn't care to do it myself. Plant all over your field, plowin with a pair of mules, one knockin off the bed and one pullin
the planter, plant ten acres in two days or less—if you get out there and work and go on time.