All God's Dangers (48 page)

I gived Mr. Claude Wilcox there in Pottstown five dollars for a full-blooded Dew Rock Jersey hog, young shoat. And I taken him home and reserved him—I bought him for a stock hog, put him amongst my other hogs and raised em up; he was the father to several litters of pigs—and when I bought the shoat, I didn't keep him many days until he got out. One mornin I went to the pen to feed my hogs and that shoat was out and gone. I couldn't imagine to save my life where he had got to and I hated it. Well, I tracked that hog down through the field and hit the pasture, north from the barn and the hog lot, then I couldn't track him no more. Well, I wandered on my way across the pasture lookin for him—I didn't see him, and by that time I had got over towards the back end of the pasture where I could see the other field between the woods and the creek. I looked and I looked and I looked, stood there that mornin and I looked, wonderin where he was and how he was. I went on in the direction of the field between Sitimachas and the pasture and I looked. And as God would have it, I kept a lookin and after a while, way down, straight across that field toward the creek, I discovered the little red devil. He was just trottin right regular—dip-dip-dip-dip-dip-dip-dip-dip—just like a little old pig or hog would do, comin right straight back toward the house. I thought to myself, ‘Uh-huh, you comin back the same way you went.' And that's what he was doin, too. I hurried up and got away from where I was standin—I figured that he was goin to stay on his track, trackin hisself back. A animal is a curious thing, you can take a animal the darkest night that ever was—I've tested that about road mules—you take a cow or hog or mule, if he roams off the darkest night that was and stays off, let him crook his route or however he may go, he knows direct the way back; if he comes back he comes right by the way he went; comes back by the scent, he knows.

I decided that shoat was comin right straight back, so I stood and watched him until he got as close to me as forty yards and I just eased off from where I was straight on off of his route. I didn't never let him know I seed him neither. And he went just as straight back to that hog pen as he could go and me lookin at him.

Then I made other arrangements about keepin him. I didn't know, when I found him out and gone, if I'd ever see him again. But I hunted him until I laid my eyes on him and I watched him run his course back eventually to the hog lot. Then I confined him. I made a fool out of that hog, too. It's easy to make a hog, the fool
hog lose his mind about you, he'll follow you to the jumpin off place and attempt to jump in behind you, if you was to jump off. I was so afraid that hog would get away. I had other hogs and I hoped he would stay around there on account of them but I didn't put confidence in that only.

I doped that hog with my urine. I went and I fed that hog and I sprinkled lightly—I didn't know if my urine would set altogether with him or not, but I knowed a little wouldn't hurt him. I gived him slops to eat, drink, sprinkled my urine on it; if that didn't get him, glory! It sure tamed him. I fooled with that hog just enough that way and that hog, I couldn't keep him out from under my feet. I wouldn't keep the hog up and confine him very long, I wanted him to have a outlet and a plenty to eat so he'd grow, because I was intendin to make a stock hog out of him and did do it. I commenced feedin him on my urine and in a day or two, two or three days I turned him out. Doggone it, I ruined that shoat. I don't care where I was, if he seed me he comin to me, around the house or in the field—if I was
in
the house, anybody drove up called me, if that shoat was anywhere about the house where he could see me, when I hit the ground off of them steps, here he come. I'd go on maybe to that fellow who called my attention, start talkin with him, up come that pig, crawl in there between my legs, bump me and lay down—and me standin there talkin with that person. Well, people commenced a noticin it: “Say, Nate, how come that hog walk up to you, just lay down and go to sleep right there between your legs? How come it?”

I'd say, “He's a pet, just a pet pig. He got a mind like a dog.”

Well, I got tired of that. And that shoat got up some size and I put him in the pen then with them hogs on the swamp. I kept two or three hogs down there—he didn't like goin off with em, but he couldn't help it. I had to stop him from runnin up between my legs like he done—people took to noticin it, wanted to know how come it. I never did tell em definitely how I created him that way.

I raised my own honey when I was livin on the Pollard place. I had several stands of bees settin out in the open, down on the south side of the barn close to my fattenin hog's pen and my main hog lot. Mostly these bees I had was this Italian bee, big yellow bee. I also had these little old black bees, call him the swamp bee. He's a
smarter bee than a Italian bee: if you watch, in robbin em, you gets more honey—all of em starts workin at the same time, but a black bee will fill up quicker than a Italian bee. But the black bee is smart to sting you too if you don't handle em right or if you scared of em. They'll cover you more so than a Italian. Italian bee is a quieter bee than a black bee, swamp bee; that's a ill little devil.

I raised my honey for home purposes. My daddy used to raise em and I caught on to how he done it. He kept his bees in the peach orchard when I was growin up on the old Todd place down on Sitimachas Creek. Had some good trees in that orchard; weren't none of his trees bought trees and set out, but it was old-fashioned fruit and he had a big orchard. And he had his hog pen where he fattened his hogs down in that orchard too. And one day—there was a apple tree at that hog pen that bore real apples; that tree loaded up every year. And we children would slip over there and pull them apples, sometimes against my daddy's orders. And them bees was down there in that peach orchard just below that hog pen. That main apple tree and that peach orchard stood right close to the pen, on the east side of it. My daddy's bee groves—we'd go down there at that apple tree and sometime them bees was operatin so close to it until we'd have to be shy around there to keep from gettin stung. Well, my brother Peter, only brother I got in the world, whole brother, one day me and him went down there pullin apples off that tree. And two or three of them bees got on us. Peter took off down through that orchard, just a runnin and a jumpin and a hollerin, “Ahhy-ahhy-ahhy-ahhy-ahhy,” and fell down—I laughed—and his nose and face plowed into the dirt. I laughed about that a long time. But I was cautioned there about handlin myself around bees. I married, and I never did take a interest in a bee, raisin and havin em myself, until I lived on the Pollard place.

I worked them bees several years and they got to stingin my stock and all—I kept my fattenin hogs under a big tree, close enough for that tree to cast a shade over them and my bees. My stock couldn't get right up to the bees but got to where some of em would sit right close to the wire fence, and that'd be sufficient to flustrate the bees. After a while I seed em take off runnin—bees got on em. And just before I went to prison, just a year before, I quit foolin with bees. They was aggravatin my stock and they'd aggravate you if you messed up too close to em.

I was a milk peddler; drove to Calusa once a week, every week with milk, butter—nice homemade butter; sometimes syrup, eggs, carried em around amongst the people to their houses and sold em. Done that several years. Sometimes they'd be standin out there lookin for me. They come to expect me and I was a regular supplier—chickens, eggs, milk, butter, syrup; vegetables, too. I raised a fruit crop and a vegetable crop and usually I'd raise a over-production. I'd give my neighbors some and reserve a little to sell. Winter, I'd load up stove wood, cut, cured, and dried, put them cotton bodies on my wagon, fill them bodies up, carry my load to Calusa, sell it in person. I never did love a sellin job but I could get somethin out of it and it weren't takin away from my family, so I done it.

I was a
cotton
farmer; I was lookin for my money to come out of that cotton. I was as much able, as far as my physical health, to raise a
little
cotton as a big farmer was to raise a heap. And I got stout as a consequence of my labor. I was always pretty prosperous for this country and for the kind of work I done. I went on to the Pollard place with plenty that was paid for when I moved there, and I thought I was buyin my own land, at last.

I
F
I could have made a livin raisin vegetables and corn crops, watermelons and such as that, I'd a let cotton alone. But I just couldn't realize it. I tried to sell watermelons after I started rentin, livin on Miss Hattie Lu Reeve's place. I carried several loads out for sale, carried one load to Apafalya—couldn't get enough out of it to pay me for my trouble. I'd a been better off settin down makin a basket. It was too weak a way to travel and everybody sellin watermelons. And they had a little rule—the white people cut the colored people clean out of sellin fruits and vegetables. Colored man could get shed of his stuff but who would get the benefit of it? Nice beans in the spring of the year, tomatoes and many different articles; he'd go to sell it and they'd offer him a low price, too low to make a profit. They'd buy from the white man, at these markets, and give him just a little more for his stuff, no great big price but just enough to take him in and cut the colored man out.

I have got a little money out of big crops of peas, old unknown peas, speckled peas; I never did raise no white crowder peas enough
to do no good but for home use. But unknown peas, speckled peas, and a pea they call a iron pea, that was the heaviest weight pea ever I used. A few of them iron peas would outweigh a pile of any other kind of pea. It was a small pea and it weren't a pea for human use—a stock pea, strictly. And I have raised and sold several bushels of them peas for a white man that runned a store in Apafalya.

Dropped them peas between the corn in spring, and the last furrows around that corn covered them peas. Go out there and drop a gang of peas of a mornin and had to go right on and plow around that much corn that the peas was dropped in before I done anything else to keep the partridges from pickin them peas out. A drove of partridges will follow a row and eat up every pea. I'd go out a heap of times before breakfast, get in a hurry, carry my sack of peas out and drop them peas to a certain distance and mark my place with a sign, how far my peas went, on the last row. Go back to the barn and catch my mule out and get in that field and get busy runnin that last furrow around that corn to cover them peas before the birds got to travelin too much. Cover my peas, and I've made peas on top of peas. They'd stand right there in that corn and make, grow. Sometimes the vines would get so rank in there before that corn was made, until I'd go through pullin fodder off my corn to feed my mules—that eventually run out, this fodder pullin; I'd go and buy me hay to feed my mules on for roughage and let the fodder burn up on the stalk—soon as that corn fodder burnt up, or even if I pulled that fodder, them peas could get sunshine and air. Good God, come fall of the year you have to gather your corn, maybe you just had to gather them peas out of there to keep from runnin over em with your wagon and tearin em up; gather your peas first, then go back and gather your corn. Haul them peas out the field and pile em up in a certain part of the barn house or another outhouse specially built for vegetables and such. Somebody over yonder in the settlement would have a pea thrash; get him to come there and bring that pea thrash on his truck or wagon and set it down. Take them peas up by the basketful, tote em out of that house, that man there throw em up on his pea thrash and thrash them peas out. And under that pea thrash where they come out, put a trough to catch em. Thrash the last pea I had in there and when he'd get done I'd have anywhere from fifteen to twenty, twenty-five to thirty bushels of peas. That man had nothin to do but move his thrash out and load it, leave me with my peas. He'd take peas for his toll,
take peas. Set my peas in sacks, back in the house them peas went. Time come that I could get em out, I'd carry em to Mr. Earl Hollander in Apafalya. He'd buy the last one of em, pay anywhere from two to three dollars a bushel. And there's not much expense to growin peas, you don't have to work em—unknown peas, speckled peas, iron peas. Them unknown peas and iron peas would make your peas. Now speckled peas would do very well but they didn't make as much to the acre as iron peas. Them iron peas was the top peas of all. They was a little old kind of clay-colored pea.

I made ax handles for Mr. Hollander when I was a boy. First pair of shoes I remember gettin, I made ax handles enough and carried em out there to Mr. Earl Hollander in Apafalya and sold em, and I bought me a pair of Sunday shoes, called em Fireside kid-skin shoes. I was about fifteen years old—go to the woods and cut a piece of hickory down, good-sized tree, straight, clear of knots; take it home, split it up, take it to the draw place and draw ax handle lengths with the draw knife—put it in the draw horse, draw it off, and dress it down to a certain size, then set down and take my pocket knife and nicely whittle it off, get it right direct in ax handle shape. Then take me a piece of glass and scrape it down slick and pretty; take a piece of sandpaper and sandpaper it up—ax handle as good as you ever stuck in a ax.