All God's Dangers (49 page)

My daddy put me to makin baskets and he collected and pocketed all the money. But when it come to ax handles, he would let me set down and make ax handles at my leisure, take em out to Mr. Earl Hollander and sell em, at a cheap price, too, ten cents for a handle. One Saturday I carried enough ax handles out there, homemade good handles, and got me a pair of Fireside kid-skin shoes; and I paid for a little old trunk to hold my clothes, off of ax handles.

O
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day I taken Hannah on the car and a pretty good lot of vegetables and we drove down to Tuskegee. I was haulin lumber for Graham-Pike Lumber Company at that time and I notified the boss man at the planin machine and I got off for the day. And we carried down a load of greens—there was a place out in the open and cool, over there at that Normal School, where you could lay out your vegetables to sell. So we went down there one time—well, there was so many crowded out there with vegetables every whichway,
our sale wasn't good. Where there's too many people followin the deal down on the same method you is, somebody aint goin to have success at it, and the biggest majority will fail. Take Lemuel Tucker and his eggs— Well, that was the first time and the last time I tried to sell my vegetables that way. And I have met the time when I had so many vegetables they have gone to waste.

And fruits, ground fruits and tree fruits, many a year I produced more than my family could use and get rid of, nearly. I've raised two different kinds of peaches by my own settin out; raised pecans by my own settin out—on these places I bargained to buy. Didn't plant no fruit trees, nut trees, where I knowed I was goin to rent or work on halves. I had pecan trees on the Pollard place. They was practically young when I left there, but we did get some pecans off them. I set out scions, bought scions, as many as six or eight pecan scions and set em out. And I had on the Pollard place, right there to the northwest side of my car shed, a bought plum tree that was out of the bud; I set
it
out. Raised these great big purple plums, and that tree bore more plums than a little. And I've often thought about it—my boys done away with that plum tree after they was runned off of that place; our labor, our time, our hearts' feelins put out on it. Every year the limbs of that tree would just lean over with plums. That tree growed up high as the house. O, it was a beautiful tree, right to the northwest side of my car shed, two-car shed; had that '26 Ford and that '28 Chevrolet stationed close to that plum tree.

I was climbin up in the world like a boy climbin a tree. And I fell just as easy, too.

I was livin on Mr. Watson's place, buyin from him since he took full control from the Federal Land Bank, and Mr. Grace just went ahead and drifted my business over to Mr. Watson's hands. And in that, I learnt that the banker had a disposition to help this man Watson dig at me. That was in '31. And when Mr. Watson got a little toehold, he told me, “Bring me the cotton this fall, bring me the cotton.”

When he told me that I got disheartened. I didn't want him messin with me—still, I didn't let him take a mortgage on anything
I owned. I was my own man, had been for many years, and God knows I weren't goin to turn the calendar back on myself.

I always sold all of my cotton myself but one year, 1907, the first year I worked for Mr. Curtis; brought him my cotton to sell by his orders. I seen my daddy sell his own cotton; and sometimes the white man would sell it. And if my daddy owed him any money, he had no choice but to let him sell it. Mighty seldom my daddy ever got anything out of a cotton crop. Many times the white man wouldn't tell my daddy nothin bout the price he got for that cotton; weren't no use for him to tell him nothin, weren't no way to dispute him.

I was shy of Mr. Watson, I didn't want no business with him at all. But eventually, he pulled at me so hard I decided I'd trade with him a little. I got about fifteen or twenty bushels of corn from him. How come did I get that corn? Well, my plow horses would eat it, but my mules wouldn't eat no corn at that time; they didn't eat nothin but sweet feed. But my plow stock, regular plow stock, would eat corn. And I fell a little shy of corn that year; didn't need much and I went to Mr. Watson to get it—just givin him enough of my business, I hoped, to keep him off of me. But it didn't do no good. And that corn he let me have, he took it away from somebody else, I knowed that, but I couldn't do nothin about it.

That's all I traded in Mr. Watson's store except for a few things, spring of the year. Startin late up toward July and August I quit goin in there at all; wouldn't go in there for a pinch of salt. I didn't owe him but forty or fifty dollars and I had plenty of cotton to pay all of my debts—and cotton was bringin a low price, too. He had done taken my business over with the Federal Land Bank and I just thought: weren't no use of me cryin, I had enough cotton to pay him what I would have paid the Federal Land Bank and all I owed him at the store, too.

He wanted more than that. Kept trying every year, practically, to get a mortgage on my stuff, but he didn't get it. That poisoned him. Sure as you born, he picked at me all the time. But he couldn't move me. We was on a seesaw and a zigzag, but I just shed him off as best I could by not goin his way. Along them times I wasn't botherin with any of the white people too much because I was makin it on my own. I was buyin guano from whoever I wanted and I wasn't buyin it from him.

So I carried him three good bales of cotton. He was out of his
store and gone when I got there. His clerks was in there but they couldn't tell me nothin, and I didn't particularly ask them. Carried the cotton to the warehouse, had it weighed, left it there in Mr. Watson's name, by Nate Shaw. A few days after that I went back to town to see him about it, see about a settlement for what little I owed him and get my business reconciled. Jumped up and told me—I asked him for a settlement—“Aw, there aint no use of that, Nate, there aint no use of that.” Walked away from me.

I seed if he couldn't do me one way he was goin to do me another. He wouldn't give me no settlement, wouldn't recognize that I'd paid him. He just ignored me and talked his big talk. He read just exactly his pedigrees that I knew and felt in my heart and had heard a whole lot about. Denied me altogether. And that three bales of cotton would have overpaid him, I know; it wouldn't a stopped at no forty- or fifty-dollar debt. It was bringin a price enough, even at five cents—that would have brought over seventy-five dollars. Don't you see? Don't you see? Five hundred-pound-weight bales—I weren't a straight fool, I knowed I paid him more in the cotton than I owed him. Wouldn't go to his book here he had me charged, tell me what the cotton brought definitely, just took the cotton and went on.

B
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in '32 I wound up with all of em. I went on to the government and the government furnished me. The news was out through the settlement—the federal people was in Beaufort puttin out for the farmers.

I told my wife one mornin—I'd made up my mind that I was through with Watson, I was burnt up. And I said, “Darlin, I'm goin to Apafalya this mornin to take care of some business at the depot. And after that, I don't know if it will be today or tomorrow, I fully intend to go to Beaufort to see the federal people.”

I drove my car to town and parked it. He had done meddled me there before about havin a closed Chevrolet car, '28 Chevrolet; done walked up to my car and looked it over, had the assurance to tell me, “I see how come you can't pay your debts—” just doggin at me—“I see how come you can't pay your debts, sittin in a closed model car.”

I said, “Mr. Watson, what have I ever owed you and didn't pay you?”

He said, “You just a fool Negro,” and he walked on off. He had it in for me. He knew I had good stock and I was a good worker and all like that. He just aimed to use his power and break me down; he'd been doin to people that way before then.

All right. That day I drove into town on my Chevrolet and parked it as soon as I got there. I walked on down the street and looked ahead of me and there was Watson standin there with his foot propped against the bank—bank was just below his store and the drugstore was between his store and the bank. Fellow by the name of Mose Todd, was supposed to be a little relation to me—I seed it was him Mr. Watson was standin there talkin to. I walked on by and got a little below em, just in hearin distance, and I stopped to hear their conversation. Mr. Watson considered me to be one of
his
Negroes too, and that gived me good encouragement to stop and sidle around and listen at him. I aint said a word that mornin to nobody. Just held my breath and looked at him and listened. Mose was standin there on the walkway with his head down and it looked like he was tryin to beg Watson to do somethin. I heard Mr. Watson tell Mose Todd, “No, I aint puttin out a dollar this year. I aint puttin out a thing. All of my men has got their own stock, they got their land to work, they got corn enough to feed their stock, and I aint puttin out a dollar. They all in shape to make a crop. And I'm goin to let em go and go ahead; I aint puttin out nothin.”

I thought to myself right quick, ‘You aint goin to put out nothin, how do you expect for em to make it? I know them people needs fertilize if nothin else, and you not puttin out a dollar. That's mighty bad—farmers can't get no furnishin at all out of you. They come to depend on you and now you leavin em to theirselves. I know what you goin to do; you goin to look for what they make this fall. You goin to do it, I know, you goin to look to take it and aint furnished em nothin.'

And just as sure as you born, if he had a claim against em they couldn't transact with nobody else. They was his niggers and he could do with em like he wanted to and nobody else wouldn't fool with em. I figured this, and I might have been a fool to think it, me being a colored fellow and knowin the rules of the state of Alabama, partly, if I didn't know em all: if you furnishes nothin, right and justice should say it's nothin you get. If you don't carry me on and help me, the law ought to take care of me and give me how much
time I need to pay you whatever I owe you. Cotton was down then, too, wavin about at the bottom, five and six cents.

I standin there catchin it, wouldn't say a word. I hadn't even whispered to Mr. Watson, and wouldn't do it, just stood there until I caught all I could catch. And I understood, reasonably, that they was talkin bout Mose's business, and Mose had been one of Watson's customers for years. Now Watson was turnin him away. He just definitely told Mose to his head, right before me—I didn't question him because I had my route picked out. I was aimin to go to Beaufort to see if I could get furnished by the federal government, branch line. I just set out to move my little concerns out of his reach. O, he went down on Mose that mornin; told him what he were goin to do and what he weren't.

I just eventually walked on off and went on to the depot where I'd started to go. Seed after my little matters down there and I turned around and went right straight back up through town. Watson and Mose Todd both, when I looked up the street, was gone. Well, it didn't matter a continental with me where they was gone, I weren't takin hold with him no more for nothin. I had a right to get loose from him and he didn't have no sort of papers against me—that's what I was dotin on. His first step in business with me, he proved he just wanted to wind me up and get a mortgage on every bit of my personal property and take it over with the land, and if I crooked my little finger or wanted to leave, I'd lose everything I had, leave it right there. He woulda had a mortgage on it and I couldn't a moved it. Do you reckon I was goin to be fool enough to stand around and let him do that? I did have a little goat-sense and I was goin to stick him up right when I left him and wind up with him.

So, I kept movin till I got on my car and I come on home. Next day, with the full consent of my mind what to do, I crawled on my car—there was Leroy Roberts, Virgil Jones, and Sam MacFarland wanted to go to Beaufort with me on the same occasion to get in with the federal loan deal. Virgil and Leroy was Watson's niggers too, I know they was. So, me and them three fellows went on to Beaufort that mornin and when we got to Pottstown on route—it was cold that mornin and the boys took a notion they wanted to stop for some smokin tobacco. We stopped there and they disappeared into one of the stores and I walked on in to Mr. Billy Thompson's
store—he sold dry goods there and run a little druggist business too—and I went on around to the back room where the heater was. And Mr. V. Basil, white gentleman, was sittin by the stove crosslegged. The whole community knowed Mr. Basil, coloreds and whites.

I said, “Good mornin, Mr. Basil.”

“Hello, Nate.”

We talked and from one thing to another he put in talkin bout how the times was for furnishin people—the pressure was on. I stood there and warmed, talked with Mr. Basil. He was a man that wore a mustache so long you could almost tie it around the back of his neck, Mr. V. Basil. Stood there and talked with him awhile bout the hard times, men puttin out money on farmers and couldn't get it back, farmers weren't able to pay their debts and he, too, he was goin to quit, he weren't goin to let his farmers have nothin, wouldn't put out nothin. He talked Mr. Watson's talk that mornin—I listened at him.

I said, “Well, Mr. Basil”—in a friendly way—“you a moneyed man, why don't you help the boys this time around? All of em has stuck by their word in the past”—I weren't talkin at him for nothin for myself, I wouldn't fool with him. I said, “Why don't you help the boys? You got plenty of money—” with a smile on my face.

He said, “Hell, yes, Nate. I got plenty damn money. And I got plenty damn sense with it.”

I laughed.

He said, “What kind of fool would a man be— No, I aint goin to keep puttin out my money until they drain me and get the last dollar I have, foolin around here farmin, and I can't get it back. No, I aint goin to do it.”