All God's Dangers (19 page)

Mr. Curtis soon got the house done. Just a old plantation style house, built for colored folks, no special care took of how it was built. But it'd keep you out the rain, it'd keep you out the cold; just a old common-built house, board cabin. In them days they weren't buildin no houses for white men. It was a actual fact: the white folks mixin up and one livin on the other one's place, it was quickly becomin a thing of the past in this country. They wanted all colored people on their places and they built the house accordin to the man and because it was a nigger they just put up somethin to take care of him. And the white man would cut his britches off if the nigger fooled around in that house too much. Whenever a white man built a house for a colored man he just run it up right quick like a box. No seal in that house; just box it up with lumber, didn't never box it up with a tin roof. They'd put doors to the house and sometimes they'd stick a glass window in it, but mostly a wood window. Didn't put you behind no painted wood and glass, just built a house for you to move in then go to work.

So, Mr. Curtis built me a cheap house with wood windows and put a chimney to it. We moved in the house—and when we moved in I was ready to go to work with Mr. Curtis on halves, 1907. He put me on the sorriest land he had and he took all the best. Couldn't complain, no complainin come. I was the underdog and as a colored man I taken what he prepared for me and stuck out there with him; went on to the field and went to work. And when I went to work I worked the sorriest land he had—that was the whole proposition. Land so doggone thin—and what was said about the grade of land Mr. Curtis put me on to make a crop? People would laugh and talk: never knowed about or seed a crop growed on that grade of land. They'd say, “God, that land's so poor it won't sprout unknown peas.”

He worked all the land out on front of his plantation. And at
the time I moved there, there wasn't a full one-horse farm cleared up on the side he gived me to work. Some of it was timbered land; some of it was swamp land, disused land.

And he had a brother-in-law, Mr. Calvin Culpepper—Mr. Curtis married a Culpepper woman, Miss Beatrice Culpepper, Mr. Calvin Culpepper's sister, Mr. John Culpepper's children. Single man, Mr. Calvin moved out from up in them hills across Sitimachas when he become of age, down over there this side of Sitimachas with his sister and brother-in-law. Mr. Curtis rented him a small one-horse farm. And he had his own animal to plow—he had a gray mare and a buggy, was all I seed Mr. Calvin Culpepper had. And Miss Beatrice, his sister, washed and ironed and cooked for him, and he lived there that year, and also 1908, in the house. Just before I left there he married Mr. Avery Brown's daughter, Miss Ruth Brown. And I moved from there in the fall of 1908, to Mr. Gus Ames' place, and Mr. Calvin Culpepper remained right on there someways and he worked all the open land that I had worked, same sorry land, workin it with his brother-in-law.

Before I moved away from there I bought Mr. Calvin's buggy. I'd scuffled to save enough off my basketmaking to buy that buggy. And before I moved away from there I had that buggy some—I'd hitch Mr. Curtis's mule to it, the mule I plowed. He called the little old mule Nate. He had two mules, a mare mule and a horse mule, both of em was good mules. Mr. Curtis plowed the mare mule; her name was Clyde. Nate was a horse mule. And Mr. Curtis would tell me, if there was some place I wanted to go, “Nate, you drive the mule you plow.”

So I'd hitch Nate up on Sundays and go visitin, hitch him up and go to church. Practically whenever I went to church, I'd take Nate and hitch him to Mr. Curtis's two-horse wagon, beside of my daddy-in-law's mule, and all of us would get on that wagon and go to church, come back, stop Mr. Curtis's wagon, me and my daddy-in-law would separate the mules and he'd carry his mule home and I'd leave Mr. Curtis's mule and wagon there. But if just me and my wife was goin somewhere, I'd drive Nate alone to the buggy I bought from Mr. Calvin Culpepper.

Moved away from there and I used the buggy right on with the mule I plowed of Mr. Ames, and her name was Sally; she was a young mule, youngest of a pair of mules Mr. Ames had when I moved on his place.

I moved away from Mr. Curtis because I seed I couldn't make nothin on that sorry land he gived me to work. That was one reason. But Mr. Curtis also done this—and that was a great disconsolation to me. I bought me a cow—I had a little old poor yearlin, bull yearlin, I paid for workin for Mr. Jack Knowland in 1904. I worked hard for the man—of course, Mr. Knowland didn't give me no hard time but it just meant
work
as I was hired to him. I tried my best to please him and nothin ever come between me and Mr. Knowland. So, my daddy come over there one day—and Mr. Knowland was a cow man. He was pickin up good cows, sorry cows, and all kinds nearly. And he had a heifer yearlin there, a Jersey heifer yearlin. My daddy wanted to buy a cow and Mr. Knowland sold him that heifer
and
her calf—Jersey heifer, crumple horn. He charged my daddy sixteen dollars and a half for the both of em. I worked there and paid for em; my daddy took the cow and her calf and carried em home. My daddy kept that cow and made a good cow out of her—she was a good-blooded heifer, Jersey milk type.

So, 1904, Mr. Knowland sold the heifer and her yearlin to my daddy; my daddy had me hired to Mr. Knowland by the month. 1905, Mr. Knowland wanted to hire me right on, my daddy wouldn't let me work for him, took me back home under his administration. I worked there, had tribulations and trials with my daddy that year but I stuck there. 1906, he hired me to Mr. Jim Barbour in Apafalya and just before he done that, he gived that cow to Mr. Barbour on a debt—at forty-five dollars on the debt. And kept that calf until the time I went off to Stillwell and got me a job at the sawmill and begin to come home with money in my pocket and he standin there with his hands open, ready for it, all he could get of it. And he told me one Saturday night when I come in off my job, “Son, I owe Mr. Roy Bacon in Apafalya—” givin him money and he wanted me to trace around and pay off his debts for him—“I owe Mr. Roy Bacon in Apafalya—” that's where he traded, at Mr. Roy Bacon's a whole lot and at Mr. Richard Tucker's, them was his two main places to trade. So, I was comin backwards and forwards every other week, givin him money; told me one Saturday night, “Son, I owe Mr. Roy Bacon in Apafalya five dollars and sixty cents and if you'll pay the debt for me, I'll give you Dolly's calf.”

1906, and he'd paid Mr. Knowland for the cow and her calf both with my labor in 1904. I thought, when he done it—I didn't
have no better sense than to think it—as close as I was to grown, I'd get a good part of that, maybe I might stand a chance to get the cow. Shit! Get nothin. Gived the cow to Mr. Jim Barbour on his debt. He still had that bull yearlin there but he hadn't growed worth a damn hardly. It was the heifer's first calf and as a rule, unless they're mighty well treated, a heifer's first calf don't grow good—knotty and small. If you just leave off a little of that care for your animal, he aint goin to prosper. That's what my daddy done. Didn't pay no attention to that calf, but he made a nice cow out of that cow. But he gived that cow away on his debt—that put the cow gone, out the way. He kept the little old bull yearlin there but he never did grow good; he never would amount to nothin.

That Monday mornin when I went to Apafalya to catch the train for Stillwell, first thing I done—I thought that was a dickens of a deal but I went right on just like I was due to do—paid my daddy's debt for five dollars and sixty cents. And in the end of the deal he gived me the yearlin. But I looked at it this way: done paid Mr. Knowland, worked hard and paid him for the cow and calf both and my daddy done sold the cow and I had to pay for the calf again. Calf weren't worth a bit more than what I paid neither.

Well, I took the calf when I married and carried her on to Mr. Curtis's place. I kept the calf a few months in Mr. Curtis's pasture—he let me pasture the calf. One day, in the fall of the year, I traded the yearlin—he done picked up but still he weren't nothin but a little knot—traded him to Mr. Carl Fagan for a nice heifer and she was with calf, 1907. Mr. Fagan lived at that time just about a mile west of Pottstown; he was a farmin man. I put a rope on that yearlin, not valuin the yearlin at all, and drove him over there. Mr. Fagan looked at him and told me he'd trade with me. I give him twelve dollars and a half, to boot, between that bull calf and that heifer. I'd call that reasonable. Taken that heifer home and in a few months she come in.

I made somethin out of that heifer, I improved her by takin care of her. She made me a milk cow that everybody that seed her wanted her if they had any use for a cow at all. Now I aint goin to lie: she was a mischievous heifer, she'd get out and ramble. She got out one day in Mr. Curtis's cotton—had his cotton growin right there close to his house and barn. She got out in his cotton and he was fractious as the devil. He runned out there and commenced
chunkin rocks at the cow and he hit her on the bone of one of her front legs and he broke her down practically. The cow limped and hopped several weeks after that.

He told me, “Nate, I hated to do it, but through a mistake I throwed and hit her with a rock.”

Well, the rock cut her hide and left a print. She hopped, she limped—I doctored her and eventually she got over it. 1908, I moved to Mr. Gus Ames', I carried that cow—that calf she had, I sold it; it was a bull calf, had no use for a bull calf at that present time.

I didn't make two good bales of cotton the first year I stayed with Mr. Curtis. Sorry land, scarce fertilize, Mr. Curtis not puttin out, riskin much on me and I a workin little old fool, too. I knowed how to plow—catch the mule out the lot, white man's mule, bridle him, go out there and set my plow the way I wanted—I knowed how to do it. Bout a bale and a half was what I made.

The second year he went out there and rented some piney wood land from Mr. Lemuel Tucker, sixteen acres bout a half mile from his plantation and he put me on it. Well, it was kind of thin but it was a king over Mr. Curtis's land. I worked it all in cotton; what little corn I had I planted on Mr. Curtis's place. Well, I made six pretty good bales of cotton out there for Mr. Curtis and myself. When I got done gatherin, wound up, by havin to buy a little stuff from Mr. Curtis at the start, in 1907—it sort of pulled the blinds over my eyes. It took all them six bales of cotton to pay Mr. Curtis. In the place of prosperin I was on a standstill. Second year I was married it took all I made on Mr. Tucker's place, by Mr. Curtis havin rented it from Mr. Tucker for me, to pay up 1908's debts and also 1907's debts—as I say, by me buyin a right smart to start me off to housekeepin, cleaned me. I had not a dollar left out of the cotton. And also, Mr. Curtis come in just before I moved off his place—I was determined to pay him and leave him straight; in fact, I reckon I just had to do it because he'd a requested it of me, movin from his place, clean up and leave myself clear of him.

Mr. Curtis had Mr. Buck Thompson to furnish me groceries. Mr. Curtis knowed all of what Mr. Thompson was lettin me have; kept a book on me. See, he was standin for everything Mr. Thompson gived me; he paid Mr. Thompson and I paid him—the deal worked that way—out of my crop. So he made somethin off my grocery bill besides gettin half my crop when the time come.

Took part of my corn to pay him. He come to my crib, him and
Mr. Calvin Culpepper come together to my crib and got my corn, so much of it. And what I had he got the best of it, to finish payin him on top of them six bales of cotton.

Then I moved to Mr. Gus Ames', 1908. Mr. Ames' land was a little better than Mr. Curtis's, but it was poor. Worked his pet land hisself and whatever he made off me, why, that was a bounty for him. I didn't make enough there to help me.

Hannah was dissatisfied at it, too. We talked it over and our talk was this: we knew that we weren't accumulatin nothin, but the farmin affairs was my business, I had to stand up to em as a man. And she didn't worry me bout how we was doin—she knowed it weren't my fault. We was just both dissatisfied. So, we taken it under consideration and went on and she was stickin right with me. She didn't work my heart out in the deal. I wanted to work in a way to please her and satisfy her. She had a book learnin, she was checkin with me at every stand. She was valuable to me and I knowed it. And I was eager to get in a position where I could take care of her and our children better than my daddy taken care of his wives and children.

Mr. Curtis and Mr. Ames both, they'd show me my land I had to work and furnish me—far as fertilize to work that crop, they'd furnish me what
they
wanted to; didn't leave it up to me. That's what hurt—they'd furnish me the amount of fertilize they wanted regardless to what I wanted. I quickly seed, startin off with Mr. Curtis in 1907, it weren't goin to be enough. First year I worked for him and the last year too he didn't allow me to use over twenty-two hundred pounds of guano—it come in two-hundred-pound sacks then—that's all he'd back me up for all the land I worked, cotton and corn. It was enough to start with but not enough to do any more. Really, I oughta been usin twice that amount. Told him, too, but he said, “Well, at the present time and system, Nate, you can't risk too much.”

I knowed I oughta used more fertilize to make a better crop—if you puts nothin in you gets nothin, all the way through. It's nonsense what they gived me—Mr. Curtis and Mr. Ames, too—but I was a poor colored man, young man too, and I had to go by their orders. It wasn't that I was ignorant of what I had to do, just, “Can't take too much risk, can't take too much risk.” Now if you got anything that's profitable to you and you want to keep it and prosper with that thing, whatever it is, however you look for your profit—say it's
a animal; you're due to look for your profit by treatin him right, givin him plenty to eat so he'll grow and look like somethin. Or if you fertilize your crop right, if you go out there and work a row of cotton—that's evidence of proof—I have, in my farmin, missed fertilizin a row and it stayed under, too. Them other rows growed up over it and produced more. If you don't put down the fertilize that crop aint goin to prosper. But you had to do what the white man said, livin here in this country. And if you made enough to pay him, that was all he cared for; just make enough to pay him what you owed him and anything he made over that, why, he was collectin on his risk. In my condition, and the way I see it for everybody, if you don't make enough to have some left you aint done nothin, except givin the other fellow your labor. That crop out there goin to prosper enough for him to get his and get what I owe him; he's makin his profit but he aint goin to let me rise. If he'd treat me right and treat my crop right, I'd make more and he'd get more—and a heap of times he'd get it all! That white man gettin all he lookin for, all he put out in the spring, gettin it all back in the fall. But what am I gettin for my labor? I aint gettin nothin. I learnt that right quick: it's easy to understand if a man will look at it.