All God's Dangers (23 page)

I drove on home in the mist and rain, and by the time I got five miles from my daddy I decided I'd better get my brother Peter to help me some. I was buildin a barn on the old Bannister place that fall—fully intendin to leave Mr. Reeve and had traded with Mr. Lemuel Tucker to rent the old Bannister place; had to rebuild the barn to fit my stock before I moved there. So I didn't quit drivin till I got to my daddy's down on Sitimachas Creek. I pulled in there—my wagon body had tightened up, caught a lot of water in the bed and the water was runnin from the back end to the front end, from the front end to the back end, whichever way the low end of the wagon was—goin down a slant the water come over my feet and when I went up the least grade it flowed to the back end. That brand new wagon body just swelled up and sealed itself and held water like a tub.

And every once in a while that young mule would pick that front wheel up off the ground on her side; she'd smack it so heavy she'd pick it up. That Lu mule, she was steady; she was able and fat, weighed about eleven hundred pounds and this young mule weren't that heavy.

All right. Got down to my daddy's that mornin and stopped in the yard. They mighta heard me when I drove up but they didn't come out until I called a time or two. My daddy come to the door. I was standin up in my new wagon—my feet done got soaked—and I was there after my brother Peter. I called my daddy's attention
and he come to the door and looked out and seed me: standin up in a brand new two-horse wagon, had a pair of pretty mules hitched to it. He didn't know the score, said, “Son, whose team is that?”

I said, “It's mine. My team, my wagon; it's mine.”

O, that shot him; somethin he hadn't expected, no doubt.

I said, “Papa, I'm just out of Apafalya with this young mule of mine and this other mule hitched together. And this Lu mule, this older mule, is helpin me to hold this young mule in. I can't get out the wagon to leave em. It'd be too much trouble for me. I could get out and tie em maybe, but it's too much trouble. I wants to stay with em till I get home. I come down here after Peter to help me a day or two.”

Peter got right ready; he was about twenty-three years old at that time and my daddy was bossin him still, had him workin there like a chap. My daddy taken my labor until I was twenty-one and I got out. Peter was the last boy of my own dear mother's children; my daddy aimed him home and did keep him there, too. So, Peter got in the wagon with me; went on back up the road and kept drivin till I hit back on the Pottstown road and come on in home.

W
HEN
I moved away from the Reeve place I had that team to move with. Spring of the year, 1913, before it come time to make the crop, I moved down on the Tucker place—really, it was known as the old Bannister place but Mr. Tucker had got a hold of it someway—down on Sitimachas Creek. I'd go to Apafalya that spring haulin guano—that young mule by that time had done gived up her fight.

And Mr. Ruel Akers, man that had turned me down from livin on his plantation, gived the Shaws a bad name, he was livin on a place between here and Apafalya, call it Highgate, above Two Forks. His house set right at the fork in the road—one road turns and goes toward Beaufort, the other one goes straight on toward Apafalya. And I was haulin guano with a pair of good mules and they was mine, and also that brand new two-horse wagon. Met Mr. Ruel Akers in the road one day. He looked at me and I just kept a drivin. He looked at me and looked at them mules. When I was well past him I looked back and he was still lookin hard. I said to myself, ‘You see, I tried to get you to help me and you wouldn't do it. Somebody helped me and I made the best of their help.'

Not hardly a year after he seed me drivin that pair of mules to that brand new wagon, haulin guano, his mind sort of changed. Sent me word to come see him, wanted to trade with me. But I had a greater knowledge of the world at that time. My mind told me: when the devil invites you to a party, tell him you won't dance.

W
HEN
I first moved up on Miss Hattie Lu Reeve's place, I carried my corn to Clay's mill to have barrels of meal ground. Drivin that one-horse wagon that Mr. Reeve had furnished me the money to buy; good wagon, it wasn't a iron-axle wagon, it was a thimble-skein wagon, built just like the two-horse wagon I eventually traded it in for. I'd leave Mr. Reeve's place and Miss Hattie Lu and go down through Two Forks to the upper end of Highgate and turn there and go right out, in sight of where my brother Peter lives now, drivin way down on Sitimachas Creek to Clay's mill. And I'd be carryin a barrel of corn that I'd shelled myself. And when I come out from the mill, I'd drive right up the road where my daddy was livin at that time. I was a married man but because I was his son I donated him freely. He lived close enough to the mill that when I left the mill with my meal on the wagon in barrels, he could hear my wagon wheels turn and know it was me. I weren't gone from the mill but a few jiffies, about a half a mile from the mill on my route home and I'd drive by my daddy's door. He'd come out to the road and if he didn't have his dishpan in his hand—he'd want that big dishpan full of meal. And he was gettin that off me just like I was a underage chap. Of course, he
asked
for it, and he acted like he appreciated it, and in fact of the business, he needed it to keep up his family. Had a whole bunch of chaps and that woman he had for a wife was my stepmother. And he weren't workin hard enough to support em; needed my help right on.

All right. I'd stop there and give him anywhere from a peck of meal to a half a bushel at a time. I done that. Out of my wagon out the barrels, chunked it to him. And at that time I had three children and my wife, and he was comin out—had done left em way over here on Miss Hattie Lu Reeve's place, taken a circle route to Clay's mill, and he'd meet me out on the road to get meal.

And before he ended up, sometime he'd send TJ, sometime he'd send Bob—ary one of my half-brothers—way on down to my house of a Sunday mornin. “Brother Nate”—they called me “Brother”—
“Papa says send him a half of a forty-eight-pound sack of flour and a half a shoulder of meat.”

Done quit gettin meal now, I didn't go as often. So my daddy would send one of his chaps to my house for flour and meat and I'd give it to him right on. Killin hogs every fall for my family and he knowed I had it. And he kept sendin his chaps—

One Sunday mornin the boys come there and I was away from home—they always come on Sunday mornin; wouldn't but one come at one time, Bob or TJ, his two oldest boys by his third wife, the woman he married after my mother died. Bob or TJ comin down on Miss Reeve's place callin for half a shoulder of meat, half a forty-eight-pound sack of flour—didn't never ask for no ham. So one Sunday mornin I was off on a walk and when I come to the house the boy had been there on his bicycle—and stayed until I come. Hannah had asked him concernin what he come for. He gived her no satisfaction at all; lookin for me, I was their daddy's son. And just usin her like this: ignore her and not tellin her what he wanted. He had to see me. I knowed my daddy was givin him orders not to tell her what he wanted. Just explain the mess to me and don't tell Hannah nothin.

So when I come home the boy was there and Hannah told me—didn't tell me right before him—she asked him what was he wantin and what was he after and he wouldn't tell her nothin. That just flew in my mind: Hannah was my wife and I wouldn't see her slighted noway under God's sun. She'd exacted of him and asked—she didn't worry him to make him talk. She knew by what he said—“I want to see Brother Nate”—what the trouble was. In place of tellin her what he come for he give her a blast of air. I flew hot as the devil—that was my lawful wife and if they couldn't explain their business to her, it appeared to me they just didn't recognize her. He wanted to get some thin on the fly, my daddy did, and jumpin all over my wife to get it. I told her, “From now on out, if they can't tell you what they come here at, let em go.”

My daddy was diggin at me and he didn't want her to know nothin about it. But I considered in my heart and mind that she had just as much right to be told by them what they come there after as I did. That was my wife; she didn't have no crooks in her that they shouldn't recognize her enough to tell her what they was after. I fretted over such treatment as that. She was the same as me—flesh, blood; that woman was a whole person.

O
NE
time my daddy come to see me through the week. No doubt he wanted somethin at that time, but he didn't mention it. I been donatin him just as free as the water run when he come to me. He weren't workin much—my daddy never did labor like a man ought to in the defense of his family; he didn't do it when I was there at home a boy under him. He didn't recognize his affairs and his business enough to keep his family in what they needed. He was pickin at me and I was holdin him up to a great extent. When I was livin with Mr. Curtis he didn't come at me for food and I knowed his family suffered for many things, but old Nate done married out at that time and had a family to support and was only workin on halves with Mr. Curtis. I moved from there down on Mr. Gus Ames' place and my daddy didn't come at me then. But soon as I moved up on Miss Hattie Lu Reeve's place and commenced a climbin up in this world—I was rentin then, had good stock and a brand new wagon—he started his boys at me for half a forty-eight-pound sack of flour and a half a shoulder of meat. They'd tie it to their old bicycles and ride out with it. And the day my daddy come over hisself, one day through the week, I was in the field plowin. And when I come to the house my daddy was there. He didn't mention he wanted anything—if he wanted anything he'd go back home and send them boys, he wouldn't be bothered with it; he'd send them boys on a Sunday and Sunday only.

When I took my mule out the field and got to the house, there was my daddy, one day through the week. We talked a little bit outdoors and my wife announced dinner. I said, “Well, Papa, let's go in and eat dinner.”

I taken my daddy in there and we set down at the table, bathed and got cleaned up and set down to eat dinner. Well, I knowed I couldn't afford and get satisfied at it to set up there and neglect my work—and my daddy woulda done it if I'd a done it. After we et dinner we set up there and went to talkin bout somethin or other; we walked out in the yard and kept a talkin—killin my time and I needed to be in the field. And the words he spoke to me was definitely against my desires. I was a workin man—while we was out there I heard the clock strike for one o'clock—Bam! That attracted my attention. I told my daddy—I was breakin up the conversation, I had to get in the field. I didn't have time to set
around and jaw with him; I knowed who he was, he would stay there all evenin if nobody moved him. I knowed his disposition, how he transacted— Walked out the house after dinner, me and my daddy walkin around the yard, talkin, and I heard that eight-day clock strike one o'clock. I told my daddy, “Well, Papa, I appreciate you comin around, talkin with you, but I got to go to the field now, the hour's come. I got to quit”—lettin him know, strictly—“and get in the field. I don't have time to talk all evenin.”

I knowed I had to move quick; it'd been right down his alley to tie me down talkin. And I didn't have that kind of time to throw off.

I told him, “Uh-oh, Papa, it's my field time, one o'clock. I got to get away from here; I got to get in the field.”

Here's what he said when I told him that—honorable before God; and there's nothin honorable before God but the truth. He raced up to me, “Son, you works too hard.”

That fretted me, them words. Me knowin my duty for my family's sake and wantin to comply with my duty.

“Son, you works too hard.”

I was dutiful to my labor, I had to put it out. I didn't want to come up behind with nothin in my field if I could help it. And he wanted me to stay and talk, give
him
my attention. That stuck him when I told him I had to quit and get in the field, right on.

“Son, you works too hard, you works too hard.”

Not thinkin how I was holdin him up, givin him everything he asked for. How could I satisfy him if I didn't work for what I gived him? I just raised up at him when he spoke them words.

I said, “Papa, I come here to work out. I didn't come in this world to rust out. If I need anything done in my field I ought to be there if time will admit it, on time. I got to work. I'm born to work. I can't sit around and jaw and talk and kill my time with you or nobody else. My hour has come to get in the field.”

My words was gettin through to him. He seed I meant to leave him. It was my duty. I couldn't set up and lose a half a day's time or just as long as a person wanted me to talk with him and it weren't nothin to my gain—it was losin! Fool with somebody that never had done what he ought to done, and I knowed it.