All God's Dangers (26 page)

That was boll weevil time, the boll weevil was in circulation. He had just come in a year or two before then—these white folks down here told the colored people if you don't pick them cotton squares off the ground and destroy them boll weevils, we'll quit furnishin you. Told em that—puttin the blame on the colored man for the boll weevil comin in this country. Well, that was a shame. Couldn't nobody pay on his debts when the weevil et up his crop. The boll weevil cut in my cotton to a certain extent, but at that time it was mainly the low price that injured my chances. If I had got the price, I could have paid a heap more on my debts although I was makin less cotton.

I was runnin two plows—myself and my brother-in-law, little Waldo Ramsey, my wife's brother. But when cotton fell to the bottom both our crops combined couldn't pay what I owed. I did manage to pay Mr. Black thirty dollars; owed him a hundred and thirty dollars and I paid him thirty and that hundred runned over for five years before I could pay it.

T
HAT
first year I moved on the Bannister place, Mr. Reeve died—died that fall, while I was gatherin my crop. What did Miss Hattie Lu do when he died? She come to me and told me, “Nate, Mr. Reeve's gone now; he aint with us no more. We want to arrange to get in all of his estate, get it all together.”

I agreed with her.

She said, “Now what you owed Mr. Reeve”—I couldn't pay him on account of cotton goin down, and then too that was my first year on that rocky place, my crop weren't quite what it had been; boll weevil seed to that also—“and whoever else owes him, like you do”—everybody doin business with the man owed him, you know—
“we will, if it suits you, name somebody to take up your debt with Mr. Reeve.”

And she named Mr. Tucker as the man to take up my debt, at ninety percent on the dollar. They knocked off ten percent to get Mr. Reeve's business closed in. Miss Hattie Lu told me, “Nate, Cousin Lemuel Tucker”—Miss Hattie Lu and Mr. Tucker was cousins someway—“he'll take up your debt, what you owe Mr. Reeve. And you only entitled to pay Cousin Lemuel ninety cents on the dollar. That ten cents, we knocked it off, that's our laws. You just pay ninety cents on the dollar to Mr. Reeve's estate; pay it to Cousin Lemuel, he taken up your debt.”

I didn't know nothin against Mr. Tucker to make me contrary to the idea, so I told her, “Let him take it up.” But the amount that I owed Mr. Reeve, I couldn't pay Mr. Tucker nothin on it that year. And I had that guano debt besides. Mr. Reeve transacted his business like this: he'd furnish you money to buy groceries and anything else you needed except fertilize; he wouldn't give you a penny for fertilize. You could buy fertilize from whoever you pleased but you had to arrange to pay the dealer out of your crop. I got along well under Mr. Reeve's system as long as cotton was bringin anything. But when cotton fell, that's when the trouble come.

So Miss Hattie Lu consulted with Mr. Tucker and he took my debt over. And he come down to my house on the creek one day, told me, “Nate, I took over your debt and paid Miss Hattie Lu the money you owed her dear husband's estate. I settled your account in full. Now you just pay me what you owed Mr. Reeve.”

I said, “Mr. Tucker, you didn't have to pay the whole debt, you only had to pay ninety percent on the balance. The knock-off wasn't given to you.”

He jumped up when I told him that. “Did she tell you that? She's mighty darn smart to tell you all that.”

Right there was where I caught him. Miss Hattie Lu had put me in the light.

He said, “The thing for you to do is pay me what you owed Mr. Reeve.”

She told me to pay ninety cents on the dollar and he wanted the whole thing, what he didn't have to pay.

I said, “Mr. Tucker, she told me that ten cents weren't given to you; it's their loss, just their loss. Yes sir, she told me in a
straight way; I'm entitled to pay you only ninety cents on the dollar and the dime goes loose.”

He said, “The thing for you to do is pay me what you owed Mr. Reeve; that's the thing for you to do.”

I said, “Do you think it's right to charge me for somethin you didn't have to pay?”

He said nothin. But I had no political pull; that was my flaw. I said, “All right, Mr. Tucker, go ahead. I'll see you later.”

Well, he took up Mr. Reeve's debt and made himself ten cents on the other man's dollar. I had the brains to see how that transaction was runnin over me, but I had no voice on account of my color—and never had any with most men, only had a voice with some.

I had bargained to buy the old place, the Bannister place, but I got so deep in debt by Tucker takin up what I owed Mr. Reeve at his death, havin to reach back and pay off the whole claim—I couldn't make the payments on the place and it fell back into Mr. Tucker's hands. I stayed on there, rentin, and Mr. Tucker kept the title to the place.

That barn I built on the premises, it didn't cost him a penny, not one penny. I put four stables to the barn. In fact of the business, the old barn was there but at the present time that I took a hold of the place, there wasn't but two stables in it. And I went ahead and tore the old barn out practically, braced it and sturdied it up and took out the old log supports—it was a old log barn—and built it up in a frame way. I bought lumber to make the change and when I quit workin on the barn I had four good stables when there weren't but two when I started. My brother helped me some but mostly I done it by myself, and well done it too. I nailed two by fours to the upright logs, braced em, then sawed out doors and even covered that barn. In other words, I rebuilt that barn to meet my standards. I had went in the name of buyin the property so the expenses come on me—he didn't allow me nothin on improvements. And when I become so deep I couldn't buy the place, he inherited my labor in that barn.

I had just bought a horse at that time and I had that pair of mules and I prepared that barn to hold all them stock. Every place I wanted a stable I cut out and done it with planks—them old logs
been decayed. And when I wound up I had four stables, needed em. Mr. Reeve furnished me money to build that barn and Mr. Tucker got that out of me on top of the barn.

So I decided, I was owin Tucker, I didn't know really what I was goin to do, at one time it struck my mind to just sell what I had and pay Tucker up. And I took a notion I'd sell my Mattie mule—everybody wanted her and I had another mule and a horse at that time. But Tucker had done mortgaged that mule and all of my personal property at that time and all the property of all his hands; he runned us up all together on a joint note. So I let Mr. Tucker know that I was intendin to sell that mule. I didn't mean to take just any kind of deal for her. She was one of the lightest mules, in weight, that I ever owned but she weighed right at a thousand pounds. She was a thoroughgoin mule, just right for a plow mule, single or double. And when it come around to sellin her, I hung up, of course, to an extent.

Tucker wanted to sell the mule hisself, claimed he had a right to sell her on account of that mortgage he held. So he brought a white man to my house one day to look at the mule. I led em out to the pasture—didn't know the white man on sight. Drove the mule up, let him look at her. We was out there in the pasture at the edge of a big pine thicket, big enough pines to saw for lumber. White man looked the mule over. I didn't say a word. When he asked about the mule he asked just like he was askin Tucker—but I done the answerin.

He said, “Well, she's a nice mule all right, but she's too light for what I want her for.”

He'd done asked what I'd take for the mule, had I made up my mind if I was goin to sell her and what did I want for her. Well, I gived a hundred and eighty-five dollars and then done broke her and she become quiet. My wife just thought the world of that mule and she named her Mattie.

“Take two hundred dollars to move her.”

He looked and he looked; he decided she was too light for that much money—and she was just as pretty as a peeled onion.

They begin to walk away, him and Tucker, after he made his excuse. Tucker didn't care—I knowed his theory—he didn't want to see the man turn the mule down, just so it didn't undercut
his
price. I knowed he had a opinion of it but his opinion was too light. So as they started walkin off I just throwed it into em like this: “Well, you think she's too light for you?”

“Yes, too light for that much money.”

I'd a raised the devil if Tucker had went on and tried to sell that mule to him anyhow, cut my price. I said, “You needn't go on off over the hill somewhere and come back, it won't do you no good. It'll take two hundred dollars to move her; I won't take a penny less. If you don't want her, just go on, don't come back.”

That white man never did come back. He went on out of there, Mr. Tucker tellin him, “Uh-uh-uh-uh, O yes, that's a dandy good mule, worth all of two hundred dollars.”

M
R
. T
UCKER
had a special place he sent his hands to trade; weren't his store, just some of his friend people there in Apafalya that sold groceries. All the hands that Tucker had out in the country here, right in between Two Forks and Pottstown—some of these people was on
his
places and some of em was on places he had rented for em. He'd rent places from other white men and sub-rent em to his niggers or let em work on halves, and he stood for em.

Weren't no use to kick against his orders, we, all of us on his places, was forced to trade where he sent us. I don't mean that he'd drive a man like a dog or a hog, but if the poor fellow wanted a home and he fit him up, that man traded where he was sent. It was just a way of controllin the nigger, his money and hisself. Sometime a colored man would kick against the proposition but very seldom.

Prices weren't no higher at the store he'd send us than the average other places in town. But, you understand, this was a friend to him, he goes in there and gives him all of his trade, makes arrangements with him for his hands to come there and get groceries, monthly or anytime they wanted em. And he'd go to the bank, draw money—he had every bit of our stuff mortgaged by his own rulins; he knowed what all we had and mortgaged it to stand a security for the money he was gettin. And he'd take that mortgage money and traipse around the stores—kept a doin that every year. That's how he'd run his business. We'd trade where he told us to trade and he'd pay it up once a month with the money he got from mortgagin our stuff.

But there weren't no great sight of groceries got at a store by me because at that time I raised my meat and lard, corn, vegetables—we was a family of people that all we bought at the store was coffee, flour, sugar, salt. So it weren't no burden on me to trade at Tucker's choice of a store because I didn't trade much.

I'
D
be askin all along for five long years and every fall I'd come up just a little deeper—1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918—I'd go to Mr. Tucker for a settlement and he'd tell me, “Well, you lackin so much and so much of comin out—” For five long years I was fallin behind dealin with that man. Up until the fifth year I dropped into town to pay him: “Well, what are you holdin against me now, Mr. Tucker?”

“You owe me five hundred dollars, Nate.”

Done got all of my crops for five years and I still owed him five hundred dollars. That was his tune. Five hundred dollars and one penny. I labored under that debt—I'm tellin what God's pleased with—lingered five long years and he was gettin every string I had to give.

So, the fifth year I lived with him, he left his plantations up here and went down below Montgomery to boss a big farm business for some rich folks. And he traveled back up here every week to see what his men was doin. Get on his car and get out from down there and come up here every weekend. In them days he didn't have nothin but a little old Ford car—hadn't got up to buyin Chevrolets, Buicks, and so on. He come up here every weekend on that little old Ford; lookin around, seein how we was gettin along, men that he was standin for—me, Wilson Rowe, Leroy Roberts, Silas Todd. Come to see if we had anything he could get any money out of.

He was travelin around amongst his hands one day in the fall and he come to my house. He had already told me I owed him five hundred dollars and one cent. So he come down there one evenin in the mist and rain. He lived out here in the piney woods between Pottstown and Apafalya and I lived back close to Sitimachas Creek, somethin like two miles from him. And I was in the house with my family when he come.

I had done ginned and baled and hauled back home and throwed in the yard three bales of cotton. He come up there and he seed that. Whoooooo—he had a knack of scratchin his leg and spittin when he talked; that was his way of doin. So he come in my
house and he got to scratchin his leg and cryin bout how he needed money: “Uh-uh-uh-uh, by George, Nate, I see you got three bales of cotton in the yard and I'm up here for some money, I need it for my business affairs. And I see you got this cotton ginned off and layin out here.”

I said, “Yes sir.”

“Uh-uh-uh-uh, by George, I'm just in bad shape for money, I can't tell you how bad I need it. Load your cotton up and bring it out to Apafalya and sell it and get me up some money.”

I loaded that cotton, went on out there that evenin and sold it. Well, many people say it, “A good thing follows a bad one, a bad thing follows a good one.” Any trap set somewhere goin to break loose after a while.

Well, the government had done jumped back into the cotton business at that time— I knowed I owed him, I just loaded up them three bales of cotton. My little boys was big enough to push some so I set skids alongside the wagon and rolled them three bales up there on the flat-body, hitched my mules to the wagon and pulled it into Apafalya. Them three bales of cotton knocked the bark off the whole tree: I collected, I got a check for five hundred and sixty dollars out of them three bales of cotton—if I'm not tellin the truth, I'm the biggest liar ever spoke. Cotton was up around forty cents or a little better—that was in wartime; hit the war and cotton brought a little over forty cents a pound. Five years before that, I moved onto the Tucker place and made my first crop, cotton was down to five cents. Now it was bringin forty on account of that war.