All God's Dangers (36 page)

He said, “O, yes, she's down there in the barn.”

I said, “Let's go see her.”

He was comin on out from his work anyhow, makin it back toward his house up at the road where I had my mule and one of Hoyt Thompson's mules hitched together that day. I'd carried a load of lumber out to the planer, Saturday evenin, and got to Mr. Walls on time to see what he had in the way of a mule. I knowed I had to buy one.

Went on to the house and turned down to the stable. The mule walked out, big heifer of a mule, and the hair on her tail weren't no longer than a little chap's fingers. She had a barbed tail—she was a big mule and the hair on her tail had been barbed off by her bein in the drove and the young mules catchin and pullin one another by the tails.

I said, “So this is the mule you say will cost me two hundred and fifty.”

“Yes, that's the only price will get her, Nate. I wouldn't take less than that.”

I said, “Well, put a halter on her. I want her.”

“You just goin to buy her anyhow!”

I said, “You say you'll take two hundred and fifty dollars for her. You don't want to sell her but you'll take two hundred and fifty for her.” I knowed what good stock was. “Put a halter on her.”

He said, “Catch the mule there, son”—speakin to Noah Root's boy—“and put a rope in her halter.”

Took her out to where I had my other mule and Mr. Hoyt Thompson's mule, standin out there in Mr. Walls' grove with the traces around em, the lines tied back to the couplin pole so they couldn't go nowhere.

I said, “Well, come on up to the bank, Mr. Walls, and get your money.”

I tied a long rope to the halter of that barbed-tail mule and tied the other end to the back of my wagon and led her away from there. Mr. Walls come up to the bank by and by and got his money.

I delivered Mr. Thompson's mule to Mr. Fred Touchett, white gentleman that was sawin for Mr. Thompson. And I cleaned out my stable where I had kept that Mattie mule until she died. Named the new mule Dela and Dela was a big mule beside my other mules
I'd had. In fact of the business, she was enough mule to overbear that Calley mule. Rocked along and in a few days I worked Calley and Dela together. Dela was so much heavier than Calley was—and I had lumbered Calley and Mattie together several years and they made it nice, gaited together. But Dela overbet that Calley mule. She was younger, she was heavier—the way she'd reach out and step with her head up, she just overbet Calley too quick. I seed Calley wouldn't gait with her. So I went back to Mr. Duncan Walls that fall and I gived Calley and one of my horses for a black mule named Mary. Right there I matched Dela to a T. Hitched them pretty mules to my wagon, the fools run away with me before I got home.

I raised Davey—that was my sister's son, twelve years old when she died and I took the boy. My sister Sadie, my own dear blood sister. My mother was the mother of both we children. When Sadie died she left three little boy children—Davey, Tommy, and Henry. She had them chaps by her first husband. And when he died, the father of them children, she married a fellow up there at Litabixee and he was noted, more people noted than one, he was a drag-behind fellow, slow, messin with whiskey along through his days. And he got her in a family way and he half-treated her. So she gived birth to a baby and it left her in bad shape. And he didn't take care of her. And the baby died. And in a few days after the baby died, she died.

I was livin on Tucker's place at that time, hadn't moved from there, and my brother Peter come over to my house one day and told me, “Brother, the only sister we got is dead. Sadie's dead. I was notified about it and I come to let you know.”

I just got in a hurry and took that mule out of the field, went on to the house, me and him—bout three quarters of a mile to the house. I was down on Sitimachas Creek plowin on the bottoms. I took that mule out and carried her on to the house with my brother and put her up to feed while I was dressin, gettin ready to travel. When I got ready I caught that mule out and hitched her to the buggy and me and my brother went on to his house and gived him a chance to fix hisself up. And when we drove into Litabixee that
evenin it was a little after sundown. And this husband of her'n weren't there, he weren't at home. There was a old lady stayin there with my dead sister—he didn't carry her to no undertaker or nothin like that.

We drove in there and two of my big uncles—one of em was heavier than I was and the other was still a big man, heavy-built—I had notified them and they got on their buggies, them and their wives, Uncle Grant Culver and his wife got on their buggy, Uncle Jim Culver and his wife got on their buggy, and all went up to Litabixee with me and my brother Peter. My sister's own dear uncles just like they was my and Peter's uncles.

All of em was quiet men. We assembled around there, but this here husband of her'n weren't there. That old lady was there. In the night after dark he come pokin in. He had just mis- and half-treated my sister, that's what he done; he didn't take no care of her at all, not while she was livin and not while she was dead. She just died for attention. I said to him when he come in—had a fire out in the yard that night, me and my uncles, our uncles, my and my brother's uncles and my dead sister's uncles.

So this fellow come a walkin up in the night. We howdyed with him, he howdyed with us—draggy-talkin fellow, you could look at him and tell there weren't nothin to him much. I didn't come to argue with him, I come to put some questions to him.

I said—Ernest Hines was his name—I said, “Brother Ernest, how long had Sadie been sick?”

“O, she hadn't been sick very long.”

I said, “How come you didn't warn us and notify us before she died?”

“I didn't think, Brother Nate, she was that sick.”

I took it all, never said nothin; I kept askin my questions.

I said, “Well, Brother Ernest, Elam Baptist Church out there a mile the other side of Apafalya, that was her membership and that's where our mother is buried at. Where are you aimin to have your wife buried? I'd be very glad if she could be taken to her home church where her dear mother is buried, our dear mother. Tell me what you think about that.”

“Well, Brother Nate, she's in such bad shape I don't think it would do to haul her that far.”

I still wouldn't say nothin. Got done tellin all that and I allowed him his pleasure about it. Then I asked him, I said, “Well—” talkin
to a sorry man, too—“Well, if you think that's too far to haul her on account of her condition, she must be in bad condition.”

“Yeah, I think she is in too bad a condition to haul that far.”

I said, “Well, where are you plannin to bury her at? Where do you want her buried?”

“I thought, Brother Nate, we'd bury her up here at Pilgrim's Rest.”

I quit talkin with him; I wouldn't contrary him. Up there at Pilgrim's Rest, that weren't two miles from his house.

And said, “We want to bury her as early as possible tomorrow.”

We spent the night there and stayed up, worried around my dead sister Sadie. That next mornin, by nine o'clock we were hustlin to the graveyard with her body. Went up the road to a little church just above his house and we turned to the left and come back in there back of Litabixee, west of Litabixee. Quickly buried her and returned right back to the house, all of us, me and my brother and our two uncles and their wives, returned back to the house. She had died and left three little boys and they was raggedy as a can of kraut. No clothes to wear, no mother and no father—it struck deep, it struck deep in me. Took em every one away from there that day, the three of em—Davey, the oldest one, he's dead now, died in Prattville down here in Montgomery County, he was the oldest; Tommy was the next oldest; Henry was the youngest, the baby boy. He lives out yonder on the road straight from here to Apafalya, now. Tommy stays in Florida, been in Florida about twenty years.

When I brought them out of Litabixee that mornin—I told him, I consulted with him bout everything. I said, “Well, Brother Ernest—” when I got back, all of us, from the cemetery and hitched our mules there at the house, I said, “Well, Brother Ernest, I got a little talk in regards to these little boys my sister died and left. I want to get your consent about it. I'm goin to treat you right. I got a plan that I want to lay to you about the condition of these three little boys”— the oldest one was twelve years old, Davey—“Let's step aside and talk about it a little. I've considered and thought over some things about them and I'm goin to consult with you and see how you feel about it.”

“All right, Brother Nate.”

I said, “Your wife is dead and gone. These little boys here was her other husband's children. But I'm goin to consult with you as you is their stepfather and they aint big enough and old enough to
help themselves. I'll tell you what's on my mind. You aint the father of these little boys. And you got three or four here yourself, and your children and her children is mixed here by you and her bein married. And I don't think that you are calculated to take care of your children and her children too. And they all on you. You got no wife and it's just you and these children in the house here, you've got em all. You're overloaded and she's gone. Now I'm goin to lighten your burden if you'll accept. Don't you think it would be profitable for me to take her little children, her three little boys and take em home with me? That'll lighten your burden on this children business.”

He looked at me. I said, “How will that suit you? It'll help you. You're not their father. It would be very bad, it would look bad for me to ignore these little boys of my sister's; their daddy's dead and now their mother's dead. These children are not a drop of kin to you. That's one reason I want to take em off you, take em home with me.”

He said, “Well, Brother Nate, it was Sadie's request for me to keep em.”

Right there it brought about hard words. I said, “Keep em for what? There's the railroad right out in front of your door, Western Railroad; you can't stay here at all times and keep these children from ramblin and rovin, some of em just might get killed out there by a train. And probably there's other dangers. The best thing, I think, is for me to take em and take em home with me. And to treat you right, that's why I'm consultin the matter with you. I want it took care of. Sadie's request aint no good in this case. She's dead and gone and she's left two brothers here, which is these little boys' uncles. And there's
my
uncles, two big men of em here, all of us connected to these children. They are these little boys' great-uncles. Me and my brother here are their own dear uncles. What are you goin to do about it now? Sadie's dead and gone and her little children is left at the mercies of the world. And I don't think that you can take care of em as they should be.”

He said, “Well, it was her request.”

I got mad then; he stuck to it. “It was her request for me to keep em.”

I said, “Brother Ernest, if you keep em you keep em over my dead body.”

I walked off. If he'd a kept em he would have butchered em up;
them children would have suffered, surely. Maybe some of em would have got killed; out of the three some of em would have got killed. He didn't take care of his own children. And he didn't take care of his wife. He was just a sluggard. Tell you what happened to him after Sadie died. In a year or two, two or three years after she died, he messed with whiskey. He went off, but thank God he didn't go off and leave them little children. I brought em away from there that day. And two or three years after that, he had to crawl home one night. He was on the west side—accordin to how I got the news—he was on the west side of his home and he crawled through a cotton patch or out of a cotton patch and somebody knocked him in the head. And he died. Never did get over it. People in that settlement didn't talk much, but I heard, strictly, that he was a whiskey-head, and he bootlegged whiskey, too. But I come into the knowledge to know, before he died, there wasn't much to him but somethin to butcher up a woman and children.

He dropped his head. That old woman that was stayin there with my sister was standin by the door—that old house didn't have no veranda to it—she was standin in the door and she heard my talk. I had never looked to see her standin in the door listenin to the conversation, and before I knowed anything she spoke up, “Ernest!”

He looked around and I did too; seed that old woman standin in the door callin him.

“Come here, son.” It weren't his mother, just a old woman that knowed him. “Come here, son.”

He went on to the door and she busted open just like this: when he got to the doorsteps, he looked up at her and she said, “Son, why don't you let that man have them children? You done heard him what he said. How come you won't let him have em?”

She knowed it would better his condition, if it could be bettered, for me to take them children. That was takin em off her hands, maybe. And she done heard me tell him if he kept em he kept em over my dead body. I was angry then.

I heard her say, beggin him, “Son, why don't you let that man have them children? You heard him what he said. He's goin to make trouble for you if you don't.”

I was standin still listenin. When she said that I begin to move. It was a short time till I done what I wanted to do and was aimin to do. When I heard her say that I begin to stir around in the yard.
He come right back to me, told me, “Well, Brother Nate, I'll let you have em.”

He wasn't their daddy and he half-treated his own children, so what could I expect from him? And he messed up my sister's health; didn't stand by her as a husband.

I told him, “You were well to have said that earlier; it would have saved all the words and arguin. Saved it. You were just as well to have said that at the start. Now, if these three little boys has got any clothes in the house, I'll thank you kindly to get em together. I'm goin to carry em—” wasn't nothin else there for me—“I'm goin to carry em—” I never did look back there for none of her little furniture because they had nothin in the house like a family ought to. I said, “Get their little clothes up what they got.”