All God's Dangers (39 page)

I've pulled them squares open and caught em in all their stages of life: found the old egg in there, and I've found him just hatched out and he's right white like a worm, just a little spot in there, that's him; and if he's a little older he looks green-colored and sappy; and after he gets grown he's a old ashy-colored rascal, his wings is gray like ash. I've known him from the first to the last. I've picked him up and looked at him close. He's just a insect, but really, he's unusual to me. I can't thoroughly understand the nature
of a boll weevil. He's a kind of insect that he'll develop in different colors right quick. He'll grow up to be, if he lives to get old enough—don't take him very long to get old—he'll grow to be as big around as a fly. He's a very short fellow, but he's bigger than a corn weevil. And he'll stick that bill in a cotton pod, then he'll shoot his tail back around there and deposit a egg—that's the way he runs his business. Then he done with that square, he done ruint it, and he hunts him another pod. And he's a very creepin fellow, he gets about, too; he'll ruin a stalk of cotton in a night's time. He crawls along gradually from one square to another; he gets on a limb where it's rolled off with blooms or young squares and he traces his way from one to the next, and he punctures every one of em just about, in a short while. Then he's creepin on, all over that stalk. Maybe he's so numerous sometime you can catch three or four, as high as half a dozen or more, that many off of one stalk of cotton.

If you meddle the boll weevil—you can see, travel amongst your cotton crop, I've done it myself, walked around amongst my cotton and looked, and you can see a boll weevil sometime stickin to a stalk and if you mess with him the least bit, he goin to fall off on the ground. And you watch him, just watch him, don't say a word. And he'll get up—he aint quick about it, but he'll get up from there and fly off, you lookin at him. Common sense teaches a man—how did he get in your cotton farm out there? He got wings, he flies. And you can get a handful of em in your hand, I have had that, and them scoundrels, if you don't bother em, they goin to eventually fly away from there.

When I seed I couldn't defeat the boll weevil by pickin up squares, I carried poison out to the field and took me a crocus sack, one of these thin crocus sacks, put my poison in there enough to poison maybe four or five rows and just walk, walk, walk; shake that sack over the cotton and when I'd look back, heap of times, that dust flyin every whichway and the breeze blowin, that cotton would be white with dust, behind me. Get to the end, turn around and get right on the next row. Sometimes I'd just dust every other row and the dust would carry over the rows I passed. And I'd wear a mouth piece over my mouth—still that poison would get in my lungs and bother me. Now they got tractors fixed with boxes to elevate that poison out, carry poison four rows, six rows at one run.

Old weevil, he can't stand that, he goin to hit it out from there;
maybe, in time, he'll take a notion to come back; you go out with your poison again. Sometimes, if the cotton's good and you keep him scared out of there and dusted out as much as you can, the boll, at that rate, gets too far advanced for him to handle it and that boll will open with healthy locks. But that's the only way to beat the devil, run him out the field.

It's like the tale they told on the old sheep. A sheep is a thing that the nature of a sheep is to be scared of dogs. And—it seems like a old tale, but old folks have told me in olden days, olden days, everything could talk. It just might be a tale, I wouldn't know, I wouldn't swear to it. Well, one day, the old mama sheep carried her little ones all out of the barn on the ranch to graze. When they got out there, the little sheep, little lambs, always believed in keepin up with their mother. And said, one day she carried em out on the ranch to graze and she got em out there and showed em what to do, and put em all to grazin, nippin grass. And she turned and went back to the barn after she had let em out on the ranch and put em to grazin. And she got off a little piece from em and one of the little sheep called his mama. Didn't want to graze nohow, wanted to follow her back to the barn. This little lamb raised up, said, “Mama, must take the long grass or the short grass?”

“Take it all long,” she answered him.

He weren't satisifed. His native wants was to follow his mama back to the barn. After a while, soon as he got that word out and his mama started on her way to the barn, the little lamb raised up again, “Mama, it's rainin.”

She told him, “Crop the long grass, crop the long grass.”

He was pickin a excuse to leave the ranch and follow her back to the barn. First excuse was he didn't know which grass to eat; second excuse was it was rainin; third excuse, “Mama, yonder come a dog.”

“Come on, my child; come on, my child.”

He kept throwin excuses to her until when he called the dog, she didn't like the dog herself—it's a sheep's nature to be scared of a dog—and she told him, “Come on, my child,” and he took off with her.

So, it's that way with the boll weevil, it appears to my mind. A boll weevil is goin to take it all long; he'll ruin your crop if there's barely enough in there. And there's no way he'll leave your field
less'n a man come through there dustin poison. Then they'll take out from there, all ages of boll weevil, but they'll be back when the man leaves and the dust settles.

Old boll weevil, he don't leave the country in the fall. He goes out there in the woods under the pine straw, or he goes under the earth. But I couldn't say definitely where he goes, to save my life and be truthful. I don't know what his full nature is. But come next spring, you plant your crop, he comin in. Everything, every creature in God's world, understands how to try to protect itself. And I believe that scoundrel goes right into the forests and finds his appointed place to wait; spring of the year, he right back in the field, soon as your cotton come up, he right back on it.

God understands his insects here, He knows em well. And everything God created He created for a purpose and everything drops to its callin, and most of the things obeys His rulins better than man do.

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a kind of old worm or bug, I would say it's a worm, that'll get in your crop and heap of times he'll cut your cotton squares worser than the boll weevil will, he'll cut it all to pieces, he'll cut enough hole in it to kill that pod that's comin to be a bloom. And on top of that, there's another kind of worm—some folks call him a caterpillar. And if it's a field of cotton, these caterpillars is just as thick sometimes as the fingers on your hand. Get in that field when the cotton is green—they don't bother the cotton, they don't bother the boll except to cut every bit of shuck off of that boll. Some folks call em army worms, and they're in that field just broadsided. Maybe your cotton will go on and open when they get through with it, but they'll hurt it so before it gets done makin. Don't leave no leaves on your crop at all, he'll eat em all off, your field will look raggedy as the devil. And when he cleans that field up—skins them leaves off, eats em up, leave your stalks naked and your bolls shinin—if there's a field of cotton yonder cross the road, you can see em all in the ditches and all in the road, crawlin across to get in that field.

The natural old original weevil himself will strike your corn—that's common, to have the corn weevil. They gets in your corn out in the field, when the ear is on the stalk, when the stalk grows to the proper height for the ear to grow and mature. I can read them
corn weevils from A to Z. He gets in that corn when it's in roastin ear and he goin to stay there too, all over your field. And when you gather that corn and put it in your barn, he's in there. Bring it out the field and he's in there and he'll eat your corn, every ear he strikes, he'll eat all the insides and the heart of that corn, he'll eat it down to the cob. They inside the shucks when you bring it out the field, just a few of em in a load of corn, a few of em in a few ears, when you put your corn in the crib, they goin to create in there.

You ever heard talk of such a thing as a camelfly? He flies just like a butterfly all over your field, as long as the weather aint too cold for him, and he's layin a passel of eggs on that corn crop—some folks call him a butterfly but he aint nothin like these big old spotted-winged butterflies that trembles in the air all over your garden; he trembles, he flies, but he's just a little old devil and he puts down his eggs—that's the corn weevil man. The corn weevil, when he's eatin your corn, he don't do much flyin, but he do fly if you stir him up. Heap of times you meddle with your corn and you set them little old camelflies just flyin out of it; well, that's the fellow, out in the field, that creates them corn weevils. And when you put that corn in the crib, blessed God, you open the door to your crib and meddle with that corn awhile, and you'll see em flyin up and out. They in there depositin eggs in your corn; consequently, that corn will become full of these little old black weevils.

There's no other insect bothers your corn worth talkin about except these old roastin ear worms; and that roastin ear worm don't deposit his own eggs. They comes from these old devilish flies that drops these foreign eggs in your corn when it's in roastin ears. You can shuck a heap of corn out in the field, or in a roastin ear patch, and you'll see a old worm done cut his trail all around in there. They're never in the butt end next to the stalk; they lurks in the free end of that ear of corn, and you shuck it, there's a old worm or two in there. Knock him out and he hasn't defected that ear of corn too thoroughly, he just worked on the end, and you get that roastin ear in a position to have fried corn. And when you get that ear of corn cleaned up for table use, and scrapes the tops of all them grains of corn off in your pan, and scrape the juice and goody out of it, you throw that cob down. Most of we farmers drop the cobs in a vessel and put em in the hog pen; if you got a fattenin hog in the pen and them cobs is green and tender, he'll eat up every one of em. It's good for hogs.

Who sent the corn weevil here? And who sent the boll weevil and all sort of pesters, who put em here? Who created the heaven and earth and everything therein? God put all these pesters and insects here. As bad a old thing as a snake, God put him here; and He put them things here—maybe, I wouldn't accuse God of nothin wrong—to trouble people. Folks in this world needs pesterin to wake em up to their limit. And to my best opinion, God put the different weevils here and the weevils does their duty. Some things may do more than God put em here to do—that's the human, he do more things than God put him here to do. But God thought so much of this human race He created humans in His image and His own likeness, and still they're the worst things God got on this earth to one another. God knew you'd do it but He gived you a chance, He put you here, He put His holy righteous words here for you to read and look over; and if you can't read God's words you still can believe some things. He thought so much of you He gived you knowledge He didn't give the other animals. And He gived you a soul to save, He made you responsible to that knowledge: a man is responsible, a woman is responsible, for the acts of their flesh and blood and the thoughts on their minds.

I can't hate God's pesters, definitely, because they doin what God put em here to do. The boll weevil, he's a smart bird, sure as you born. And he's here for a purpose. Who knows that purpose? And who is it human that can say for sure he knows his own purpose? He got all the wisdom and knowledge God give him and God even sufferin him to get a book learnin and like that—and what the boll weevil can do to me aint half so bad to what a man might do. I can go to my field and shake a poison dust on my crop and the boll weevil will sail away. But how can I sling a man off my back?

1923, them old boll weevils stayed in my cotton until they ruint it. I didn't make but six good heavy bales and it weren't bringin twenty cents. About twelve and a half and fifteen cents. And it got lower than that, fell to half of that, lower than any man believed it could fall in the years to come.

Just before I got ready to move away from Two Forks—I hope God will be with me—Mr. Stark tried to get me to destroy the house. He had it insured; told me, “Nate, your time is up on this
place and you movin elsewhere. I want you to destroy this house when you leave.”

He tried to put me up to burnin the buildin down before I left. He had jumped up and sold the place just about the time he found out I was goin to move. And he wanted me to burn down the dwellin house
after
he sold it. You see, he could collect on the insurance until the other man moved onto the place. It was sold all right, but he still had possession. And if I destroyed that house—

He laid plans for me how to destroy the buildin myself; just thought I'd be fool enough to jump into it and do it. I didn't say I would do it and I didn't say I wouldn't do it.

He said, “Now here's the way for you to do it. When you get started movin out, don't take everything; leave some of your throwed off stuff in there. Then destroy the house on the last round, destroy it.”

I would have been the biggest rascal and the biggest fool, workin against myself, as ever there was if I'd a listened to him. And he got on me a number of times before I moved. He said, “You aint never done what we was talkin about.”

I said, “No sir, I aint done it.”

Still didn't tell him I was goin to do it and didn't tell him I wasn't. And I haven't done it this mornin. I estimated the matter in my judgment this way: you never know what'll happen in a heap of cases until it happens. I considered I was a poor colored man and he had done went ahead and sold the place to another white man, fellow by the name of Jim Horn, who come out of the hills up yonder and had never lived down in this part on smooth land. Mr. Horn's dead now but his son got that place today, right there at Two Forks.