All God's Dangers (40 page)

So, Mr. Stark told me he'd give me three hundred dollars to burn down the dwellin house and the close-by outbuildins. He'd jumped up and rented me the place, I moved there, and before I could get my crop gathered he sold it. He didn't tell me he was goin to sell it until after he sold it and then he put his proposition to me. Well, that worried me less than this: there was two things on that place that I reserved and called him in question about, that belonged to me. I had in the fall before I moved up there sowed me them oats that Mr. Culpepper's yearlin done ruint, and bought me some brand new barbed wire and wired em up. And when Mr. Stark sold the place I come up to him, said, “Well, did you reserve my
new barbed wire around them oats? You didn't sell that with the place, did you?”

“No,” he said, “your wire, I reserved that.”

I said, “And that harness house of mine—” nice little harness house sittin outside of the barn. I'd built it on the Tucker place down on Sitimachas Creek. And when I moved from down there, I coupled my wagon out long enough that I could put me on some of the Graham-Pike heavy lumber and drive up there and turn that harness house over on that lumber, between the wheels—moved it up to the Stark place, put it down, blocked it up there. It weren't nailed to the place at all, just blocked it up and leveled it. It was as much as six foot high and four foot deep and I could handle it easy on my wagon. Hauled it up there and put it down on the same blocks I had it on down there on the Tucker place.

I asked Mr. Stark about it. He told me, “No, nothin you has aint included in the place. You can take your harness house with you.”

When I got ready to move, I went over in the field and took my barbed wire down and rolled it up, carried it to the house so it'd be there, and I loaded it up in movin. And that harness house was the first thing I moved. Went out there one mornin, coupled that wagon out long enough—just like I been haulin lumber—coupled it out long enough to haul sixteen-foot lumber and then put that sixteen-foot stuff on it to hold that house up good and stout. Me and my boys pushed the house up on it. Carried it about a mile and a quarter or not over a mile and a half to the Pollard place, where I was movin to. I didn't never tie it down to no place and it was a nice-built harness house, light enough that me and my boys could handle it.

Mr. Jim Horn was game enough—one day he come there lookin around and he forbidded me—he'd heard somethin about that harness house; maybe Mr. Stark might have told him, but he meant to keep that house there. So his boy come there one day and he said, “Nate, Daddy says don't move that harness house out there.”

I said, “What you say?”

“Daddy says don't move that harness house.”

I said, “Well, I'm goin to move it.”

He said, “You better not; Daddy done sent you word by me tellin you not to move it.”

First thing I jumped up and moved when I got ready to move. I moved that harness house and everything else I had away from there. And I didn't disfigure the place; I couldn't afford to do that.

So, I met this Horn in the road one mornin as I was comin out of Apafalya, goin to a lumberyard way back out over in them hills. He met me, said, “Nate, I'll just give you—” I was bull-headed as the devil; I didn't bear no thoughts of not movin what I knowed was definitely mine, and it weren't nailed to the place. They mighta used to have a law, but I didn't know anything about no such law—but if you left and moved off a place, you couldn't draw out nails and move a thing if it's nailed to a place. Anything that aint tied down that you could load up without knockin nails out of it, why, that's your privilege.

So he said, “I'll give you until tomorrow night to get that harness house back up there.”

I looked at him, said, “Mr. Horn, that harness house is mine. I built it before I moved on the old place you bought and it weren't never nailed to the place. It's my right, as I know it, to take it with me if I please.” Told my mules, “Come up,” and went about my business.

I never picked that house up again once I set it down on the Pollard place. And burn down them buildins for Mr. Stark—I wouldn't a done that for no man. No tellin what he might have slipped around and done to me if I'd a destroyed em. When a person takes a notion to do devilment, the devil incarnate can't stop him. If that white man would destroy his own house, have me do it, what would he do to me? He liable to collect his insurance then turn me in to keep from payin me anythin— Please Lord, take care of me. If they knowed I was accusin em of such as that some of em would be hot with me today.

I moved on the Pollard place and become entangled with Mr. Lester Watson. And in the wind-up of it, big trouble come off—a shootin frolic in '32.

I never had worked none of the land when I agreed to buy. I'd seed the plantation in passin—old colored man by the name of Amos Pollard owned that place when I was a boy and his wife, old
Uncle Amos Pollard's wife Becky; they lived there and Uncle Amos owned it and it went in his name. And one day, my daddy, when I was a small boy—I was big enough to go two or three miles by myself walkin, and old Uncle Amos Pollard was a blacksmith and he kept a little old shop on his place. My daddy would give me plows to tote—at that period of time my daddy didn't live hardly two miles from old Uncle Amos Pollard, on further up Sitimachas Creek. He'd tell me, “Go over to Uncle Amos and tell him to sharpen my plows for me.”

I'd take them plows, three or four, four or five scooter plows and go over there for him to sharpen em for my daddy. Quite natural, I hate to say it, it just busts in my mind—my daddy weren't doin much with no plow, but he'd want sharp plows ready if he decided to do somethin. I'd take them plows and carry em—and one mornin, I walked up to Uncle Amos's house about nine o'clock. Bein a boy, I didn't look around at the condition of the land. It was sort of hilly around there but that was all I could tell. I went over there that mornin with a turn of plows and Aunt Becky—and there was another old lady stayed with em, her name was Susan; they was both old ladies and Uncle Amos was a old man, but he was still plowin, workin a little crop, workin in his shop.

I got there that mornin and weren't nobody at the house. Well, I discovered Aunt Becky and that other old lady out there in the field on the north side of the house—it was hilly back there some—burnin brush on some fresh land that had just been cleared up and they was rakin with their rakes and pilin brush and cleanin it off for Uncle Amos, seemed like. I went on out there in the field where they was. I walked up to the two old ladies—and it appeared plain that there had been many big log heaps burnt up there on that fresh land they was cleanin up. I looked around and I asked Aunt Becky, “Aunt Becky, where is Uncle Amos?”

She said, “Honey, Uncle Amos is way down yonder in the low field close to Sitimachas Creek.”

She showed me whichaway to go. I listened at her—done left my plows up there at the house. And all them old big log heaps round there on the new ground was burnt down to ashes. Me bein a little old boy, I didn't know, looked like them log heaps had been burnt for several days. So, Aunt Becky told me where Uncle Amos was, I thanked her and fixed to get on my way and go to him. And I went hustlin through one of them old burnt up log heaps, lookin
down to see the ashes scoot up between my toes and the dust settle on the bottom of my pants legs. When I knowed anything I was just a jumpin and a hollerin and a runnin—some of them hot coals was stuck to the bottom of my feet.

Aunt Becky run to me, “Honey, honey, honey, I'm sorry.”

But Aunt Becky weren't to blame; it was the way I was transactin myself, not knowin no better. Them log heaps had burnt clean down to nothin but ashes and still some hot coals under there, and that shocked me. But I hopped and went on and Aunt Becky took off to the house like a old lady would and got some ointment and rubbed it on the bottom of my feet. My feet had a fire-crust on em—O, Lord, it just set my whole body afire. But I scuffled on to where Uncle Amos was, just about a half a mile from where that happened. I went there and told him what my daddy wanted—he couldn't sharpen them plows that day but he told me he would do it, asked me where did I leave em and so on.

So I hobbled on back home. I been knowin that place ever since them days, like to had my feet burnt off down there. The first man I knowed after the death of Uncle Amos—I was growin up then in the world—the place laid out for a while after Aunt Becky and Uncle Amos died. Then Mr. Morris Wiley bought it, white man. I don't know who-all definitely and what twistin up happened between the death of Uncle Amos and the time that Mr. Morris Wiley bought the place, but that was the first man I knowed to live there after the death of em. I don't know who he bought it from—they had no children to go to for it. And Mr. Morris Wiley, when I got old enough to know anything, he bought it and built a pretty good house there, weatherboarded it and sealed up one room. And the house on the place when he bought it, the old house Aunt Becky and Uncle Amos had lived in, it was a pretty big old house but it was a log house. And Mr. Morris Wiley built him a big roomy house with plank and he built it in a L-fashion; bedroom, dinin room, and kitchen went off from the livin room in a L.

Well, he stayed there and farmed several years and he never did make no success of it and he whirled up and moved away from there. Somehow or other the land fell into Mr. Watson's hands and the Federal Land Bank in New Orleans, both. And Mr. Max Meade, young white man, old man Tom Meade's son—old man Ralph Meade was the father of Tom Meade, and Joe Meade and Max Meade and Millard Meade was Tom Meade's boys—and Max Meade bought
the place. Little Max Meade they called him. He was a poor white fellow and he never did, him and his wife never did have nary a child as long as they lived together. He married Miss Cordy Vail's daughter, called her Esther. So, he got on this old Pollard place after Mr. Morris Wiley got off. He got on it through Mr. Watson and the Federal Land Bank, he bought it and he couldn't handle it, didn't have no children, no help or nothin, and he hashed around and done the best he could and he had to give up. And he talked with me about it, got me to take it over. He didn't tell me bout the condition of the land—man goin to sell you a place he aint goin to give you no odds and ends, he goin to get it off on you if he can. Well, I never had plowed it a day in my life but I knowed it, I thought I knowed it—but I never had the least idea it was as rough and as poor as it was. I just decided—I had good stock, tools, and my boys was gettin to be big enough to be a help to me, and he mentioned the place to me, told Mr. Watson and all, got it lined up and I took it over from him and commenced a buyin it.

The place went for sixteen hundred dollars and they was supposed to give me several years to pay it in full. I'd send a check in the mail to the Federal Land Bank in New Orleans, sixty-some-odd dollars a year. And sixty-some-odd dollars to Watson, I was payin him along. He didn't like that. He seed where he was cut off from me. I only had to keep up with the land debt with him—he didn't have no mortgages on my stuff for nothin. But he wanted it all and everything I had.

He lingered along for a year or two, then he undermined me and didn't tell me he done it. He got in with the federal land people someway and he got full possession of the Pollard place. I didn't have no political pull and I couldn't do nothin about it. I was still goin in the name of buyin the place but now I was buyin from him complete. When I didn't geehawse like he thought I ought to, he took the place over, blotted my name out with the federal government. To this day I don't know how he did it. I expect he offered to pay my part to them and they agreed; taken my part out of my hands and payin the federal government, then made me pay him what I was payin them—they turned it all in his hands. They got their money for the place from him and he had me over a barrel.

I was in good shape when I got dealin with Mr. Watson. Time for him, he thought, to come in dealin with me. When the time rolled around for me to buy the old Pollard place I had a pair of
good horses and a pair of good mules, raised my own food for my stock, and at that time I had a little blacksmith shop. I didn't have no notions, no dreams, of doin no work for no outsiders when I set it up. I done that for my own benefit because at that time I was runnin them four head of stock and the price for blacksmithin was quite high so I decided I'd try to do it. And as it worked out, I shod my own mules; shod mules for Mr. Jack Knowland, man my daddy hired me out to in 1904—now he come to me to have his mules shod. And I made a right smart little bit of money, unexpected, shoddin stock for other people.

I bought my blacksmith tools from Mr. Hinton Wheeler; he had been usin em but he didn't know too much about em and he didn't like the work. So he sold me his anvil, vise, and blower. I burnt up several pieces of iron learnin how to use them tools, but it weren't much I burnt up, a few little old slivers that got hot quicker than I thought. I'd stand there and blow the fire—it fired
me
up to make a fire so hot. I enjoyed it and soon I become expert at the job. Workin over them coals, buildin up my fire, keepin it goin and regulatin it—

Blacksmiths used to say, and a heap of other folks: “It's hard to set a scrape to do nice work.” Most anybody can beat out a scooter and draw it to a point and sharpen it, but when you start settin them scrapes and sharpenin em, that's a rough job. I done a bit of it after I started that blacksmith work. And I had more of it to do than I thought I would when I moved on the Pollard place.

T
HE
old place contained somewhere around eighty acres and after I worked it awhile I found it was rough as pig iron and if I made any crop—O, I made a little stuff there but I didn't make nothin like I was due to make with the force I had and the stock. It was rough and rocky land—round rocks the size of your fist to littler and the size of your fist to bigger. You just couldn't make it on that land by itself. Of course, Watson didn't care about the land, he cared about the type of man that worked it, whether it was a man that worked hard to have good mules and cows and hogs, a wagon and a buggy. And to tell the truth—one word brings up another—none of em didn't care usually nothin for you just as long as you made a crop, nary a man ever I worked with. There was Mr. Curtis, put me on the poorest land he had; I didn't make chicken shit. And
as the boys said at the time—they laughed about it a whole lot—that old land was so poor until it would grunt sproutin peas. Well, I moved down with Mr. Gus Ames and it was the same thing, really; put me on the sorriest land he had. It just absolutely didn't do me no benefit. And when I moved away from there to the Reeve place, I commenced a makin out better for myself. I got a hold of my business there—but his son-in-law was takin over the land; he was a young fella and when he moved up there he wanted to boss the whole place. That didn't suit me. And I moved then off down on the creek on the old Bannister place under Mr. Tucker's administration. It was rough as the devil and then them hills, too. Good God, it was ill to work a man or a mule there. Well, I moved from there to the Stark place, at Two Forks, and the boll weevil took over my farm. I didn't make but six bales of cotton that year. I moved on back then to the Pollard place, just backtracked along the same road and stopped and settled down where I could buy my own land. When I got there I fell out again—didn't know the old place was so rough. Couldn't make no corn worth a boot and had to work like a devil there to make a little cotton—made that between the rocks. When I discovered that, I just come out and went to rentin me some smooth land in the piney woods. I was livin on the Pollard place but I had to rent other land to make enough. I worked Miss Cordy Vail's land, clean land; I worked it on halves and I made six bales of cotton on four acres. That weren't no triflin crop in them days. And on Mr. Thurman Groves' place where I had fifteen acres rented, fourteen or fifteen, his land weren't so strong but it was easy to work, I made six bales of cotton there too. Cotton was down then to about twelve cents so it taken a heavy crop to prosper a man. And so, down on Mr. Groves' place I made six good bales of cotton; six on Miss Cordy Vail's four acres—and I worked some of my father-in-law's place. That Pollard place was joinin my father-in-law's place. But if I'd a depended on that Pollard place I'd a been just out of luck. Still, I made seven bales of cotton there and I was improvin the cultivatable land all along.