All God's Dangers (42 page)

And the road—there was a wire fence beside the road and it run around and around goin, it looked like, out to Mr. Tom Sherman's house set way out in the field, big, old-timey house. The mules jumped back in the road and they looked like they was headed for home then, done made the turn away from the cemetery. Headed for home. And I run out there. I didn't think I was hurt, it was all so quick done. And there was a big oak tree standin in the V of the road where a little road turned off the main line and went on down to Mr. Tom Sherman. And I beat them mules to that V and stood there and throwed up my hands and got em excited—they didn't know what to do then. And they run—I wouldn't let em go toward Mr. Tom Sherman and I wouldn't let em go up the road on the route home. I run out there and cut em off ary way they tried to go, zigzagged em, and when they run, got to this fork, I was right there. And I run em into that oak tree. That tongue—brand new wagon bed—that tongue hit that oak tree—BOOM—one of the mules on one side of the tree and the other mule on the other side. Old oak tree was five foot around. That wagon just shot up on em and tripped em. The traces were hitched and they couldn't do nothin. I run up there and grabbed em both and got em quieted down, commenced a talkin to em and quieted em down. And my boy, Calvin, he run up there and I said, “Son, catch hold to the hind wheels and roll em off the lines.”

My lines was down there but didn't break my lines, just busted the tongue clean out of the hounds, and the end of it next to the wagon where it went into the hounds joinin the back axle to the front axle dropped to the ground. Calvin caught the wheels and rolled em—weren't but thirteen bales of hay, half the load I carried out of Apafalya, left up on that wagon. My mules done throwed off the balance of em. Some of that hay fell clean off into Mr. Sherman's field there at the side of the road.

And I looked around there in a jiffy or two and here come Mr. Tom Sherman, who lived out in that field, in the naked openin out there, and Mr. Melville Tucker, Mr. Lemuel Tucker's brother; he lived just up the road on the other side of the church, on the right, goin toward home. I looked around and seed Mr. Tucker and Mr. Sherman both. And them two white men begged me to go to the doctor.

Mr. Sherman said, “Nate, we thought you was killed but we're glad you're not no worse than you are—”

Both of em lookin at me and accordin to what they seed, they told me they knowed I was hurt.

I begged off of em. I said, “Mr. Sherman, Mr. Tucker, I appreciate you all's kindness toward me. I'm happy to have your sympathy. But I aint hurt—”

I didn't
feel
hurt but my collarbone was knocked down. I couldn't raise up my right hand.

And so, they said, “Nate, go to the doctor. We know you're hurt.”

I said, “Mr. Tucker—” He had a good wagon, two-horse wagon hisself, and it was a Owensboro. The tongue from his wagon didn't exactly fit in the hounds of my wagon but it'd fit. I said, “Mr. Tucker, I'm goin home. I kindly thank you two white gentlemen for having sympathy for me. But I aint hurt bad and I'm goin home. Could I borrow your wagon tongue and put it in my wagon till I come back this evenin?”

I was dependin on gettin Mr. Tom Russell's—white man lived close to me, he had a Owensboro wagon and my mind thought right quick: get Mr. Tucker's wagon tongue and go home and unload that hay and come back with Mr. Russell's wagon and give Mr. Tucker back his tongue. And that's what I done.

I told Calvin to come around and unbreast them mules. Then I said, “Now, son, go and pick them lines up and straighten em out and bring em to me.”

He done it. But the mules rared back like pretty boys. They wanted to get away when they realized they was loose from that wagon—that tongue was on the ground. I couldn't have held em if they'd a started with me, I couldn't a done nothin but what I did do. They knowed me. I coaxed em and talked to em kind and petted em down and they halfway forgot they was loose.

Well, Calvin runned up there to Mr. Tucker's house and pulled the pin out of his tongue and pulled the tongue out of his wagon and brought it to me right quick. We put it in my wagon then for a tongue and I went and hitched them mules back to it, held them lines and drove around back to the hay that was spilled around both sides of the road and some of it on the road too—and tried to load what I could get my hands on right there close.

And Calvin said, “Papa, let it alone. I'll put it on the wagon.”

He put on two or three bales and I told him I was goin to help him, I could use my hands. And I went to help him raise up as light
a thing as a bale of hay and I couldn't do it. I just didn't have no power at all. Well, he had me to get out of the way then and he put on the hay by himself. But I just had half my load on then. I decided to go on home, carry what hay I had on the wagon home and come back that evenin to get the balance. And so I got in the wagon and sat down, not feelin too bad, and I wound up my lines short as I could so I could pull the mules down if they started, I thought.

I said, “Now son, you get in there and sit right beside them brakes and if they start karoin,
^*
makin any move about runnin, just throw them brakes over, snap that rope, and throw them brakes over.”

He had to do that two or three times before we got home. Them mules was still nervous—and I had about four miles to drive. So Calvin set there and when they started to karoin or freshened up like they wanted to run again, he dropped them brakes over. That throwed pressure on em, and I had them lines. Got on home—I hurt so bad then—when they got home they was quiet, no cars runnin around. So I drove the mules on down to the lot, stopped the wagon, and told my boys to unload it—I let them boys handle them mules around the house or they could plow em, but I wouldn't trust em on the road with em because I knowed them mules would kill them boys if they took a notion.

My wife had a nice dinner fixed that day—always killed all the meat I wanted. We kept plenty of meat and lard to do us from Christmas to Christmas, four and five cans of lard, these fifty- and sixty-pound cans. We didn't have to look but to what we produced ourselves. After our fresh meat would give down, why, I'd go to the store and buy a little freshness; but my main livin come out of the hog pen, come out of the cow lot.

F
OR
as long as an even month, I could pull my shirt off some, maybe, but most times I couldn't. My wife or one of my boys would have to pull it off for me to lay down at night. I never did look around at my girls at all; it weren't their job to strip their daddy, but my wife or boys could do it. And mornins when I'd get up, Hannah would bathe me with liniment and she'd bathe me twice a day, chest and shoulders and all. Mornins I could get my overalls on but they always had to put my shirt on for me.

And so I lingered that way for a month and I got to where every mornin I'd try to see if I could use that arm and I'd raise it up just so far, and I had to ease it back down, lay it in my lap. And I kept on and tried myself every mornin until I could raise my arm to the top of my head with the fingers straightened up.

Well, I overcome it, I sure did and it left me with only one effect: all of my born days, after I got big enough to chunk rocks, I could draw back and throw a rock with all force, but that hay spill cut that throwin off. Ever since that day I can't—I can undercut but I can't draw back and throw. If I don't throw underhand I might just as well drop the rock because I aint got no power drawin back.

I couldn't do no heavy work right away but I didn't quit travelin; had a pair of good horses and that pair of nice mules. Both of them horses was quiet but one of em was too fast for God's sake, she was too fast for me to be foolin with her—she was a mare, young mare. Never bought but one horse in my life after I started raisin up a family, the rest I bought was mares. I always liked a she-thing along a animal line. Old horses, old mules, is stubborn, biggest majority of em. I never did own a horse mule. But at that time I had that Mac horse—lingered along and the Lord was with me, my wife taken special care of me, anything I wanted done them boys would do it. If I took a notion to go to town or anywheres else, I'd tell em, “Boys, go to the lot and catch Mac, clean him off and curry him, harness him, hitch him to the buggy for me.”

I'd get in there and take them lines in one hand and drive anywhere I wanted to.

When I first started to plowin after that, I give away so in my bad shoulder I just had to lean over the plow handles to keep from fallin out. Leaned over and braced myself with one hand as good as I could and this shoulder was givin way. One mornin I was plowin double, had them mules out; they started off that mornin, fightin cotton stalks, and Lord they was walkin. I couldn't keep up with their pace. The old land was rough too, and that plowin just cut me down. I stopped. I had drove that plow about fifty yards out from my barn and it was just one foot up and the other one down, one foot up and the other one down. I told my mules, spoke to em like this: “Whooooop! Whoooooop!” I didn't say, “Whoa” or “Come up,” I talked to em in my own language and they caught it. They slowed down nearly to a stop and I lifted the point of that plow out the ground and turned them mules around. Out the field I carried em.

W
ELL
, I commenced a prosperin then and got over it. I said to myself and told my wife and children, “I'm goin ahead now to see the doctor and get him to exempt me from public duty.”

I hitched up my mules to the wagon and drove on out to the doctor on the road between Apafalya and Tuskegee. He examined me thoroughly, said, “Well, Nate, you say it don't hurt you now?”

Told him, “No sir. I've about got over it all right.”

He said, “Well, I'll tell you. If you'd a come to me when that first happened I could have exempted you from public duty. Now you just stayed away from me and got well yourself. You able to work.”

I had to put in so many days a year workin on the public roads. Weren't no asphalt roads through here then. Weren't no asphalt roads clean into Apafalya or Opelika. Called out every man in the county, white and colored, had to work the roads about eight days a year. Paid you nothin—you could pay
them
and get out of workin, pay the street tax. Everybody had to work or pay; didn't make no difference how much land you owned or if you didn't own none, when you come of age, come old enough for road age, you had to work the roads without pay or pay the tax. If you didn't have a mule or hog or nothin, when you got the right age to work the roads you worked or paid. Quite naturally, if you had nothin you was more likely to work than pay because you wouldn't have no money to pay with. Well, the white folks didn't work like the colored. Now the white ones, many a white one worked the road but if he was able to pay the five dollars he worked nothin. Work or pay. I become able to pay the five dollars and I quit. Didn't work no roads at all after that. I wouldn't work eight days for the devil where I could get out of it for five dollars.

When the doctor told me he couldn't exempt me, I was right close to the limit and I just went on and claimed my age to be too old and jumped the roads. Had to work the roads from eighteen years old until forty and only one year did I fail to work
and
fail to pay. 1906, I weren't married, my daddy had me hired to Mr. Jim Barbour in Apafalya. And I'd walk into town every Monday mornin and when the week was out I'd walk back home. And I'd walk right by Mr. Joe Hooker, foreman of the roads, white gentleman. Mr. Hooker never said “umph” to me bout workin the roads that year. I
don't know whether Mr. Barbour paid the street tax under my name or if they just didn't bother you if you was hired out to a white man. But they didn't bother me at all that year. I worked for Mr. Jim Barbour and I stayed inside the corporation. Heap of times when I'd be goin on to Apafalya, Mr. Hooker would be crossin the road goin to feed his stock. His barn set on the far side of the road.

“Good mornin, Nate.”

“Good mornin, Mr. Hooker.”

Right on I'd go and he never called me for public duty.

Diggin ditches, gradin the sides of the roads, smoothin out. Used a shovel or a pick, shovel or a pick, and they'd have a mule and a plow on the roads—when I started workin the roads they had a mule plow plowin up the soft dirt for folks to throw in the road holes. And we'd rake out and clean out the ditches. Well, they went from that to road machines and from that to asphalt roads. They had a colored fellow drivin that road machine when it first come in; his name was Clint Kirkland. He was the only fellow that could drive that machine. And a white man learnt how to do it and turned Clint off the job. And they went to payin the white man more than what they'd been payin Clint. See, they paid the man that worked the machine, paid him and paid the road foreman too. And they didn't like for no colored man to operate no machine, pay or no pay. Colored man was good to work a mule or a horse, or give him a shovel or a rake. But give the white man the machine. Machines come in before I quit workin the roads and before the machines come in, white and colored did the same job. That was all back yonder when I was a young fellow from a boy up to grown. Then the machines come in and this colored man worked it awhile, then this white man come along and got that machine out from him. Clint Kirkland was drivin but this white man had a family to support and at that time Clint Kirkland didn't have nobody but Clint Kirkland. And they took him off the road machine and gived it to this white man.