All God's Dangers (50 page)

He went rock bottom against puttin out his money. I said to myself, ‘I don't want your money. I'm just feelin out your mind on the subject.'

The boys got ready to go. I got on my car, cranked it up, and we pulled out. When we got to Beaufort, all we boys, they took us in the office there one by one—didn't meet us all there standin at once—and one by one let us put in our complaints and what we wanted and all. All of em went in before me and when they come out they told me they went through all right, got agreement to be helped. I was the last man in before the federal people to talk to em—all white people, businessmen, no colored folks in it; only way a colored person was in there, he went in there to be furnished.
So I told em my circumstances: didn't owe anybody anything. I was clear and I knowed it, told em straight. Well, I had done paid what I owed the devil—Watson—and got wound up with him, unbeknownst to him so he made out. I thought I had the privilege then to do business with anybody I wanted to because I had done cleared myself up and I knew Watson didn't have no mortgage on nothin I had. And I knowed I stood a better chance with the government than I did with any of these folks here, absolutely. I wouldn't turn around to look at one of em if the government was beckonin me to come in with them.
They
knowed it too, and they didn't like for the government to come into this country and meddle with their hands.

Well, they just gladly fixed me up. The federal government took me over and furnished me that year, 1932. Less interest, less interest on the loan money with them than with anybody I ever knowed. Altogether a different proposition.

They told me, “Look out in your mailbox on such-and-such a day and you'll find a check there for you to buy your fertilize. And after that, you can draw your other checks, all that you need to make your crop.”

That certain date I went out to my mailbox and the check was there. I took that check and I come over here to Calusa with my wife to have it cashed. And when they cashed it for me they asked me if I wanted to leave it there in the bank. I said, “No, sir, I don't want to leave nary a penny. That's my fertilize money and I need it.”

Went right on back home and in a day or two I got Mr. Horace Tucker to take his truck with a long trailer to it and when he stopped drivin we was in Union Springs. Drove right up to the guano factory in that little old city and bought all the guano I needed and loaded it on Mr. Horace's truck—the company did, the hands there workin—and carried it on home. Couldn't get me no soda there, soda was scarce, and the next day Mr. Horace carried me to Opelika on that truck—same man, same truck. He weren't gettin nothin for hisself, he went for me. Of course, I paid him, didn't expect but to pay him for them trips, drivin that trailer truck and haulin my fertilize. Well, couldn't get no soda at Opelika but I got some ammonia chemical to answer in place of it. Mr. Horace Tucker—wasn't a nicer white man for accommodatin you in the whole settlement.

The second government check was my supply check; it come several weeks later and I used the money strictly for groceries—and
that was flour, sugar, and coffee, but for no meat and lard, I didn't need that, raised my meat and lard at home.

I went on and made my crop that year, '32. Didn't go to Apafalya nary a time for nothin. And after crops was laid by I hauled a little lumber, spot haulin, no regular operation. I got home one evenin—night—I was workin right close to my home then, and my wife told me, “Darlin, Mr. Watson come through here today.”

I said, “He did?”

She said, “Yes.”

I said, “Did he stop?”

She said, “No, he never did quit drivin, just drivin along slow and lookin every whichway.”

All right. That was on a Thursday. He went right on back to Apafalya after he drove around the men what had been dealin with him and he printed up some cards and sent em around, one to me, one to Leroy Roberts, one to Virgil Jones—we was
his
men. Said on the card, “Those who consider that they are my customers, come out to Apafalya Saturday evenin and get em some beef.”

My wife asked me, “Darlin, is you goin to go to Apafalya like the note say?”

I said, “If I do, I'll walk on my hands.”

Weren't nothin to that note but a sham. He just wanted us to come out there so he could question us about how we was doin our business. The other boys done as they pleased along them lines, they was all grown. I never did ask Virgil Jones did he go get that beef, and I never did ask Leroy Roberts; it weren't none of my concern. But I know what Nate Shaw done. I weren't hungry for none of his beef, and I never would get so hungry that I couldn't get somethin to eat other ways. I wouldn't be fool enough to go out there huntin no beef if I were down to my last piece of bread. My children will tell you, any of em, they never knowed what it was to get hungry and couldn't get somethin to eat.

T
HE
panic was on that year—cotton was cheap, had done hit the bottom. And when the wind-up come, the government gived me a date to comply and bring my cotton to the warehouse that the government rented here in Calusa. You could sell your cotton yourself and pay the government cash or pool your cotton in the government's name at the warehouse, just so much cotton as they told you,
accordin to the price they figured. The order come to me to pool so many hundred pounds of lint cotton.

As the panic was on, the government was lenient and kind to their customers. And that poolin, that would give the cotton a chance to go up—but I'm satisfied that I paid to store that cotton out of the amount of cotton they called for. I didn't worry bout the cotton goin up or down no more that year once I turned my cotton loose. The government was just takin a chance of gettin what I owed out of it.

That fall, I come up to the requirement. The bales of cotton that I pooled weighed a little over what they asked for. I went on, after I put the cotton in the warehouse in the name of the government—so much lint, so many bales weighin so-and-so—went back home and I finished gatherin my crop. My wife got a bale of cotton weighed five hundred and sixty-five pounds. Me and my children worked to make it on my wife's mother's and father's place. Gathered that cotton, ginned it, had that big bale belonged to my wife and three bales I had for myself that I held back after carryin the government three bales. I took up one of them bales one mornin, the lightest bale I had, me and my boys put it on the wagon and I told em to carry it to the market and sell it and bring back the money—they done it, just like Papa said do. I gived every nickel of that money to my wife to use to buy the children and herself some shoes and clothes as far as it would go. It weren't no great sum of money—cotton only brought five cents that year, as little as it ever brought in my lifetime.

All right. I took them other two bales of mine and headed em up to the door of my cotton house, weatherboarded cotton house I'd built when I moved on the place, rolled that cotton in there and stood it up. Took my wife's bale and stood it up beside my two bales—they was lighter bales than her'n. I locked the door. Left em there and that's where they was standin when I was put in the penitentiary.

F
ROM
the first bale of cotton to the last one, that Vernon of mine—he got big enough to handle my mules on the road, my second son, he'd try anything he seed his daddy try. Got my first bale of cotton on the wagon one mornin, said, “Vernon, come on and go to the gin with me; me and you will go to the gin today.”

Went on down there to Tucker's crossroads to the gin, walked in there and made arrangements about ginnin my cotton, had that bale of cotton ginned, went on back home, and I never did haul another bale of cotton to the gin that fall myself. Next bale of cotton, Vernon hauled it to the gin—first time I'd ever trusted him complete, he was grown then. “Vernon, time to go to the gin now, we got a bale of cotton. Take it to the gin.” He hitched them mules to that wagon and pulled off. Them mules was game as the devil, but he managed it and he done it gladly.

My mules at that time was named Mary and Dela; Mary was a black mule and Dela was what you might call a bay-colored mule. Both of em was heavy mules, big enough for farm use, road use, anywhere you put em. That Mary mule was the devil on hinges, no doubt. I didn't dread sendin Vernon off with her and Dela though, because I knowed if there was any chance in the world they could be handled, Vernon would handle em. Sometimes he'd go to the gin and be late comin back. I'd walk out the house, go out to the road and look up the road see if I could see him. And when that boy come in sight with them mules and that bale of cotton sittin up in the wagon behind him, that Mary mule would have her head in the air, her heels up in the corner next to the double-tree. I could see the devil was in her. I'd stand there, heap of times, Vernon'd hit the yard, I'd say, “Old Mary is good and hot, aint she, son?” “Yes, Papa, she's been cuttin a fool ever since we left for the gin.” She didn't stand a automobile—any way she heard one comin behind her, she'd stampede like the devil, dodge from it and lean off and then, after it passed, she'd break to run. She was the most devilish mule ever I had but she was as good a workin mule as ever was hitched up. But that way she had, you had to watch chances to live behind Mary. She'd spill you, tear up the wagon, and do everything else if that bay mule, old Dela, would second her; that's all it took. But Vernon was able to hold her and talk to her—it took a heap of talk, holdin didn't do no good a heap of times. Come along in front of the house with her head throwed out in the air and go through to the back yard between the car shed and the house goin to the barn. O, she was a piss-ripper. Vernon held her in though—he went with me the first bale I hauled to the gin in '32, made my arrangements bout ginnin not only the bale I brought that day, but for up until my last bale that year, whether I was to be there or not. Vernon was on the wagon haulin it himself when the last bale was hauled. And
that Mary mule would come in there every time just like a tiger. I hated her ways but I had faith enough in Vernon to believe he'd stay with her.

T
HERE
was a white gentleman by the name of Leonard Wilcox—his sister lives right up there at Pottstown today, she married Mr. Grady Rudd for her second husband; and that was her brother runnin all over the country, singin, “Watson say he goin to take all Nate Shaw got this fall and all Virgil Jones—he goin to take everything they got.”

Well, he was tellin it around for several weeks and at that time he never did tell me directly about it. And I wondered how come he went tellin it to other colored fellows. I reckon he was tellin whites too, “Watson say he goin to take all old Nate Shaw got this fall and old Virgil Jones.”

Well, one day this white man come by my house, right after gatherin time, and he hadn't never told me nothin about it, skippin me, tellin it to everybody in the whole settlement around, just singin it. I was out there by my well and my well was close to the road and I looked down the road and here he come, Mr. Leonard Wilcox. Come on up to me and stopped. Here's his song with me: “Watson say he goin to take all you got this fall, and all old Virgil Jones got.”

I looked at him and I said, “He did?”

Said, “Yeah. Take all you and old Virgil Jones got this fall.”

I said, “Well, there's a law for that and the law obliges the likes of him as well as me. I aint goin to hide. When he starts, it's goin to be trouble.”

A heap of families, while I was livin on the Tucker place down on Sitimachas, was leavin goin north. Some of my neighbors even picked up and left. The boll weevil was sendin a lot of em out, no doubt. I knowed several men went north, some with their families and some without; they sent for their families when they got to where they was goin. More went besides what I knowed of, from all parts of this southern country. They was dissatisfied with the way of life here in the south—and when I was livin on the Pollard place it come pretty wide open to me and touched the hem of my garment. But my family was prosperin right here, I didn't pay no attention
to leavin. I wanted to stay and work for better conditions. I knowed I was in a bad way of life here but I didn't intend to get out—
that
never come in my mind. I thought somehow, some way, I'd overcome it. I was a farmin man at that time and I knowed more about this country than I knowed about the northern states. I've always been man enough to stick up for my family, and love them, and try to support em, and I just thought definitely I could keep it up. In other words, I was determined to try.

And durin of the pressure years, a union begin to operate in this country, called it the Sharecroppers Union—that was a nice name, I thought—and my first knowin about this union, this organization, that riot come off at Crane's Ford in '31.
^‡
I looked deep in that thing, too—I heard more than I seed and I taken that in consideration. And I knowed what was goin on was a turnabout on the southern man, white and colored; it was somethin unusual. And I heard about it bein a organization for the poor class of people—that's just what I wanted to get into, too; I wanted to know the secrets of it enough that I could become in the knowledge of it. Now I heard talk about trucks comin into this country deliverin guns to the colored people but I decided all that was talk, tryin to accuse the niggers of gettin into somethin here that maybe they weren't—and maybe they were. But didn't no trucks haul no guns to nobody. Colored people hadn't been armed up for nothin; it was told like that just to agitate the thing further. Of course, some of these colored folks in here had some good guns—you know a Winchester rifle is a pretty good gun itself. But they didn't have nothin above that. It weren't nothin that nobody sent in here for em to use, just their own stuff.

Well, they killed a man up there, colored fellow; his name was Adam Cole. And they tell me—I didn't see it but I heard lots about it and I never did hear nothin about it that backed me off—Kurt Beall, the High Sheriff for Tukabahchee County, got shot in the stomach. He run up there to break up this meetin business amongst the colored people and someone in that crowd shot him. That kind of broke him up from runnin in places like that.