All God's Dangers (6 page)

So, one mornin in the woods, cut this wood in the winter, in the cold. There was two or three of the Clay family that my daddy always obligated himself to cut wood for em: Mr. Shelton Clay and old Mr. John Clay, Mr. Shelton's daddy. But not only for them; my daddy cut wood for anybody that wanted it. And he'd always tell we children, “When you get tired, stop and rest.” Well, he lost his kind talk and kind acts that mornin. Had a big old oak log, big around as a man's waist, layin on the ground. We'd saw them big cuts, then split em up and stack em the cord-wood way. Sadie on one side and me on the other side, sawin. And he kept water there in the bucket where we could drink from when we wanted to. And if he figured in his way that one of us was gettin tired, whichever one of us it was, we both stopped then to rest, catch our wind. Sawin aint no easy job with a cross-cut saw; you must thoroughly have what it takes to pull that saw.

So, that mornin, unexpected, I seemed to get weak. My sister was older than I was and it didn't make no difference that she was a girl, she'd out-wind me sometimes. I got weak—and my daddy had a act, most of the time, he'd catch hold on my sister's side and spell her. I don't know what made him do it. I didn't feel that he had a right to do it except that she bein a girl—but he oughta looked at it more ways than that. He oughta knowed that sometimes I'd get tired as well as my sister, and me younger. And he was workin me at that time at things he always kept my sister back, just because I was a boy. So he grabbed that saw on her side; him on one side then, me on the other. And he set me down; he set me afire when he done it. When he grabbed the saw handle out of her hand—I was already tired, I had almost started to quit, but he walked up and grabbed her handle and had her to stand aside. And he
commenced a snatchin that saw with all force that was needed to pull it and push it. He carried me a merry gait there a few minutes, and I'd already about lost my wind. I was fearful to stop after he grabbed the saw and I weakened down further when he hit a few licks with me. I slackened, I lost, I just about give out. He looked over that log at me, he seed plain somethin was goin to happen or had happened. He felt my pressure was weak, he felt it. But in place of stoppin, what did he do? Honest to my Savior, I held that against my daddy a long time, but finally I just outgrowed it and give it up. When he felt how that saw was goin and comin from my side, he raised up he did and squalled at me like I was a dog: “Saw on!”

Told me to saw on. I looked across the log and in a jiffy, backwards I went with my heels flew up. After he hollered, “Saw on,” I hit one or two fast licks to all my power. I knowed what he'd do to me but there weren't nothin I could do at that period. He coulda killed me if he'd a wanted to. Weren't nothin for me to do but fall out. I fell out of there like a rabbit with my heels up, just layin backwards on the ground. All I could say as I begin to catch my breath, “Huyyyhh, huyyyhh, huyyyhh”—my eyes done watered— “huyyyhh, huyyyhh, cough, cough”—just about gone.

He told my sister, “Gimme that bucket of water, gimme that bucket of water.”

He jumped at that bucket of water and commenced a wettin his hands and slappin it all over my face and head and all. I layin there, hollerin at him, “Huyyyhh, huyyyhh.” Like to slay his boy that day, as sure as you born to die.

Some folks tell me, “Well, I'd just forget about it, I wouldn't hold it against my daddy.” But my daddy was grown, he oughta knowed better. He couldn't use a child like he could use hisself. For several years after that I couldn't stand no cross-cut saw. How come it? The motion of a cross-cut saw across my breast—never has stood a cross-cut saw no more until this day. I been once killed nearly on it and I couldn't stand it no more, look to me in spite of redemption.

W
HEN
he weren't sawin wood, my daddy used to cut cross-ties for Mr. Joe Grimes. That was Mr. Clem Todd's son-in-law. Mr. Joe Grimes married one of Mr. Clem Todd's daughters. And we was livin at that time on Mr. Clem Todd's place. And right there we
lived till I got nearly grown. And so, Mr. Joe Grimes, bein the son-in-law, he bought all of Mr. Todd's timber and had it cut up in cross-ties and he hired my daddy to cut em. My daddy cut cross-ties several years for the man. First ties my daddy learnt me how to cut, the way he learnt me, cuttin for Mr. Joe Grimes. Cuttin cross-ties is nasty for a man to do—with a broad ax and a club ax and a cross-cut saw. And my daddy couldn't have made much money at it, maybe fifteen or twenty cents a tie.

Cut down a big oak tree or a big hard pine, cut them ties out seven inches by nine inches by nine foot long. The railroad used to wouldn't buy ties if you cut the logs out, put em on carriages for the circle saw to saw em. Used to wouldn't have em that way; had to hew them ties with a broad ax and a club ax. I helped my daddy cut—O, it tested me; things my daddy learnt me, I've done em since then myself.

So one day we was in the woods cuttin cross-ties for Mr. Joe Grimes and him sellin em to the railroad and pocketin whatever money come of it. Weren't no trucks runnin then. You hauled your ties with a pair of good mules, hauled em to the railroad yard and stacked em. The railroad inspector from Atlanta, Georgia, would come and count them ties up. And one day—the road run along out yonder from where we was cuttin and me and my daddy wasn't far out from the road, under a hill, cuttin ties. Mr. Grimes had done been there that mornin, got a load of ties before we got there and carried em off to Apafalya and put em off on the right-of-way outside the railroad yard and stacked em, come right back to get another load. And me and my daddy was down under the hill there cuttin. I looked up—happened to look up and I seed Mr. Grimes comin back there for another load. My daddy didn't know Mr. Grimes was there. I wasn't expectin the white man myself but I
was
expectin to get a beatin. Mr. Grimes stopped up there, just jockeyin hisself, and my daddy was in a wrangle with me bout somethin or other bout them ties. And he just went out in the bushes and cut him a sweet-gum sprout bout as broad as my finger and as long as my arm. And he whipped me up scandalous down there, under that hill. Mr. Joe Grimes was up there on that road lookin down at us—my daddy still didn't know he was up there. After it was all over, Mr. Grimes left from his stoppin place and drove down the road a piece where he could turn off on a level with the road so he wouldn't have no steep grade to fight. Drove out, come
circlin around and on down to us on his wagon. Had done seed—stood up there on the road and looked at my daddy beat me up. He got down there and stopped his mules, looked at my daddy. He said, “Hayes, what you beatin on your boy so bout this mornin?”

My daddy rattled off his excuses but it didn't do him no good. There's some of these white people in this country done better than others; they'd take up against the wrong thing. Especially with me, I was a little old boy and I knowed I'd gived my daddy no trouble.

And Mr. Grimes said, “Well, Hayes—” lookin right at my daddy; I was standin right there—“Well, Hayes, that's your boy but you beat him unmerciful. Hayes, don't ever let me see that no more. If I catch you beatin him again like I stood up there on the road and looked at you beat him, I'm goin to put the law on you. He's your boy. He's your boy. But there's a law for the way you beat him up.”

My daddy drawed up and held his tongue. He just dropped along and we cut ties for Mr. Grimes that year and the next year too. Never did let Mr. Grimes see him beat me no more.

After Mr. Grimes went out of the business, cut all the ties he could get out of that timber, I cut ties with my daddy for other white men right on up close to grown. And my daddy had another boy by a outside woman, and all the difference in my age and that boy's age—I was born in December, 1885, and that boy was born in March of the new year, 1886. He was about as big a boy as I was, I was just from December to March over him. And bein his outside boy my daddy had great sympathy for him. And this boy's mammy washed all around for white folks and cooked for white folks and all like that. Her name was Silvy Turpin, old lady Silvy Turpin. My daddy went to her and got a young-un. Already had my mother in a family way with me. So we two boys come along together close in the settlement we always lived in till I got grown. So one day we was cuttin ties for a white gentleman by the name of Jim Flint. And this boy took a notion that he would follow my daddy around in this tie cuttin. He didn't know nothin bout the job and my daddy had stuck me in there bein that I was a chap by his wife—my mother been dead since he learnt me to cut cross-ties, and he was married to my stepmother at that time.

So this boy took a notion he wanted to go to the woods with us. My daddy bein the daddy to him, he took him along. But the
boy wouldn't call him “daddy” and he was more like my daddy than I was. Went in the name of Willy Turpin, but he was really a Willy Shaw. My daddy wouldn't deny bein his daddy but he lived in a way that this boy never could walk out and boast on my daddy bein his daddy, and my daddy didn't boast bout him bein his child.

We went to the woods that day and went to cuttin. Twelve o'clock come and this boy didn't have no dinner with him. But my stepmother had fixed a dinner for my daddy and me. She always put my dinner in a different vessel than my daddy's. Got to the woods that day and Willy, he was there, helpin, but his mammy didn't fix him no dinner. I reckon she decided my daddy had plenty enough for him to let him eat with us. Place we called Cold Tree, in a big scope of woods cuttin ties for Mr. Jim Flint. Dinner time come, Willy didn't have no dinner. My daddy weren't goin to stand that. He took my vessel and gived Willy half of my dinner and then give him some out of his. Well, when I got done eatin—I was a big boy, right up close to fifteen years old, I wasn't satisfied. My daddy watched me and he knowed I weren't satisfied, and there was somethin or other said; Willy, I think, started it that day. My daddy said, “Nate's just mad cause you had to have part of his dinner.”

And from one word to another—I didn't have enough to eat but I had to work just the same—my daddy jumped on me and whipped me up, right there in front of Willy Turpin. Well, Mr. Grimes weren't there that day; we was cuttin for a different white man. Mr. Grimes's timber was all hauled out; cuttin instead for Mr. Jim Flint. And my daddy jumped on me and whipped me up scandalous, harder than he ever done before because I had got up to be a older boy, I could take it. And I never did forget none of his treatments toward me. You forever remember the wrongs done to you as long as you live. But it's just like forgivin if you just go on in this world and don't worry bout it.

Now this is no lie of mine, these are the outside children that my daddy claimed. I seen some of em, two boys and a girl—that was my sister Stella, my brother Willy Turpin, and my brother George Shaw. This half-sister of mine, one of my mother's brothers married that gal; Uncle Jim Culver married her. Had several children and
they was my half-nieces and -nephews on Sister Stella's side, and my full cousins by Uncle Jim.

This boy Will Turpin—went in the name of a Turpin—after he was told my daddy was his daddy he believed it. Old lady Silvy Turpin had been married and her first husband was named Asa Turpin; that throwed her to go in the name of Silvy Turpin. Old man Asa Turpin was the father of many a chap by old lady Silvy, but Will Turpin, her youngest son, he weren't one of em. We'd fight sometimes—he was my daddy's chap and my daddy always lived close to him and his mammy.

If my mother knowed about my daddy's carryin-ons she didn't make a fuss about it; she was a woman with good sense, she was a quiet-lifed woman. I think very well, accordin to my knowledge and understandin, all of my daddy's wives knowed he went with that Turpin woman. My stepmother, TJ's mother, knowed it.

Will Turpin, he was a Willy Shaw; Stella Crabb was a Stella Shaw; George Millsaps, by his mother's side, was a George Shaw. And my daddy had one, he often called his name, had a boy named Bud by some woman, I don't know who
she
was and I never seed
him.
That was four outside children and that bout gets all of em. My daddy was one of these—O, I knows too much, I knowed more than a child oughta knowed in them days. Never did know my daddy to boast about his outside children in front of his wives. He'd drop his head when they'd begin to shove them acts on him, he'd drop his head. My dear lovin mother never come up with such a thing as that against her as to have a young-un by a outside man; it never come up against TJ's mother to have a young-un by a outside man.

T
HIS
boy that there weren't from December to March difference in our age—never did live in the house together but his mammy always lived close to my daddy. I never knew my daddy to give her very much but he might have made some money from his little jobs and divided it with her for that boy's sake. But my daddy kept me so straight I didn't have time to watch out for such as that.

Well, Willy's mammy sent him to school. He didn't have any finished learnin but he could read and write anything he wanted. But I couldn't do it. How come it? She sendin my daddy's child to school while he had me hard laborin all the time. I didn't never get
out of the first reader; got no education to speak of. And another hurt addition to that: weren't no colored schools through here worth no count. You might find a school close to town somewhere that accommodated the colored and if you did you were doin well. But out in the country, even for such as Willy, weren't much school he could get.

Rocked along, rocked along, and these county headquarters that controlled the schools—they even done this when my children was goin to school. The white schools would all be floatin along, runnin on schedule; colored schools doin nothin, standin waitin for a chance to open. When the colored did start to school, we had to supplement the money the state give us with our own money. And durin of Willy Turpin's goin to school down through the years when my children was goin, they'd send out word from Beaufort, “Close the schools down. Money's out, money's out.” Sometimes school wouldn't run over a month and a half or two months and they'd send out word from Beaufort, “Close the schools down, close the schools down. Money's out.” Colored had to close their schools down, white folks' schools was runnin right on till May.