All God's Dangers (69 page)

Preacher said to me, “Brother Shaw”—after he got my testimony—“I'll recognize you and take you in as a member of Pottstown Baptist Church.” Then he opened up to the congregation—the house was full that day—“Brother Shaw, I'll baptize you accordin to your convictions. But Church, you all know this aint no time for baptizin”—that was in December, just before Christmas—“you all know it.”

Didn't nobody “amen” him at all. I wanted to be baptized then and there and they thought I should be too. They wouldn't “amen” him, wouldn't say, “that's right” or nothin. I seed I couldn't put in no plea; he done put it before the body of the church. And when they wouldn't agree with him, he took it in his own hands and refused me. Well, that brought on a commotion but it didn't move him.

So I went on back to prison without bein baptized, thinkin to myself, ‘What kind of church is it that won't baptize a man when he's ready to be baptized?' It was left between God and me when I come up defeated at church. I lingered there at Wetumpka a year, unsatisfied. First openin I got was the next Christmas, just several months before I come home free. That time I was baptized. The church, some way or other, had done got shed of this man and called
em another preacher. I just walked in, I did, and gived in to him. He accepted my membership and he told me, “Well, Brother Shaw, I'll baptize you—” and set the day before he quit talkin. And that was just before the day come for me to go back to prison.

We met over there at Teaks' Church, Methodist church—weren't no way to baptize a person up there at Pottstown. They always went down to the little creek to baptize, right below Teaks'. Little old bridge crosses that creek goin towards Calusa. Right there I was baptized. I felt so good—last of December—cold—the deacons led me down in the water and I stepped in up to my waist. I was wearin a blue-colored robe over my Sunday clothes—a good pair of pants, good shoes. The deacons led me down to the preacher, who was waitin on me in the water. He took my hand and led me down the rest of the way. And he baptized me. Caught me by the back of my head with one hand, and his other hand on my breast, he laid me back down in the water and pushed me under. Then he spoke over me.

That's the way the Missionary Baptists baptizes you. Now you take a certain denomination of these Methodist folks, they sprinkle the top of your head. Well, my wife and children belonged to the Pottstown Baptist Church and that's just exactly where I went and wanted to go and the way I wanted to be baptized.

When the preacher pulled me up out of the water, the deacons was there to catch my hands and lead me up. I felt, when I hit the air—and it was early winter when I stepped up out of that water—I felt just like somebody done poured a kettle of warm water over me. I weren't cold a bit. And I commenced a shakin hands all around and laughin and goin mad for joy.

I
T
was April and the land was all broke but the boys wasn't quite through plantin. They had all of twenty acres—a two-horse farm, maybe a little more for two horses to plow. The field close to the house had about ten acres in cotton, then about five acres in the far field from the house, which totaled about fifteen acres in cotton. And the balance of the land in corn—had good corn, a big corn crop. Raised that corn to feed the stock. My wife had a big iron-gray mare; she'd a weighed around eleven hundred pounds and she had a colt. And the two young boys, Garvan and Eugene, had a mule apiece. One of em had a little old horse mule and the other one had a mare mule. I plowed Garvan's mule, that mare mule, and he plowed Eugene's mule and Eugene plowed that big mare—first year. And the land we plowed belonged to Mr. Leeds; it went by the name of the Leeds place.

I come out of prison in April '45. They gived me several dollars when they turned me out of there, but they didn't give me as much as thirty dollars. And they gived me a suit of clothes—it weren't nothin that I would ever buy for myself, just somethin that looked a little better than a pair of overalls. I stayed there long enough to wear out a heap of clothes—

And I toted a Elgin watch every day I lived through prison. High-priced watch, as good a grade of watch as was made in them days; bought that watch in Proctor's Druggery in Apafalya, way back when I was haulin lumber for the Graham-Pike Lumber Company. And I toted it in my overall bosom—had a long cheap chain, I gived five dollars for the chain that was slung to it. And Sundays, I'd keep it in my pants pocket. And I toted that watch—and the droppin it, and gettin it wet and breakin the crystal off it—twenty-seven long years. And eventually, the last time I dropped it, I unbalanced the jewels in it and that finished it with me. Still, I'd wind it up and listen at it and it'd go to tickin; them wheels was tilted, tryin their best to run, but they give out.

A white man at Wetumpka seed me windin that watch and tried his best to buy it from me. Told me, “Somebody goin to steal that watch.” I said, “Well, if they steal it, I'll be lookin at em.” And I thought to myself, ‘If you want a watch like this one, you is better able to buy it than I was.' And I told him, “If I take a notion to get shed of it, I'll let you have it.”

I went all through prison and I never had but one dollar stole from me. When they payin you fifteen cents a day, a dollar is a lot of money. But I could sell a basket for a dollar, so it weren't no more than a day of my labor. That's all the money was stole from me—not countin the years of my life I gived to the state of Alabama; they was stole from me, in a way of speakin. But them prisoners was busy lookin after all their fifteen cents; couldn't do nothin bout the years.

I served my sentence out, didn't owe the state another day of my life. I had warned Vernon and his mother what day to come at me, and they come and got me. That mornin I prepared for em, gettin all my prison duties cleared off of me. Along about twelve o'clock I wound up my last work there and I got busy takin a bath. I went to my cell where I'd stayed every night and rounded up all my clothes—seein that I had everything of mine I was goin to take with me. I pulled out my locker box from under my bed—I had a passable Sunday suit in there, slippers, socks, hat, a summer change of underwear, my watch—

They was in there by one o'clock, not later than one thirty. Soon as Vernon and my wife drove up, they passed Captain Oliver Cook's
wife on the veranda of the administration buildin. Hannah got out of the car and stayed back talkin with her and Vernon come on to get me. Weren't nobody in that cellhouse but me; the rest of em was in the field. I was in the room yet bathin when I heard Vernon come up the steps of that buildin—I knowed his footsteps, I didn't have to look and see it was him, I could hear him. He pushed the door open and I looked in his face. “Papa,” he said, “Papa, it's time—”

Quickly got ready; and my wife, when I walked out, she was settin there talkin with Mrs. Cook. Got in the car—them prisoner boys hated to see me leave, they hated it. Some of em called me “daddy,”
their
daddy. There was a heap of em in there that never knowed their fathers; heap of em that never knowed their mothers.

Went home just as straight as a bee could go. Vernon didn't stop drivin until we landed on the Leeds place over yonder. Vernon weren't livin there at that time, he had moved out. He knowed I was comin home and him and his wife and their two little girls found a place for themselves. He had married a half-white woman who was born and raised in here below Apafalya. Her mother was darker than I am and I never did learn who was her father. She went in the name of her mother's people, they raised her. She was a Sherman, Millie Sherman. And she's got a brother just the same color she is. Then she's got two brothers just a little darker, on the colored side of the color. She's a quiet woman, always has been far as I knowed of her, since Vernon married her.

Vernon weren't in the house with his mother but he was the head man of the family while they was livin on the Leeds place. He had rented it from Mr. Leeds. And when I come home, Eugene was in there and he was married. And Garvan was there, the baby boy, and he soon married after I arrived. And Rosa Louise was the baby of all, she was there, all except bein off at school at Tuskegee. Them three children was in the house with their mother. Vernon had moved out and left Eugene there and Garvan; Garvan was big enough and old enough to plow and he was plowin.

Calvin, oldest child in the crowd, he was livin over close to Tuskegee in the Little Texas beat. That was a colored section, strictly, and he was makin out pretty well, farmin at the time. Rachel, my next child, was married and out. She'd married Ralph Jenks, son of Warren Jenks, and they was gettin along so bad I had some of the white people in the settlement advise me to put the law on him. Mattie Jane, my second girl, she married Thomas
Galloway; he was a good fellow, farmin man, and they was livin close by in the settlement. Leah Ann, my third girl, she was married to Justin Ames and livin in Chattanooga. She was the first girl in the family to leave the state of Alabama; and she left here about the same time Francis left for Philadelphia. She was underage when she married and just about grown when she left. Justin Ames runs a crane at the iron factory, that's his job, been workin there for years. He's got a little lot there in Chattanooga, paid for, and him and Leah Ann aint got nary a child in the world and aint never had one.

I went on to the balance of my family and fell in there. But all the best stuff I had had was gone. I figured when they put me in the penitentiary that my big pair of mules would be sufficient to take care of all the business—all the work they could do. They kept em through trouble and tribulations and they just managed, when they'd lose one, to buy another. When Dela died, they bought a mule from some of the Wilcox people, a gray mule, somethin I never did own, a gray mule. They worked him awhile and I don't know whether they swapped him off or sold him, but I don't think that mule died. And the next news, they bought a mare, a horse, but she didn't want to work. So they got shed of her and went and bought a great big iron-gray mare. The boys was gettin nearly grown and they kept a buyin—when I got home, Vernon had a pair of mules of his own. And they bought two more little old mules, rabbit mules big enough to plow. That made three mules and two horses they bought for family use and two mules reserved for Vernon. Nary one of them family horses would work to a two-horse wagon. And that first horse they bought wouldn't do no sort of work. When I fell in there, them younger boys had a mule apiece; bought em from a white man by the name of Lovett. And my wife had that big iron-gray mare—that mare woulda weighed twelve hundred pounds, she was a big one. Her feet, had the biggest feet—she was as good a plow horse as any animal ever I plowed, as good as my mules.

My wife turned the mare over to me—that was mine. Didn't none of the boys object and I don't reckon she would have gived me the mare like she done if it weren't her'n to give. That was all I had then when I come back home. Them boys was scared to hitch her to the wagon, two-horse wagon. I told em, “She's a big heavy mare and I can see you all is shy of her. If I stay here, she goin to work
to that wagon. I'm goin to put her where I want her and she goin to work there.”

So I hitched her to the wagon—Vernon helped me hitch her up—and she worked around pretty well, but she tried to run. I held her back like a stockmaster should and she soon ceased down enough to make a good farm animal.

E
UGENE
and Garvan had everything cut and planned and goin on when I got there. They had the biggest part of the crop planted, of cotton. And I helped em plant about five acres more of cotton and about five or six acres of corn. Vernon done stepped out to clear the way for me to come in and had his business all to hisself. That gived me a openin and I just went in there under my boys' rulins. And we all worked through then.

All right. It was very little that boy cleared that year—Eugene. Cotton weren't bringin over twenty-five cents, but he did make enough to pay off all his debts. He was dealin—him and Vernon both was dealin at that time with Mr. Van Kirkland, here at Tukabahchee City. And after the crop was made in '45, Eugene divided up what was cleared between us—him and Garvan and me and their mother.

Next crop, in '46, when Eugene got that crop gathered and off his hands, paid all his debts and divided what little was left between us, we didn't get twenty-five dollars apiece. But I just accepted it. When Eugene got that crop put over, he farmed no more. And he quit clear—paid all his expenses off of that cotton and we gathered the corn—had a nice lot of corn, too. He just moved on away after that, out of the house, him and his wife. They didn't move far; in fact, somewhere in the settlement, and he stayed awhile. Then he moved off closer to Sitimachas Creek and while he was livin there he worked some at Calusa and some in the fields for other people. But he was just bidin his time. Weren't no more farmin in his future, he told me. And the next year—we was still on the Leeds place—he quit workin in the field complete, for nobody. He bundled up and left this country, went to Ohio. And when he left, before he left, I tried to get him to come over with me even just to plant some corn to go to meal, to support his family while he was public workin. So he helped me plant a few acres but he wouldn't even watch it grow. He left his half of the corn in the field and went off freely.

He had told me to sell his mule. Said he didn't have nowhere to put the mule, livin around the country like he was in rented houses. And before he left I sold his mule and gived him the money. It was a little mule and stock was cheap. Sold it to a white gentleman by the name of Horace Kinney, for sixty dollars. Eugene took the money with a smile. It seemed like he wanted to get out of farmin pretty bad, but I never did dispute him on that.

Now Garvan, he stuck right in there. His mother had gived him her mare's colt and he had that little old mule to make a team. He took a notion he didn't want that mule, little Lovett mule, and he sold it and went and bought him a good heavy mule—she'd a weighed eleven hundred pounds. Put that money from the little mule into the big mule and paid the difference in cash—a hundred and fifty dollars. And he plowed that mule one year, '47, and the boll weevil et his cotton crop up. He had a nice patch of cotton, too, accordin to the weed and how he cleaned out his rows; that cotton ought to have made him at least six bales. The boll weevil didn't leave him but a little over a bale. He just quit complete and throwed up his hands. Told me, “Papa, I aint goin to plow no more. I'm breakin up farmin. I'm goin to Calusa and get me a job and I'm goin to follow it. I aint plantin no more cotton, no more corn—not a thing that grows in the earth. So I won't be needin my mule. Can you handle her, Papa? Would she be any advantage to you?”