All God's Dangers (88 page)

And he come to me just after I moved here. He heard I had a mule to sell and he told me he had had a good mule, but he put him off in a pasture and he got tangled up in some vines and by not checkin on the mule as he should, when he did find the mule, the mule was caught and couldn't get out and there he died. Evidently, he didn't look after him daily—and he wanted to buy my mule. I said, “I'm sorry, Mr. Wilcox, I done sold him; he's gone.”

That's the very man that stuck hisself between the riot crowd and my people; brave man, good man, white man with sympathy.

I was very careful at sellin that mule. I put some stress behind it, told em, “Take care of her. You see the shape she's in, I'd hate to see her go down.”

And every time Josie sees em—she goes over by Teaks' Church on the same road where they keeps that mule—she bones em about Kizzie and they tell her, “When that mule dies we goin to have Nate come over here and preach her funeral.”

I miss that mule today. I miss her every way—she was a good quality mule too. I could run her into a quagmire waist high and order her to stop and she'd stand right there and wait for death. But the old mule weren't worth nothin; them old cows wasn't worth nothin. I got as good a price as I could get accordin to the age of them beasts.

I was fixin to make a trough for Kizzie when I sold her, or a pipin from the well to the lot. But I never did do it. I just drawed water and poured it in a foot-kit. She never would drink over two kits of water. She would drink out of a big old washin machine—I drove a tight stopper at the bottom where the water'd run out and I'd go there and pour them two foot-kits of water in there and keep that thing cleaned out, and that was her drinkin spot. When I'd get ready to bridle her I'd go out there, reach up the side of the barn door, grab my curry comb and brush, brush her and curry her, harness her and go on to the field. No kicks to come. She done what I asked her to do every way. When I got to where I couldn't put in a day's plowin—before I quit plowin that mule I'd sit down on my plow many a time, she'd stand there—drive her in the shade, sit down, stick my plow down and sit down, she'd stand right there till I started again or took her out. She understood.

F
IRST
thing I'd do, on the average, every day of my life, after I got my clothes on, dash out and feed them mules. Next thing, if I had to draw water or anything else around the house needed to be done, I'd do it. My wife would get breakfast done and the whole family would set down at the table and eat. Then I was ready to go back to the lot and turn them mules out where they could get water themselves or either I'd draw water at the well. Done it myself and I was very shrewd on them jobs. If my boys fed and watered my mules—maybe some mornin I had some other little thing I wanted to get done real early, first thing. My boys would go to the lot—I could trust em; I always told my boys whenever they'd feed em, “Them mules aint goin to eat no more than they want. Just give em a good feed, plenty.”

Sweet feed, oats, sometimes sweet feed and oats mixed, just a certain amount all put in one vessel to make up their feed. Sometimes it was ear corn—never did shell no corn and give em; a mule that's kept in good shape will eat that corn off of them cobs, sometimes he'll leave a few nubs at the end of the ears—mighty seldom my mules would ever eat up the cobs. You get a mule hungry, don't give him enough ear corn, he'll bite the nub end of that corn and eat it. The most of them cobs, my mules left em right there in that trough for me to pick up and throw out when I put out another feed of corn. Fed em three times a day just like I et—them animals, my
mules or my horses, I considered the next thing to my family. Fed em mornins early, day dinner when I'd carry em to the barn, nights when I'd put em in the lot. Very seldom that I'd fasten my mules in the stable; unless it was bad weather, I'd leave the door open so when they got done eatin they could walk out in the lot. A mule won't never overeat hisself if he's used to getting plenty to eat. But you'd better not fool with no horses thataway. A horse will overeat his stomach, a horse will outeat a mule—it's nature for em to do it.

You can't trust a horse like you can a mule. A horse is not like a mule and a mule is not like a horse. A horse and a mule has got, as a rule, different ways. When it comes to heavy duties, little mule or big mule, he's kinder and more willin to work than a horse. Of course, any animal that aint willin he's goin to show it to you. That'll be a sorry mule, but it's more in the nature of a horse to act that way. It's known: better to have you a mule out there than a horse because that mule goin to bow when you call him and your business will pick up. If it's a thoroughgoin mule, aint no trouble to get work out of him, he'll bow to anything. Some horses when you hitch em up, they got a lot of fidgetin to do, and some of em just aint goin to work for you to save your life—maybe he'll travel, maybe he'll pull a buggy, but when you put him to plowin, or put him to a two-horse wagon, right there's where you goin to have your trouble with a horse.

Twice a day if I'm plowin, mornin and night, I'd brush and curry my mules. Keep my mules in thrifty condition, keep em lookin like they belonged to somebody and somebody was carin for em. Mule love for you to curry him; he'll stand there just as pretty and enjoy it so good—run that comb over him first one way then the other, backwards and forwards, scrub him good, all over, the fur under his stomach if necessary, and from his head back. Brush the head—mule don't love for you to hit his head much with a curry comb.

When I'd get him curried, hang my curry comb back up on the barn wall—my curry comb had just about gived out at the time I sold that last mule—reach back and get that brush, brush him all over far as I could reach that brush under him; brush his legs down as low as his hocks. Clean that mule up so he'll feel good, then go get his gear and put it on, take him and hitch him to the plow, go to plowin. He feels good to be clean just like a person do.

In plowin, you aint got a thing but a cloth, good heavy cloth
made out of duckin, if necessary, across them mules' backs and got hooks on what you call the backhand to hook them traces on each side. Get them traces hitched to the single-tree, and your lines, if you able to have em, set of lines long enough to go to that animal's mouth with that plow stretched out full length, fasten you a new plow line to each side of that mule's mouth, run em back to the plow handles, long enough to make you a loop. And in plowin, you can take that mule and set him close to that plow, or further from it, ownin to how you set your traces to the loggerhead.

If I was goin to a wagon, many a time I'd use strop harness on my mules, with a crupper under their tails, to haul logs. I started off usin britchin on em, them big leather strops behind the back legs and hips, but that wouldn't do to keep them animals cool for haulin lumber. Best thing to do, averagely, for you to haul lumber with your mules, run them leather strops across them mules' hips down to them traces—and that's what you call strop harness. I used em for haulin lumber so my mules wasn't covered up in britchin and leathers, keep em hot. And put brakes on that wagon to hold that wagon off of em goin down hills. I'd load anywhere from a thousand to—wouldn't put on a foot over a thousand if I was under any reasonable hill at all; buck it down, pick up my lines, call up there, “All right, babies, let's get it.” You'd see them big heifers fall out then. O, my mules just granted me all the pleasure I needed, to see what I had and how they moved.

S
OON
as I got my property sold off I moved in this house. I paid Mr. Stu Wilcox four hundred dollars and it's very little I've paid on it since. Mary Beth, Josie's daughter, is backin up the business now. She's got a foreman job in a hospital up there in Boston, Massachusetts, and she claims she's comin down here pretty soon and pay the house off. I can't pay it myself. I can't plow now. I got no income out in the field, no more than a little garden. When I quit plowin I got to where—aint plantin nothin but corn to keep up my fattenin hog, and a little watermelon patch, some potatoes, peas, beans, and so on like that, just piddlin, you might say; it aint nothin to prize me up.

I has one time in life, before I went to prison, I was doin good for myself; part of my labor bein taken but I was climbin up in the world despite it, accumulatin personal property. But it's been a
dead drag for me ever since I been put in prison and come out.

Now I has to draw from the government—the government's able to bear it, puttin out their money on me. Well, some of that money I been beat out of. And the government drawin tax to get that money; they aint workin for it. I pleaded and I begged and I runned around everywhere I could go for information to get in touch with the government. Not havin no education, I'd be turned down for some cause. And I runned around till I got to be seventy-nine years old before the government ever gived me anything. All right. I went to Beaufort and put in my complaint. And there was a white lady runnin the head part of the business, by the name of Miss Fogarty. She questioned me close and I told her the truth about my condition. She said, “Well, Nate, I'll see to you bein helped. But can you work ary a bit? Or what do you do to help yourself?”

I told her, “Yes'm, I been farmin all my days up until now and I become disabled to work a crop—I had to cut my crop down to where I can't make a livin at it no more. All I can do is work my little patches. I aint quit plantin a little corn yet to feed my pig on and have a little left to sell in the community. But so far as plantin cotton, that's been over; I aint planted no cotton in several years. But I has a little corn patch, and a garden, three or four acres, that's all I can cover; and I scuffles around and works the best I can. I want to keep plantin my little corn and stuff. I don't want no sort of help that would take that away from me.”

Told her I worked white oak and she asked me how much I made from my baskets and I told her. Then she said, “Well, Nate, I'll write you up and your statement will go from here to Montgomery”—that's headquarters for the state of Alabama—“and then it'll leave Montgomery and go to Washington, D.C. And we'll get a hearin from them.”

That wound it up there. I went by her word and gived my application a chance to go from Montgomery to Washington, D.C., headquarters for the United States, sure enough. And when I went back to see her, my application had done went and come. She said, “Your application went through just fine. You can have your corn patch and your little truck patches and so on. And you can work white oak. Just so long as there's no cotton in the business.”

They started off givin me twenty-nine dollars a month and they just kept inchin up, inchin up. I have to pay lectricity and grocery bill and insurance—I never did ask em to give me more
than that twenty-nine dollars, I'm takin yet what they give me. Well, they pulled on up there and now they givin me a hundred and three dollars a month. And when they put out that Medicare I joined that. Now, I aint been sick a minute since I went in and been drawin this relief. The government sends me Medicare cards and promises to pay my doctor bills when they come. I aint got a penny out of that plan today but they aint to blame for that; I just aint been sick.

J
OSIE
draws a little money from the government and sells candy as a addition to that. White man's candy out of the state of Georgia. This candy costs her four dollars a box and she gets a premium for sellin it or the cash money. Children come out from all over this settlement to our house huntin candy and she sells it to em. They pile in here, sometimes three and four comes in a drove to get candy from Josie—chocolates, Baby Ruths, coconut candy, cookies; just any kind of candy that the man brings and let her have to sell. She generally takes from two to four boxes of candy at one time. Been sellin candy before I married her but she's changed companies. And the children of this settlement been knowin her for many years—she's called to be the candy lady. There's children bought candy from her that's grown and has their own children that come and buy candy from her. She have had a man from a company come right yonder on the Jenks place and wanted her to sell candy for him and she was loaded sellin for another man and she had to turn him down.

These childrens eats any kind of candy, any kind. When she first gets it, they'll pick out all the best lookin, then they has to come back and get the other, and they take it with a smile. Josie credits it sometime, and sometime she has a hard way to go huntin up her dimes—some of these big boys is slow to pay and some of these girls too. These children got pretty good book learnin and Josie stands around and sees em put down on a paper what they owe her, so there won't have to be no argument. Josie don't eat no candy herself; she aint got nothin but hollow teeth.

I can't reach the hill like I used to could but I'm not at a standstill yet. I think about it over and often: if I hadn't got shed of my mule so quick and if I could have got me some smooth land, I could have
plowed last year. Wouldn't have hurt me. But I sold my mule, sold my cows and everything. Now I'm eighty-five years old and I don't have a crop in the field, not a crop in the world.

It's been two years since I picked a bit of cotton or chopped out a row. Workin for Vernon and it was this way between us: he'd always pay me but I wouldn't let him pay me as much as he was willin to pay me, bein my child. He so dearly took care of his mother when I was away those twelve years in prison. He went by my orders—and he went by some of his orders too. But he stuck in the house with his mother and his little sisters and brothers. And I feel I owe him a great deal. I wouldn't charge him for my labor like he wanted to pay me. I loved his mother as a wife, I loved her. She stuck by me until the last peas was gone out of the dish—