All God's Dangers (16 page)

Last day I worked for Mr. Barbour, the second day of August; the third day of August he told me, “Well, I'm through with you now. You can go home to your daddy.”

I looked at him, said, “Yes sir.”

Third day of August, and the twenty-eighth day of December comin I come grown, and he talkin to me that way. I felt that he taken me for less than I was—I thought little about that.

So, I took what they gived me until the last and I went on home. Walked up there that mornin, my daddy was settin out at the lot; old lot lay southward from the house. I left the road, comin in from Apafalya where he had put me at, I looked and there was my daddy sittin under a big oak tree, close to the lot fence. I seed he was makin a basket.

I said, “Good mornin, Papa.”

“Good mornin, son.”

I asked him how they all was, his wife and children. He said, “They's gettin along pretty well.” He looked at me. “Well, you come in, did you?”

I said, “Yes, sir, I come in. Mr. Barbour got through with me and John Thomas both this mornin and turned us out.”

I had been comin home every weekend; come home on Saturday nights and go back early Monday mornin. But I had wound up workin under Mr. Barbour and it was my duty to come home and present myself to my daddy.

After a while I asked him—I looked him over and looked around at the place and all, as a boy would do comin home—I said, “Papa, what are you doin now for a regular job?”

“Well, workin some white oak, son.”

I seed he was workin white oak and that was his old trade. But the thing of it with me, from one word to another, I wanted to find out all the details. I didn't ask him in a tone that called for the answer he gived me. I wanted to know what he was doin for a
average
job. And the next word he said—I pleaded again—“Right now I'm workin some white oak. You can pitch in and help me if you want to.”

Ooooooooo, just like he throwed a dipper of hot water in my face. I knowed the past life of that. When I made baskets or he made em, they was all his. He sold em and put the money in his pocket, gived me nothin. Well, I thought at all times, the older I got, he oughta pinched himself and gived me somethin for a encouragement. But he gived me nothin. His rule, the way he worked his business, he'd work me from Monday mornin till Friday night, and if the job was open and anyway I could keep on, I'd stay put. He'd collect the money and take off to town. But if I made baskets on Saturday I could have that. After he done worked me all week, maybe Saturday I didn't feel like doin nothin much but set about restin—had to work Saturday all day to get anything; then I didn't get much. And what hurt me so bad, he showed by his way of actin that he'd a took that if I weren't careful, what little I worked and made on Saturday.

He didn't understand what I was askin. All he could say, “I'm workin some white oak, son. You can fall in and help me if you want to.” Well, I was too old for that. I done looked way down the road and up the road and his work led nowhere.

I said, “Papa, I don't want to make no baskets, work no white oak. A job makin me some money is what I want. I aint got nothin—money, clothes, or nothin decent. Papa, furthermore, I been obedient to you. I've hit everywhere you wanted me to hit, up until this day. Now I'm only lackin from today until the twenty-eighth day of December of bein twenty-one years old. And I've got nothin. I've got nothin. And you aint got nothin to give me. I'm goin to try to hunt me a job and make what I can until another year. And then I'm goin to try to get me a little crop on halves with somebody and make somethin if I can. You've got nothin to give me to help me start off through life. It tells me that it's high time I was lookin ahead to try to help myself.”

He takin it in, weren't sayin nothin.

“And I been obedient to you all of my days. Kept me workin under your administration and you collectin my labor. I've tried my best to give you satisfaction and help you up until now. And it leaves me today, after me bein hidden everywhere you put me—Papa, today I wound up on the last job you ever put me on and I got nothin out of it this year. And the way I see the business run, there's nothin to come. Soon I'll be thoroughly of age and I'll have to start from the stump. I aint got decent Sunday clothes; I aint got decent everyday clothes—I don't know what I'm goin to do. And I
may
marry”—I laid it to him—“accordin to my mind and notions now, I may marry”—I didn't tell him I had arrangements cut and dry to marry. I said, “I
may
marry, I don't know. But if I marry or aim to marry, I'll have to do somethin for myself then sure enough.”

I was a poor young colored man but I had the strength of a man who comes to know himself, all in me from my toes to my head. I meant right and no wrong; I meant to get up and out of that old rut and act a man. I didn't want to marry no man and no woman's daughter, take her off and perish her to death because I couldn't support her, just an old hack through the world.

So I told my daddy, “I don't know as I'm goin to marry, but if I do marry it means somethin to me. And here I aint got a change of clothes in the world like I ought to have, and no money. I got to go to work, Papa.”

He said, “Well, son, if you marry who would you marry?”

I jumped up this way: “I don't know that I'm goin to marry. There's so many things can come between a person and a marriage
contract. But if I marry I want to be in better shape than I am now. And if I marry I'm goin to marry this girl that I'm corresponding.”

White and black in the country knowed that.

I said, “If I marry and don't avoid it, it'll be to that girl I'm corresponding.”

He dropped his head. “Well, son, that aint no more than I'm expectin.”

I said, “You may well expect it because I've got a hope and I'm booked to go accordin to my word and the agreement between me and this girl. I'm goin to marry if God lets me.”

I spilled all around the edges to him that mornin and let him know enough that he could estimate my complete intention if he cared to. I was a game peacock, uneducated boy that I was, and I had many things in my mind that was pointin to my advancement regardless of education. I'd been here long enough. I'd been trusted by people and I never had had no trouble and everybody seemed to think well of me.

I had done cut cross-ties many a day. My daddy learnt me how to cut ties and we cut ties until I wore out nearly. I said to him, “Papa, aint Uncle Grant Culver and Uncle Jim Culver my mother's brothers? And aint they cuttin ties across over here close to Sitimachas Creek on the old Sutter place for Mr. Jim Flint?”

He said, “Yeah, they over there cuttin ties.”

I said, “Well, I believe I'll go there and join in with em, go to cuttin ties; see if I can come out at it any way to help me. Papa, where is your old tie tools?”—I knowed he had em—“Your mole and your measurin stick, your broad ax and your blacken line? Where is the tools you used to use back yonder year or two ago, two or three years ago?”

He said, “They down in the old shop house.”

“Well, I'll get em out in the mornin and I'm goin over there where they cuttin ties, see what I can do.”

Next mornin, my brother Peter went with me and got them tools out of that house and we shouldered em and walked a mile: short-cut saw, broad ax, and the balance of tools you need—wedges and so on. Down on Sitimachas Creek we walked, straight on to the Sutter place. Got down to where my uncles was workin and my
brother helped me cut down two big post oak trees, big around as a tub. We had the cross-cut saw and everything we needed for the job. First we cut down somethin for em to fall on, ground cushion, then cut down the trees. I measured out two ties from each tree; measured seven inches across the ends of the trees and laid em off, true from one end to the other. Then we had to cut into them scores and slug em off. If they was big enough that I couldn't stand there flat-footed after I cracked them scores up, from the bottom to the top, I'd take my ax and throw it on a slant and give it a quick twist and knock them scores off of that log from one end to the other—if it's a good workin tree. Then get up there right close to my lines and chip it, owin to how much I lacked of knockin them scores off to the lines, just what it takes. Then get down beside that log and take that broad ax with a right-hand stroke and dress the side of that log, all the chips and all the frazzles off of it, and smooth that log up on each side. And if the tree would make two ties, I'd pull it out there and line it up and split it.

I worked that job from Tuesday mornin till Friday night—O, if it didn't burn me down standin on that log, glory! Hot work, heavy work, sweaty work. I decided I couldn't stand it. One of them two logs I never even shaped it off—gived it to my uncles to finish. I sawed one log down and cleaned it up to tie limit—that was about as far as I went. I got plumb disgusted. Sweatin to death, workin the devil out of me. Went home that Friday evenin, late; Saturday mornin I got up and give out, doin that heavy work. It was so hot it was a pity.

Saturday evenin I went out to Apafalya, met John Thomas. We runned together as we had been together all year. We howdyed with one another and John asked me, “Well, Nate, what are you doin now? What sort of job you followin?”

I said, “O, I'm tryin to cut ties, John, but it's too hot for me and I just about decided in my mind I ought to quit because it's killin me, sweatin me to death, heavy job, too. I wants to get me a job I can handle without draggin me down. What is you doin?”

He said, “I got a job. I went right on out from here last Monday after we left Mr. Barbour; I went right on and caught the train to Stillwell, got off and walked about four miles out in the country, toward DeGrasse, and I'm workin haulin logs there now. I'm just at home on a Saturday evenin. I'm right from Stillwell, out in the
country between Stillwell and DeGrasse, haulin logs for a fellow by the name of Frank Sharp, white man, loggin his mill for him.”

“Um-hmm.”

“I wish, Nate, you was down there with me.”

I said, “John, you reckon I could get a job down there?”

Said, “Yeah, you can get a job, you can get a job down there.”

Pay was light in them days. I realized that but I knowed that I was a single man and just come in off the job where my daddy put me, and I was aimin to marry and I had to get up and help myself—that's what I figured.

I said, “All right, John, if you think I can get a job, I'm goin to meet you down there.”

And he begged me this way: when I agreed to go back with him Monday mornin, he said, “Now Nate, I'm lookin for you to come to Apafalya Monday mornin and we'll get together and catch a train and go down there where I work. Nate, don't fool me, don't fool me—”

Well, me and John caught the train together that Monday mornin, went on to Stillwell. Of course, Stillwell weren't no more than the country, just two stores; but that was a train juncture place, depot there and all. Got down there, got off the train, took us till about one o'clock to walk out to the sawmill, four miles in the country. Got there, John decided that he was hungry and best for us to stop at the work shack and cook somethin to eat. We did so. We cooked us a great big old hoecake of biscuits—put plenty of lard in it, too. We et there and went on down to the sawmill; sawmill was just about a quarter mile from the shack. Mr. Frank Sharp was at the mill himself, the owner of the mill. He was haulin logs. John Thomas was a log hauler but Mr. Sharp hauled on Mondays till John would come in. John walked up to a four-mule dray, had four mules hitched to it. Mr. Sharp had just unloaded his logs and got off, standin around there now, bein the boss man. Him and John got off from me about fifteen feet, just got out from right under me to talk. But they kept their voices up loud enough for me to hear.

John said, “Mr. Sharp—” Mr. Frank, he called him, “Mr. Frank, I brought you a new man. He's a good hand, too.”

John didn't know definitely all I could do. But he advised Mr. Sharp anyway in my favor. Well, I was a log hauler too. Learnt to haul logs for Mr. Jack Knowland; drove six head of steer to a wagon.

Mr. Sharp walked up to me, said, “Well, is you a man huntin a job?”

Told him, “Yes sir, I'd like to have a job, any job that you can give me that I can handle.”

He said, “Well, what can you do?”

I said, “Well, I can do any job except pull that saw lever to saw lumber. I can't do that, don't know nothin about it. And firin that boiler settin right over here at your mill, I don't know nothin bout firin no boiler. But runnin that edger saw, haulin logs, or cuttin down logs to be hauled in, I can do all—I can do any one of them jobs you put me at. Sawin logs out in the woods, I can do that. Or I can haul logs into your mill here to be sawed. Or I can drive that edger; but I don't know nothin bout sawin lumber with the saw, that circle saw; I don't know nothin bout firin that boiler. Them is two things—I can do anything you want done at your mill except them two jobs.”

He caught it, looked at me, said, “John—”

John answered him.

Said, “In the mornin, you help this man catch out them dray mules, all four of em and help him to hitch em up. Show him where each mule goes. Catch em out, gear em up, and get em ready to hitch em to the dray. When you do that, you get Brother Manny's mules”—that was his baby brother; both of em was grown men—“and hitch em to that low-wheel wagon.”

It was a dray itself but it was a two-mule dray. Mr. Frank Sharp's brother, Manny Sharp, he had some interest in there somehow and he furnished a big pair of mules and they worked to that dray.

And said, “After you get him straightened out, you take Brother Manny's mules and hitch em to that low-wheel wagon that they belong to and you haul right on with it.”

John done, next mornin, just like Mr. Sharp told him. And John hauled with me about two or three days and Mr. Sharp stopped John—I couldn't imagine how come he stopped John from helpin haul but one way: John just weren't needed in the haulin business. I was just throwin enough logs down to that mill to keep it runnin without John. Of course, Mr. Sharp might not have looked at it that way—but I gained the name of a good log hauler in full before I quit haulin logs. In three days' time or sooner, he stopped John and put Mr. Manny Sharp's mules, great big old mules—Jim was a fat
gray mule, would have weighed around fourteen hundred pounds, he was all mule; and another big old black mule, called him Simon—great big elephant-lookin rascals.