All God's Dangers (20 page)

I worked four years on halves, two with Mr. Curtis. I was just able when I moved from his place to leave him paid. What did I have left? Nothin. Of course, if I'm left with nothin, no cash in my pocket, I can look back and say what I paid for I got. But what little I did get I had to work like the devil to get it. It didn't profit me nothin. What little stuff I bought to go in my house—it set in my house! What is that worth to me in my business out yonder? It aint prosperin me noway in my work. I'm losin out yonder to get a little in my house. Well, that's nothin; that aint to be considered. You want some cash above your debts; if you don't get it you lost, because you gived that man your labor and you can't get it back.

Now it's right for me to pay you for usin what's yours—your land, stock, plow tools, fertilize. But how much should I pay? The answer ought to be closely seeked. How much is a man due to pay out? Half his crop? A third part of his crop? And how much is he due to keep for hisself? You got a right to your part—rent; and I got a right to mine. But who's the man ought to decide how much? The one that owns the property or the one that works it?

M
R
. A
MES
was a little better man than Mr. Curtis, and not sayin that altogether because he put me on better land—it weren't much better. I didn't just look at one angle or one point in the difference. I looked at it this way: Mr. Ames did put me on a little better land than Mr. Curtis, but I had to go by his orders, too. Well, that cut my britches; he didn't let me branch out like I wanted to. But I got along well with him. He never did cripple my cow and he never stood over me, tell me how to drive his mule of a Sunday—Mr. Curtis done that. When I'd go and get that plow mule to hitch him to the buggy that I bought from his brother-in-law, go where I wanted to, he'd tell me—well, I know that no man wants his stuff mistreated, but I never did treat his mules wrong; he had no cause to get at me about it. And I never was pleased to mistreat my mules after I got able to buy my own mules. Mr. Curtis laid his larceny to me: “Nate, when you get to where you goin, you'll be thar. Give the mule his time, give the mule his time.”

Didn't want me to drive him out of a slow gait. His way of speakin was
“thar”
; he didn't say “be there,” he'd say, “be
thar.
” That was his mule, it weren't mine, but he just disrecognized me, considered me not to know nothin. Know or not know I had to go by his orders to please him. He just considered me not to know nothin so he would have to tell me.

It's stamped in me, in my mind, the way I been treated, the way I have seed other colored people treated—couldn't never go by what you think or say, had to come up to the white man's orders. “You aint got sense enough to know this, you aint got sense enough to know that, you aint got sense enough to know nothin—just let me tell you how to do what I want you to do.” Well, that's disrecognizin me, and then he slippin around to see that I doin like he say do, and if I don't he don't think it's on account of I got my own way of doin, but he calls it ignorant and disobeyin his orders. Just disrecognized, discounted in every walk of life. “Just do what I say, like I tell you. Don't boot me.” Showin me plain he aint got no confidence in me. That's the way they worked it, and there's niggers in this country believed that shit. The only way you could gain any influence—he puts you out there, come along after a while and look over what you done—“O, it's done nice, it's done to suit me.” Then he'll—some of em will do it—he'll give you praises, thisaway
he'll give it: “O, Nate, you is better than I thought, you all right.” And so on. Pleased at it, didn't know I could do it. I've studied and studied these white men close. And I've studied em up to many and many a thing that surprises me.

I
T
wasn't my first choice of a place to live when I moved to Mr. Ames'. But I'd got turned down from where I wanted to go. I had some kinfolks livin in the low part of the country down here; white folks in Apafalya was dictatin over em. I went down there on a visit one Sunday in 1908, and they was tellin me—they was livin on smooth land, I liked the way they was makin crops and I told em to speak up for me and tell the white gentleman that lived in Apafalya that I'd like to live on one of his places down close by where they was. Tell him that I'd love to get down there and get on a farm where I could make a good livin and all—used to call that section Akers' woods, piney woods country, had colored and white livin down there.

George Hardy and Malcolm Todd was down there; Malcolm married my wife's oldest sister and George married Malcolm's sister. They was down there together, all connected, kind of kinfolks. Those boys had good crops; we walked through the fields and looked at the crops. They told me, “Nate, you a young fellow, you ought to be down here workin.”

Well, in fact, I look back over the past histories since then and I reckon they didn't know exactly what they was talkin about. They got holes in their boots before they left out from down there. Every nigger, Akers shot him through the little end of the horn. George Hardy, I knowed George when he was a young man and I was a little boy; Malcolm Todd; Charley Todd; old lady Jennie Crisp, she moved down there with Akers and raised up her family—that's four colored families I knowed lived down in Akers' woods; every one of em left out of there with nothin much.

But all the white people that moved in with Akers, if they wasn't up at the start, well, they liked that smooth land country and they stood on over there. If a white man moved on Akers' land he was liable to stay for many years, and his children too, if there was land enough for em to work. Some of em that started with nothin has become wealthy. But all the niggers caught the devil down there. Wiped out the niggers and gived the benefit of the land to
the whites. White man livin today on a part of that property. Luddie McClure—I know the family he married in—his daddy lived there before him, Barney McClure, and his daddy before him, the first Barney McClure. And that first McClure begin rentin from Ruel Akers in his lifetime and he didn't have a mule or a harness either to his name at the start. And by the time his son, the second Barney McClure, taken over the place, why, he had got up high in this world. I seed young Barney many a time; come by ridin his horse, horn hangin off his belt, gang of dogs followin him—fox hunter, fox hunter.

So me and my wife went down to visit her kinfolks in Akers' woods one Sunday. I looked over the situation—they had good crops, the land was easy to work, and they recommended livin down there to a man that wanted to accumulate a little somethin. I told em, “See Mr. Ruel Akers and tell him I want to get me a home on his place, down here close to you all.”

When they gived him my talk in regards I wanted to move on his place, here's what he told em—if I'm tellin a lie I hope I fall down a corpse after I tell it—he told em he didn't want nothin to do with nary a damn Shaw he ever saw.

How come he didn't want nothin to do with no damn Shaw? Well, I had a cousin that had lived on his place and bucked him some—Cousin Lark Shaw, durin of the time my daddy had me hired to Mr. Jim Barbour—wouldn't do just like Mr. Akers wanted him to do. And by God, that fall Mr. Akers took all he had, cleaned him up.

Mr. Akers bought Lark a pair of middlin-sized mules: weren't no big mules and weren't no little bitty mules, just middlin-sized mules big enough and good enough to work. Cousin Lark went in the name of buyin them mules—and a brand new wagon put up there for Cousin Lark. It was fully a two-horse farm on that place—went in the name of the Lee place and I don't know definitely whether Mr. Akers had bought that place or whether he just rented it for Cousin Lark, but Lark lived up there under his administration. And Akers was backin him up and furnishin him. Put him up there in a shape to rent and Lark moved down there from Somerset, Alabama, in 1906.

Lark was a member and he was a preacher, too—he weren't no ordained minister, but he preached up at New Mornin Baptist Church in his old home settlement near Somerset. And every Saturday
he'd go up there to his church; sometime he'd hitch them mules to that wagon and the whole family would go, stay over until Sunday evenin. Some few times he wouldn't come out from there until Monday mornin.

Mr. Akers didn't like that. Man go to work for him he wanted to see him out in that field from Monday mornin until Saturday night. Lark'd be at conference and the white man wanted him at home diggin like a slave on Saturday too: that was his argument with him.

Lark made about fifteen bales of cotton that year on that man's place, and fall come he took everything he had. He charged Lark enough in the deal for what he was furnishin him—took all the cotton, mules back, wagon back, and everything. Just took all that to clear him. He didn't leave Lark with nothin—all through prejudice, the way he was treatin him.

So Cousin Lark moved on back up in them hills around Somerset, Alabama, after everything he had was took. Well, quite natural, he only asked that the man have the heart to give him justice and right. But a heap of things is a messed-up affair—he had to stand for it and just go on.

I seed how Akers was doin the colored people—it was the Akers family, same bunch, that cleaned my daddy up when I was a little old boy just learnin how to plow and make a crop—but that was the best, really, that we could do; we had to take a chance at somethin. And the land was rich, smooth land easy to plow, makin heavy crops. That was a big temptation for a young colored man, got big eyes and high hopes. Common sense oughta teached us that we'd go through the same chute, but you couldn't make a livin with common sense only—you had to have land.

W
ORKED
with Mr. Gus Ames 1909 and 1910; never made over three bales of cotton nary year. And he bossed me bout how much fertilize to use and it never was sufficient. But I went on, I didn't say nothin. I would take my buggy, hitch my plow mule—mule belonged to him; it was his land and his personal property—and I'd go to Apafalya every Saturday I wanted or needed to and get groceries. He furnished me the money and I would take it and shop with the man of my choice. He didn't have no special place for me to trade.

Mr. Ames liked me and my wife, too. We was good people, he said. And he'd always tell me he had sympathy for the farmin class of people—he was a farmin man himself. And when crops was gathered, he traveled through different parts of the state as a gin reporter, takin up gin reports. Well, 1910, he didn't say nary a word to me that fall bout stayin with him the next year. I was aimin to move anyhow and I just kept my mouth shut. Went on, durin the time he was travelin about, and I rented me a little place back up there pretty close to the first man I lived with after I married; rented me twenty-two acres of land up there and a house on it. Went on back to Mr. Ames' place, finished gatherin my crop. Didn't make much corn, much peas, nor much cotton, but I had a little of all—he required me to plant it.

I'd watched and scuffled four years first one way then another—makin baskets, mostly, cuttin stove wood for people—until I could buy me a mule so I could rent me a little land and go to work and run my own affairs. Got my crop gathered, 1910, I went on and bought me a mule. Mule had a good deal of age on her but she was a stinkin good mule. I bought her from a white gentleman by the name of Ed Hardy; gived him a cash hundred dollars.

I had spoken to Mr. Charley Stokes about buyin a horse from him. I knowed the horse well—been watchin that horse for years. Mr. Lyman Carter, between here and Apafalya, he had owned the horse before I married even. Cream-colored mare, weighed somethin close to nine hundred, a thousand pounds, around in them weights. Mr. Carter raised several mule colts from her and they'd work anywhere you hitched em.

So, spring of the year, 1910, I found out Mr. Charley Stokes had got a hold of her—Mr. Carter had quit farmin and died. And I went over to see Mr. Stokes about the mare—I was aimin to buy me somethin that would plow, mule or horse, didn't make no difference, just let it be a reasonable price. I asked Mr. Stokes would he sell the mare. He said, “Yeah, I'll sell her.”

I said, “All right. Sell her to me and don't back out. What do you want for her, Mr. Stokes?”

He said, “I want seventy-five dollars; it'll take seventy-five dollars to move her.”

Well, I kept that in remembrance through that year, 1910. Got my crop gathered and just about ready to move, I went back
to speak to Mr. Stokes about the mare. Told him, “Well, Mr. Stokes, you know I'm bargainin to buy that main mare from you and I got the money to pay you now.” I had eighty dollars in my pocket. I said, “I'd like to have her this mornin. I've brought you your seventy-five dollars.”

He looked at me, said, “Uh-uh, I couldn't take that for her. That mare is one of the best mares in this country.”