Mules and Men

by Zora Neale Hurston

  “Yeah, but all cat-fish ain’t so sensible.” Joe Wiley cut in with a sly grin on his face. “One time when Ah was livin’ in Plateau, Alabama—dat’s right on de Alabama river you know—Ah put out some fish lines one night and went on home. Durin’ de night de river fell and dat left de hooks up out de water and when Ah went there next morning a cat-fish had done jumped up after dat bait till he was washed down in sweat.”

  Jim Presley said, “I know you tellin’ de truth, Joe, ’cause Ah saw a coach whip after a race runner one day. And de race runner was running so fast to git away from dat coach whip dat his tail got so hot it set de world on fire, and dat coach whip was running so hard to ketch him till he put de fire out wid his sweat.”

  Jim Allen said, “Y’all sho must not b’long to no church de way y’all tells lies. Y’all done quit tellin’ ’em. Y’all done gone to moldin’ ’em. But y’all want to know how come snakes got poison in they mouth and nothin’ else ain’t got it?”

  “Yeah, tell it, Jim,” urged Arthur Hopkins.

  Old man Allen turned angrily upon Arthur.

  “Don’t you be callin’ me by my first name. Ah’m old enough for yo’ grand paw! You respect my gray hairs. Ah don’t play wid chillun. Play wid a puppy and he’ll lick yo’ mouf.”

  “Ah didn’t mean no harm.”

  “Dat’s all right, Arthur. Ah ain’t mad. Ah jus’ don’t play wid chillun. You go play wid Cliff and Sam and Eugene. They’s yo’ equal. Ah was a man when yo’ daddy was born.”

  “Well, anyhow, Mr. Jim, please tell us how come de snakes got poison.”

  Well, when God made de snake he put him in de bushes to ornament de ground. But things didn’t suit de snake so one day he got on de ladder and went up to see God.

  “Good mawnin’, God.”

  “How do you do, Snake?”

  “Ah ain’t so many, God, you put me down there on my belly in de dust and everything trods upon me and kills off my generations. Ah ain’t got no kind of protection at all.”

  God looked off towards immensity and thought about de subject for awhile, then he said, “Ah didn’t mean for nothin’ to be stompin’ you snakes lak dat. You got to have some kind of a protection. Here, take dis poison and put it in yo’ mouf and when they tromps on you, protect yo’ self.”

  So de snake took de poison in his mouf and went on back.

  So after awhile all de other varmints went up to God.

  “Good evenin’, God.”

  “How you makin’ it, varmints?”

  “God, please do somethin’ ’bout dat snake. He’ layin’ in de bushes there wid poison in his mouf and he’s strikin’ everything dat shakes de bush. He’s killin’ up our generations. Wese skeered to walk de earth.”

  So God sent for de snake and tole him:

  “Snake, when Ah give you dat poison, Ah didn’t mean for you to be hittin’ and killin’ everything dat shake de bush. I give you dat poison and tole you to protect yo’self when they tromples on you. But you killin’ everything dat moves. Ah didn’t mean for you to do dat.”

  De snake say, “Lawd, you know Ah’m down here in de dust. Ah ain’t got no claws to fight wid, and Ah ain’t got no feets to git me out de way. All Ah kin see is feets comin’ to tromple me. Ah can’t tell who my enemy is and who is my friend. You gimme dis protection in my mouf and Ah uses it.”

  God thought it over for a while then he says:

  “Well, snake, I don’t want yo’ generations all stomped out and I don’t want you killin’ everything else dat moves. Here take dis bell and tie it to yo’ tail. When you hear feets comin’ you ring yo’ bell and if it’s yo’ friend, he’ll be keerful. If it’s yo’ enemy, it’s you and him.”

  So dat’s how de snake got his poison and dat’s how come he got rattles.

  Biddy, biddy, bend my story is end.

  Turn loose de rooster and hold de hen.

  “Don’t tell no mo’ ’bout no snakes—specially when we walkin’ in all dis tall grass,” pleaded Presley. “Ah speck Ah’m gointer be seein’ ’em in my sleep tonight. Lawd, Ah’m skeered of snakes.”

  “Who ain’t?” cut in Cliff Ulmer. “It sho is gittin’ hot. Ah’ll be glad when we git to de lake so Ah kin find myself some shade.”

  “Man, youse two miles from dat lake yet, and otherwise it ain’t hot today,” said Joe Wiley. “He ain’t seen it hot, is he Will House?”

  “Naw, Joe, when me and you was hoboing down in Texas it was so hot till we saw old stumps and logs crawlin’ off in de shade.”

  Eugene Oliver said, “Aw dat wasn’t hot. Ah seen it so hot till two cakes of ice left the ice house and went down the street and fainted.”

  Arthur Hopkins put in: “Ah knowed two men who went to Tampa all dressed up in new blue serge suits, and it was so hot dat when de train pulled into Tampa two blue suits got off de train. De men had done melted out of ’em.”

  Will House said, “Dat wasn’t hot. Dat was chilly weather. Me and Joe Wiley went fishin’ and it was so hot dat before we got to de water, we met de fish, coming swimming up de road in dust.”

  “Dat’s a fact, too,” added Joe Wiley. “Ah remember dat day well. It was so hot dat Ah struck a match to light my pipe and set de lake afire. Burnt half of it, den took de water dat was left and put out de fire.”

  Joe Willard said “Hush! Don’t Ah hear a noise?”

  Eugene and Cliffert shouted together, “Yeah—went down to de river—

  Heard a mighty racket

  Nothing but de bull frog

  Pullin’ off his jacket!”

  “Dat ain’t what Ah hea’d,” said Joe.

  “Well, whut did you hear?”

  “Ah see a chigger6 over in de fence corner wid a splinter in his foot and a seed tick is pickin’ it out wid a fence rail and de chigger is hollerin’, ‘Lawd, have mercy.’”

  “Dat brings me to de boll-weevil,” said Larkins White. “A boll-weevil flew onto de steerin’ wheel of a white man’s car and says, 'Mister, lemme drive yo’ car.’

  “De white man says, 'You can’t drive no car.’

  “Boll-weevil says: ‘Oh yeah, Ah kin. Ah drove in five thousand cars last year and Ah’m going to drive in ten thousand dis year.’

  “A man told a tale on de boll-weevil agin. Says he heard a terrible racket and noise down in de field, went down to see whut it was and whut you reckon? It was Ole Man Boll-Weevil whippin’ li’ Willie Boll-Weevil ’cause he couldn’t carry two rows at a time.”

  Will House said, “Ah know a lie on a black gnat. Me and my buddy Joe Wiley was ramshackin’ Georgy over when we come to a loggin’ camp. So bein’ out of work we ast for a job. So de man puts us on and give us some oxes to drive. Ah had a six-yoke team and Joe was drivin’ a twelve-yoke team. As we was comin’ thru de woods we heard somethin’ hummin’ and we didn’t know what it was. So we got hungry and went in a place to eat and when we come out a gnat had done et up de six-yoke team and de twelve-yoke team, and was sittin’ up on de wagon pickin’ his teeth wid a ox-horn and cryin’ for somethin’ to eat.”

  “Yeah,” put in Joe Wiley, “we seen a man tie his cow and calf out to pasture and a mosquito come along and et up de cow and was ringin’ de bell for de calf.”

  “Dat wasn’t no full-grown mosquito at dat,” said Eugene Oliver, “Ah was travellin’ in Texas and laid down and went to sleep. De skeeters bit me so hard till Ah seen a ole iron wash-pot, so Ah crawled under it and turned it down over me good so de skeeters couldn’t git to me. But you know dem skeeters bored right thru dat iron pot. So I up wid a hatchet and bradded their bills into de pot. So they flew on off ’cross Galveston bay wid de wash pot on their bills.”

  “Look,” said Black Baby, “on de Indian River we went to bed and heard de mosquitoes singin’ like bull alligators. So we got under four blankets. Shucks! dat wasn’t nothin’. Dem mosquitoes just screwed off dem short bills, reached back in they hip-pocket and took out they long bills and screwed ’em on and come right on through dem blankets and g
ot us.”

  “Is dat de biggest mosquito you all ever seen? Shucks! Dey was li’l baby mosquitoes! One day my ole man took some men and went out into de woods to cut some fence posts. And a big rain come up so they went up under a great big ole tree. It was so big it would take six men to meet around it. De other men set down on de roots but my ole man stood up and leaned against de tree. Well, sir, a big old skeeter come up on de other side of dat tree and bored right thru it and got blood out of my ole man’s back. Dat made him so mad till he up wid his ax and bradded dat mosquito’s bill into dat tree. By dat time de rain stopped and they all went home.

  “Next day when they come out, dat mosquito had done cleaned up ten acres dying. And two or three weeks after dat my ole man got enough bones from dat skeeter to fence in dat ten acres.”

  Everybody liked to hear about the mosquito. They laughed all over themselves.

  “Yeah,” said Sack Daddy, “you sho is tellin’ de truth ’bout dat big old mosquito ’cause my ole man bought dat same piece of land and raised a crop of pumpkins on it and lemme tell y’all right now—mosquito dust is de finest fertilizer in de world. Dat land was so rich and we raised pumpkins so big dat we et five miles up in one of ’em and five miles down and ten miles acrost one and we ain’t never found out how far it went. But my ole man was buildin’ a scaffold inside so we could cut de pumpkin meat without so much trouble, when he dropped his hammer. He tole me, he says, 'Son, Ah done dropped my hammer. Go git it for me.’ Well, Ah went down in de pumpkin and begin to hunt dat hammer. Ah was foolin’ ’round in there all day, when I met a man and he ast me what Ah was lookin’ for. Ah tole him my ole man had done dropped his hammer and sent me to find it for him. De man tole me Ah might as well give it up for a lost cause, he had been lookin’ for a double mule-team and a wagon that had got lost in there for three weeks and he hadn’t found no trace of ’em yet. So Ah stepped on a pin, de pin bent and dat’s de way de story went.”

  “Dat was rich land but my ole man had some rich land too,” put in Will House. “My ole man planted cucumbers and he went along droppin’ de seeds and befo’ he could git out de way he’d have ripe cucumbers in his pockets. What is the richest land you ever seen?”

  “Well,” replied Joe Wiley, “my ole man had some land dat was so rich dat our mule died and we buried him down in our bottom-land and de next mornin’ he had done sprouted li’l jackasses.”

  “Aw, dat land wasn’t so rich,” objected Ulmer. “My ole man had some land and it was so rich dat he drove a stob7 in de ground at de end of a corn-row for a landmark and next morning there was ten ears of corn on de corn stalk and four ears growin’ on de stob.”

  “Dat lan’ y’all talkin’ ’bout might do, if you give it plenty commercial-nal8 but my ole man wouldn’t farm no po’ land like dat,” said Joe Wiley. “Now, one year we was kinda late puttin’ in our crops. Everybody else had corn a foot high when papa said, ‘Well, chillun, Ah reckon we better plant some corn.’ So Ah was droppin’ and my brother was hillin’ up behind me. We had done planted ’bout a dozen rows when Ah looked back and seen de corn comin’ up. Ah didn’t want it to grow too fast ’cause it would make all fodder and no roastin’ ears so Ah hollered to my brother to sit down on some of it to stunt de growth. So he did, and de next day he dropped me back a note—says: “passed thru Heben yesterday at twelve o’clock sellin’ roastin’ ears to de angels.”

  “Yeah,” says Larkins White, “dat was some pretty rich ground, but whut is de poorest ground you ever seen?”

  Arthur Hopkins spoke right up and said:

  “Ah seen some land so poor dat it took nine partridges to holler ‘Bob White.’”

  “Dat was rich land, boy,” declared Larkins. “Ah seen land so poor dat de people come together and ’cided dat it was too poor to raise anything on, so they give it to de church, so de congregation built de church and called a pastor and held de meetin’. But de land was so poor they had to wire up to Jacksonville for ten sacks of commercial-nal before dey could raise a tune on dat land.”

  The laughter was halted by the sound of a woodpecker against a cypress. Lonnie Barnes up with his gun to kill it, but Lucy stopped him.

  “What you want to kill dat ole thing for? He ain’t fitten to eat. Save dat shot and powder to kill me a rabbit. Ah sho would love a nice tender cotton-tail. Slim Ellis brought me a great big ole fat ham off a rabbit last night, and Ah lakted dat.”

  “Ah kin shoot you a rabbit just as good as Slim kin,” Lonnie protested. “Ah wasn’t gointer kill no ole tough peckerwood for you to eat, baby. Ah was goin’ to shoot dat red-head for his meanness. You know de peckerwood come pretty nigh drownin’ de whole world once.”

  “How was dat?”

  Well, you know when de Flood was and dey had two of everything in de ark—well, Ole Nora9 didn’t take on no trees, so de woodpecker set ’round and set ’round for a week or so then he felt like he just had to peck himself some wood. So he begin to peck on de Ark. Ole Nora come to him and tole him, “Don’t peck on de Ark. If you peck a hole in it, we’ll all drown.”

  Woodpecker says: “But Ah’m hungry for some wood to peck.”

  Ole Nora says, “Ah don’t keer how hongry you gits don’t you peck on dis ark no mo. You want to drown everybody and everything?”

  So de woodpecker would sneak ’round behind Ole Nora’s back and peck every chance he got. He’d hide hisself way down in de hold where he thought nobody could find him and peck and peck. So one day Ole Nora come caught him at it. He never opened his mouth to dat woodpecker. He just hauled off and give dat peckerwood a cold head-whipping wid a sledge hammer, and dat’s why a peckerwood got a red head today—’cause Ole Nora bloodied it wid dat hammer. Dat’s how come Ah feel like shootin’ every one of ’em Ah see. Tryin’ to drown me before Ah was born.

  “A whole lot went on on dat ole Ark,” Larkins White commented. “Dat’s where de possum lost de hair off his tail.”

  “Now don’t you tell me no possum ever had no hair on dat slick tail of his’n,” said Black Baby, “’cause Ah know better.”

  Yes, he did have hair on his tail one time. Yes, indeed. De possum had a bushy tail wid long silk hair on it. Why, it useter be one of de prettiest sights you ever seen. De possum struttin’ ’round wid his great big ole plumey tail. Dat was ’way back in de olden times before de big flood.

  But de possum was lazy—jus’ like he is today. He sleep too much. You see Ole Nora had a son name Ham and he loved to be playin’ music all de time. He had a banjo and a fiddle and maybe a guitar too. But de rain come up so sudden he didn’t have time to put ’em on de ark. So when rain kept comin’ down he fretted a lot ’cause he didn’t have nothin’ to play. So he found a ole cigar box and made hisself a banjo, but he didn’t have no strings for it. So he seen de possum stretched out sleeping wid his tail all spread ’round. So Ham slipped up and shaved de possum’s tail and made de strings for his banjo out de hairs. When dat possum woke up from his nap, Ham was playin’ his tail hairs down to de bricks and dat’s why de possum ain’t got no hair on his tail today. Losin’ his pretty tail sorta broke de possum’s spirit too. He ain’t never been de same since. Dat’s how come he always actin’ shame-faced. He know his tail ain’t whut it useter be; and de possum feel mighty bad about it.

  “A lot of things ain’t whut they useter be,” observed Jim Presley. “Now take de ’gator for instance. He been changed ’round powerful since he been made.”

  “Yeah,” cut in Eugene Oliver, “He useter have a nice tongue so he could talk like a nat’chal man, but Brer Dog caused de ’gator to lose his tongue, and dat’s how come he hate de dog today.”

  “Brer ’Gator didn’t fall out wid Brer Dog ’bout no tongue,” retorted Presley.

  Brer Dog done de ’gator a dirty trick ’bout his mouth. You know God made de dog and the ’gator without no mouth. So they seen everybody else had a mouth so they made it up to git theirselves a mouth like de other varmints. So they agreed to cut one ’nothers�
� mouth, and each one said dat when de other one tole ’em to stop cuttin’ they would. So Brer Dog got his mouth first. Brer ’Gator took de razor and cut. Brer Dog tole him, “Stop,” which he did. Den Brer Dog took de razor and begin to cut Brer ’Gator a mouth. When his mouth was big as he wanted it, Brer ’Gator says, “Stop, Brer Dog. Dat’ll do, I thank you, please.” But Brer Dog kept right on cuttin’ till he ruint Brer ’Gator’s face. Brer ’Gator was a very handsome gent’man befo’ Brer Dog done him that a way, and everytime he look in de lookin’ glass he cry like a baby over de disfiggerment of his face. And dat’s how come de ’gator hate de dog.

  “My people, my people,” lamented Oliver. “They just will talk whut they don’t know.”

  “Go on Oliver.”

  De ’gator didn’t fall out wid de dog ’bout no mouth cuttin’ scrape. You know all de animals was havin’ a ball down in de pine woods, and so they all chipped in for refreshments and then they didn’t have no music for de dance. So all de animals what could ’greed to furnish music. So de dog said he’d be de trumpet in de band, and de horse and de frog and de mockin’ bird and all said they’d be there and help out all they could. But they didn’t have no bass drum, till somebody said, “Whut’s de matter wid Brer ’Gator, why he don’t play de bass drum for us?” Dey called Brer ’Gator but he wasn’t at de meetin’ so de varmints depitized Brer Dog to go call on Brer ’Gator and see if he wouldn’t furnish de drum music for de dance. Which he did.

  “Good evenin’, Brer ’Gator.”

  “My compliments, Brer Dog, how you makin’ out? Ah’m always glad when folks visit me. Whut you want?”

  “Well Brer ’Gator, de varmints is holdin’ a big convention tonight in de piney woods and we want you to furnish us a little bit of yo’ drum music.”

  “It’s like this, Brer Dog, tell de other animals dat Ah’m mighty proud they wants me and de compliments run all over me, but my wife is po’ly and my chillun is down sick. But Ah’ll lend you my drum if you know anybody kin play it, and know how to take keer of it too!”