by Darrel Bird
and he took off for the woods to find some Hickory.
The forge was getting nice and hot by the time Moses walked up with a cut Hickory limb about four feet long, and three inches around. Moses opened a sack and let out four pullets and a small rooster, “I brought you some pullets, since you had no chickens. That be a small rooster, but I reckon he can get the job done.”
“Thanks Moses.”
“I reckon us poor folk got to work together to get by in this ol' world'.”
They each took and end of the Hickory piece and by the time the sun was getting low in the west, they had made a nice swingle tree. “I'll put some smoke in the smoke house so it can cure up tonight.” Josh said, looking at the swingle tree with the new iron banding.
“I swear child, that be about as good a swingle tree as I have ever seen.” Moses declared.
“Which field do you want to break first Moses?”
“I reckon we'll do yo's first, since you left the plow standing.”
“Good night Moses.” Josh held out his hand.
Moses shook his hand, and looked at him strangely. He turned and walked back toward his place.
The next morning Josh walked out onto the porch, and Moses had the mules hooked to the new swingle tree. “Here, let me hang onto the swingle and you get them going, They ain't used to working together, but I reckon they'll settle in quick enough.”
“Come on Mules!” Moses sang as they headed for the field. When they got to the plow, after a few minutes they were able to hook the traces to the double tree system. Josh tied the plow lines close to the end and put them over his shoulder and under one arm. He clucked to the mules, giving the plow lines a shake, and the turning plow began slipping through the ground, throwing a sheet of soil to the side, the mules pulling the plow through the ground effortlessly. The Mules worked together as if they had always done that. When it came Moses turn at the plow, he stripped off his old shirt, and Josh saw the cross hatch whip scars on Moses back. Josh began to really understand Moses reluctance. It gave him a sick feeling deep in his soul.
In two days, with Josh and Moses taking turns at the plow, they had both fields turned under, and then came the harrow. The harrow consisting of four large heavy logs with wooden oak stakes drove into holes and sharpened. By the end of the week they were ready to plant corn, and Moses wife and daughter came out to help with the planting.
Josh watched Moses daughter as she walked along the rows, sinking her sharp stick into the ground and dropping the seeds into the holes, then using her toes to push in the dirt, and it was almost like someone making music, she had such rhythm. Her long corn curls hanging down around her face framed her beauty.
I don't even know her name. He thought as they followed the rows, dropping in seeds and pushing the soil over them, three seeds of corn in each hole.
That evening as he ate his lonely meal, he decided he had had enough of his current situation, and headed over to Moses house, and walked into the yard. Moses was sitting on the porch, leaned back in his straight cane bottom chair taking his evening pipe.
“I aim to plant me some tobacco seed next week. Bout a half pound ought to bring in enough, don't you think?” Moses asked him as he walked up to the porch.
“I guess so Moses, I never acquired a taste for the pipe myself.”
“It be a comfort of a evening after a good supper.”
“Moses, I didn't come to gab.”
“I know why you come child, I ain't zactly blind. You want to walk my Verma Lee.”
“Yes I do.”
“In ain't done boy, an you know it ain't done.”
“Moses...”Josh began and stopped.
“I know what you gonna say, we both poor, but hookin' two mules to a plow ain't zactly like hookin' a white man to a black woman, no suh, not here in South Carolina it ain't.”
“Moses, are you going to let me step down the road, and walk with her or not!”
“You sure know how to take on trouble boy, but I'll ask her, and if she come out, she come out, she don't come out, she don't come out.”
Moses knocked out his pipe and walked into the house, and in a few minutes his daughter opened the door, and stood there looking down at the porch. Joshes heart skipped a beat.