“No, ma’am, I won’t. Thank you, ma’am,” I said on my way out with thirteen nickels in my pocket. I could hardly wait to talk to Jake, but that would have to wait until later in the day.
I made my rounds without stopping to talk much, and was back at Miss Lena’s store by eleven o’clock, an hour ahead of schedule. I was getting hungry, but I didn’t stop, thinking that I was a resourceful person and could find some nail soup somewhere on down the road.
I knew I had reached that place when I saw Uncle Bud’s house in the distance. He and my great-aunts, Minnie and Sadie, were in their rocking chairs on the front porch, rocking away. They hadn’t seen me yet. I stopped and observed for a while.
As usual, they were dipping snuff. Every few rocks they would stop at the end of the forward motion, lean forward, and spit great dark brown streams over the edge of the porch. I counted the rocks between spits and it was eight to twelve. They were always rocking on the porch, always dipping snuff. The field behind their house had long ago been taken over by weeds and saplings, since they were too old to work it anymore. They did maintain a small garden. I realized that I didn’t even know which one of my aunts was married to Uncle Bud, but I supposed at their age it didn’t really matter.
I knew I would have to endure the hugs and cheek pinching, but I also knew they would buy a paper, and I was hungry. Plus, I always did some small chore for them. Today, they wanted me to draw a bucket of water from the well in the back yard.
When I came back into the kitchen, lugging the pail of water, there was a plate on the table for me. The plate contained a biscuit with a big slice of cured ham in it. I knew it would make me thirsty later in the day, but I liked their ham. There was also a helping of bread pudding. I washed it all down with cool fresh water from a glass which they had originally bought full of peach snuff.
“You want another biscuit, sugar boy?” Aunt Minnie asked. “No, ma’am, I’m full. Thank you.” That’s what all my aunts called me—“sugar boy.” I never knew why.
“We was about to give up on you,” Aunt Sadie said.
“Yes, ma’am, I’m late because I reversed my route today.”
“Why did you do that?” Uncle Bud asked.
“Uh, just to make things different,” I lied.
As I was leaving they split up the Grit paper into three parts, sat back down in their chairs on the porch, loaded up their bottom lips with fresh dips of snuff, and resumed rocking.
I passed Old Man Cliff Creel’s house on my right, stayed on the opposite of the road, and walked fast. Less than a half mile on down the road on my left was the wagon path which had to lead to the Robinsons’ house, according to what Jake had said. I stopped to look down the path, but couldn’t see anything except that it curved around a huge black walnut tree and disappeared. I knew I would be seeing what was around that curve in a while.
Another twenty minutes on down the road I reached my last stop, a small white farm house sitting in plain sight just a few steps off the road. There was a big pasture in the back with a small barn just inside the gate to the pasture. Mrs. Annie Pearl Wiggins lived there. She was a widow who made her living selling milk and butter produced by her five Jersey cows. I found her on the back porch churning milk. “Afternoon, Mrs. Annie Pearl.”
She looked up from her churn and replied, “Howdy, boy. You running late today.”
“Yes, ma’am, I got a late start.” I felt bad about telling so many lies lately, but I knew I wasn’t doing it to hurt anybody.
“It’s just as well. I haven’t had time to do no reading today. How’s your mamma and them?”
“Everybody’s fine, thank you, ma’am,” I said as I laid her paper on the edge of the porch. She reached into her apron pocket and flipped me a nickel. “Mrs. Annie Pearl, I need to buy a gallon of milk.”
“Your momma’s cow gone dry?”
“Uh, no ma’am. It’s for somebody else.”
“You want buttermilk or sweet milk?”
I thought for a few moments. Buttermilk was ten cents a gallon and sweet milk was fifteen cents a gallon, but I knew the Robinsons could drink half a gallon of sweet milk and then churn the other half and have themselves some buttermilk and some butter. “I’ll take sweet milk,” I answered while I stacked three nickels on the edge of the porch.
“It’s in the springhouse. Go over there and get yourself a gallon.”
The springhouse was a small structure built around a spring to keep the contents secure and cool in the water. The water was from a spring which bubbled up out of the ground and stayed cold all summer long. The spring had been boxed in with big wide boards on the sides. The bottom was white boiling sand which gave the appearance it was hot, but it was cold. We had a small spring like it, except we didn’t have a house built around ours. There was a dipper hanging on the wall. I used it to have a long cool drink, then I lifted a gallon jar out of the water and walked back into the backyard. “Good-bye, Mrs. Annie Pearl,” I said.
“Who you taking that milk to, son?”
I had hoped she wouldn’t ask me that question.
When she saw my hesitation she said, “I need to know where my jar is. I’ll be wanting it back.”
I knew I had to tell and I couldn’t see that it would do any harm. “You know the Robinsons, the colored family that lives up the road a piece?”
“I’ve seen them come and go. Why in the world are you taking milk to them?”
“’Cause they don’t have any.”
“Oh, so their cow is the one that’s dry.”
“No, ma’am, Old Man Cliff Creel took their milk cow.”
“What for?”
“They owed him some money, couldn’t pay him, and he had made them sign a paper.”
“Why that lowdown polecat. One of these days he’s going to get what’s coming to him. You wait right there.”
She walked over to the springhouse and went inside. She returned with a pound of butter wrapped up tight in wax paper, stuck it inside my Grit paper bag, and said, “You take this to them—no charge. Tell them they can get all the milk they need from me, won’t have to pay me until they sell their cotton crop, and don’t have to sign no paper, either.”
“I’ll do that, Mrs. Annie Pearl. Thank you, ma’am, and I’m sure they will thank you, too.”
“You best be getting on up the road before that butter melts.”
The gallon of milk got heavy after a while. I kept switching it from arm to arm. I turned off Center Point Road and passed the big black walnut tree, rounded the curve of the road, and found myself in the middle of a huge cotton field. The road continued through the field and once again disappeared over the top of a hill. When I reached the top of the hill I saw the house. It looked a lot like mine, constructed of unpainted pine boards, except it was larger and cotton plants grew right up to within a few feet of it. There was a dull amber reflection from the sun off the rusty tin roof, nestled in a sea of white. I saw no sign of anybody or any type of motion as I walked down the hill toward the house. I was getting real close when a big black dog suddenly came charging at me, snarling and growling. I was almost as much afraid of mean dogs as I was of snakes. There was no place to run. I knew he could catch me before I could get back up the road to the woods. If I ran into the cotton patch the stalks would slow me down more than the dog. He was close enough now so that I could see his hackles standing up, then to my great relief he was abruptly jerked sideways by the chain attached to his collar. I hadn’t seen the chain. As my fear receded I gave thanks for the chain and for the fact that I had stopped in the woods a few minutes ago, for if I hadn’t, then surely I would have peed on myself.
“Where you going wid yo’ milk?”
The voice came from just inside the front screen door. I couldn’t see who it was, but the voice sounded as if it would match the boy who I figured was about my age. “Is that you
, Poudlum?” I asked.
“How you knows my name?”
“Jake told me.”
“Jake from de sawmill?”
“Yeah. He came to see y’all a few days back.”
Poudlum came out onto the front porch and said, “I knows yo’ name, too. You is Mister Ted. Come on up on de porch.”
The dog was sitting, but still growling. “Uh, you want to call off your dog?”
Poudlum scampered down the steps, ripped a limb off a cotton plant, rapped it across the dog’s head, and said, “Shut up, Buster.”
The dog whined, put its tail between its legs and ran underneath the porch.
“Buster won’t hurt you.”
“Wouldn’t have thought that a minute ago,” I said as I walked up on the porch and set the jar of milk on the edge, still keeping a sharp eye out for Buster.
“This milk is for you and your family. Jake told me how y’all had lost your cow.”
“How come you bring us milk?”
“’Cause I knew you didn’t have none.”
“Jake said you a fine fella. I s’pose he right. You got two older brothers, too, don’t you?”
“Yeah, you got any?”
“I got six brothers and sisters. Dey all older dan me.”
“Where’s everybody?”
“Dey all picking cotton over on de back side of the field. I was, too. Just come up to de house to get ’em a bucket of water, den I heard Buster raising cain.”
“Y’all gonna be picking cotton for my Uncle Curvin?”
“Un huh, ’spect we be starting next week.”
“How do you pick all this cotton and his too?”
“I don’t know—we just does.”
“Poudlum!” a female voice yelled from behind the house.
“Uh-uh,” Poudlum said while I watched as his eyes grew wide. “Dat’s my momma.”
A tall, imposing black woman rounded the corner of the house saying, “Boy, where dat water—” She stopped in her tracks when she saw me, then said, “Who does we have here?”
“Dis is Mister Ted, Momma. You know, Jake’s friend.”
I saw her eyes dart to the milk sitting on the porch. “We ain’t got no money fo’ no milk,” she said.
“Mister Ted brought us dat milk, Momma. Don’t need no money.”
She turned back toward me and asked, “Why you do dat?”
I couldn’t understand why they kept asking why. It was pretty simple to me. “Jake told me about Old Man Cliff Creel taking y’all’s milk cow. Oh, I almost forgot, Mrs. Annie Pearl sent y’all a pound of butter, too.” I reached into my Grit bag for the butter and laid it on the porch next to the milk. It was beginning to get soft.
Then I went on to tell the offer Mrs. Annie Pearl had extended about selling them milk on credit.
“She say dat fo’ shore?”
“She sure did. Well, I got to be getting on up the road,” I said.
Poudlum began jumping up and down and said, “Momma, can I please walk wid him, just up to de main road.”
“Sho you can, but first put dat milk and butter in de spring. I’ll take the water back to the field. ’Spect dey be mighty thirsty by now.”
Mrs. Robinson turned toward me again and said, “Mister Ted, you come again, anytime. When cold weather get here and we be making syrup, we gon’ save a bucket just fo’ you. And may de good Lawd take a liking to you. And you, Poudlum, I see you back in de cotton field.”
With that she turned and was gone. Once we had secured the milk and butter, Poudlum and I were ready to start walking up toward the road when Buster got brave again. He came out from underneath the porch with a rumbling growl heading straight toward me. This time, I tore a limb off the cotton stalk and charged him. He turned and ran back underneath the porch. Buster was a bully and a coward, just like the coachwhip. My father had been right. I resolved to get myself a real good stick and keep it with me all the time.
“You come play with me sometime?” Poudlum asked.
“When?’
“Sunday afternoon. We be picking cotton de rest of de time for a while.”
“I don’t know,” I answered.
“If you will, den I’ll show you a secret I found in de woods.”
I was only half listening to him, walking fast because I was anxious to get to the sawmill and talk to Jake about last night. “What kind of secret?” I asked.
I stopped dead in my tracks, and could not believe my ears, when I heard what came out of Poudlum’s mouth.
8
The Bootlegger
In Alabama in 1948 the only place you could legally buy whiskey was at a special store operated by the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board. Not all counties had ABC stores because counties could vote whether to be “wet” or “dry.” We lived in a “dry” county, so anyone living around Coffeeville would have to travel many miles to buy legal alcohol.
Every time an election to go “wet” came around the bootleggers and the preachers would join forces and go to work campaigning against the issue. The bootleggers did it for the obvious reason—to maintain their flow of tax-free profits. The preachers wanted to save people from temptation and they would revive their sermons on the evils of alcohol, all the while taking huge donations from the bootleggers, and an occasional bottle of whiskey.
In most rural counties, the “drys” always won, and even though it was illegal, a person could buy a bottle of whiskey with greater ease than in a county where it was legal. There were only two things a bootlegger had to be concerned about: an honest sheriff being elected, and the protection of his identity. On the totem pole of society, a known bootlegger was barely above dirt; therefore, it was always a deep dark secret of who he really was.
This is why I was so astounded when I heard Poudlum say, “I found de place where Old Man Cliff Creel makes his whiskey.”
“You what?!”
“I knows where his still is.”
“Are you telling me Old Man Cliff Creel is a bootlegger?”
“Uh huh.”
“How long you been knowing this?”
“Tomorrow will be two weeks.”
“You told your momma and daddy?”
“Naw, I ain’t told nobody—I be too scared.”
I still could hardly believe what I had heard, but if it was true, it was good news indeed. I knew that old man was evil, and now I might be able to prove it. “Poudlum, that’s a great secret. Don’t tell nobody. Did you see that old man at the still?”
“Sho did. Saw him box up bottles of whiskey and tote ’em away through the woods.”
“Tomorrow then. You’ll show me where it is tomorrow?”
“See our cotton house way over yonder, close to de edge of the woods?” He pointed.
“Yeah.”
“We’ll meet behind it a little while after dinner.”
“All right, around two o’clock. I’ll see you there. Now, I got to go.”
“Bye, Mister Ted.”
“Just Ted, okay? Bye, Poudlum. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Back out on Center Point Road, I was thirsty and thinking about getting to Miss Lena’s and wrapping my hand around a cold longneck Nehi. But first, I had to walk back by that intimidating house. Old Man Creel’s new Chevrolet was in his car shed. Another car that hadn’t been there when I passed by earlier was in the driveway. Squinting my eyes against the glare of the sun, I made it out to be Brother Benny’s car. What could the preacher be doing there, I wondered. I could hear voices coming from the back yard but couldn’t make out the words. And I sure was curious to know what they were taking about.
There was a wire fence grown over with vines and bushes towards the back of the house. I figured if I could crawl up next to it, then I might be able to hear what Old Man Creel and Brother Benny were sa
ying.
I walked on far enough to get out of sight, crossed the road and entered the woods. I stashed my Grit bag at the base of a big loblolly pine tree then started back toward the house. I dropped to my belly at the edge of the woods and crawled through a strip of tall brown grass until I got to the fence. Then I began working my way toward the back of the house under the cover of the grass and vines. The voices grew louder and clearer and I knew I was close enough when I heard Old Man Cliff Creel say, “That was a mighty fine sermon you preached last Sunday, Brother Benny.”
I slowly parted some of the thick vines until I had a small peephole. They were sitting at a table in the back yard under the shade of a chinaberry tree covered with clusters of purple flowers. It didn’t seem right to me that those two men should get to sit under such a beautiful tree. I liked to watch chinaberry wood burn in the fireplace, where it kicked up red and green sparks. Brother Benny snapped me back to reality when he responded, “Why thank you, Mr. Creel. I plan to expound on it tomorrow by preaching about the listless drunken habits of the whole lot of them.”
I licked my dry lips when I saw them raise their glasses and heard the clinking of ice. I figured they were drinking sweet tea until I saw Old Man Creel take a brown pint bottle and pour a portion into both glasses. Whiskey! There sat the preacher drinking whiskey and plotting against the Robinsons. Jake had been right.
“Good, that’s real good, Brother Benny, but don’t forget their nasty habits of stealing and not paying their debts. That bunch down the road tried to weasel out of paying money they owed me, but I didn’t let ’em get away with, no sir. I went and took their cow which they had signed over as collateral. Hell, I’m a businessman, not some fraternal nigger-loving organization.”
“Serves ’em right—the slackers,” Brother Benny replied. “I suppose I should be going, need to work on my sermon,” he said, draining his glass and rising to his feet. “I’ll look forward to seeing you in the house of the Lord tomorrow.”
A Yellow Watermelon Page 6