“Dey always said dey saving it fo’ our education, but den dey decided dey gon’ hafta sell it.”
“Well?”
“You knows who buys and sells all de timber around here.”
“Old Man Cliff Creel!”
“Uh huh, dat’s right, and he won’t give us nothin fo’ it.”
“Then find someone else who’ll buy it.”
“My daddy tried dat too, but won’t nobody talk to him ’bout it. He say he figures dat old man done got to everybody.”
Everyday, that old man grew more despicable, and so did my resolve to see that he got paid in kind. “Poudlum, is y’alls cow black and white spotted and wearing a cow bell?”
“Yeah, dat’s Old Sukie. Sho does miss her.”
“Well, you won’t be missing her long, ’cause we’re gonna get her back.”
“Who is?”
“Me and you.”
“How we gon’ do dat.”
“I’m not sure yet.”
Miss Annie Pearl was out back inside her chicken pen with a pail of corn she was scattering on the ground for the birds pecking away around her feet. I called out to her. “Hey, Miss Annie Pearl, me and Poudlum brought your milk jug back.”
She shooed the chickens away from her feet, looked up and said, “Howdy, boys. Just set it there on the edge of the porch. Y’all be needing some more milk?”
Before Poudlum could say anything I answered, “Yes, ma’am, we need a gallon of sweet milk, a gallon of buttermilk, and two pounds of butter.”
“Y’all go down to the spring house and fetch it up to the porch. I’ll be there directly.”
When we got back she was transferring eggs from her doubled up apron into a basket. When we placed the milk and butter on the porch she asked, “Want me to put it on the Robinsons’ account?”
“No, ma’am, we gonna pay cash,” I said as I handed her the dollar bill Mrs. Blossom had given me. I was thankful she didn’t ask any questions, just gave me my change, put the butter in a bag and said, “Now, you boys skedaddle before that butter melts.”
Poudlum had questions though. We were barely out of the yard when he asked, “Where you get dat paper dollar?”
“Miss Blossom gave it to me this morning.”
“Why she do dat?”
“I don’t know. Well, I sorta know, but I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Why you spend part of it on milk for us?”
There he goes again, I thought, but I decided to tell him one more time. “Because y’all ain’t got no milk.”
We walked for a good ways in silence, then Poudlum said, “Well, we’s mighty grateful, and I gon’ find some way to pay you back.”
By the time we got back to the Robinsons’ house I had figured out when and how to get their cow back. It would have to be Sunday morning while everyone was at church, but I would need some help. I gratefully placed the heavy milk jug on their porch, rubbed my arching arm and said, “ Poudlum, I know how you can pay me back.”
“You does? Den just tell me.”
“I need you to help me all day Sunday.”
“Well, sho I will in de afternoon, but I gots to go to church in de mawning.”
“I’m supposed to, too, but we got to find a way to get out of it. Pretend you’re sick or something and meet me behind Miss Lena’s store between ten and eleven o’clock in the morning. Can you do it?”
“Sho I can. Come Sunday mawning, I gon’ have one powerful bellyache.”
16
School Clothes
I was real hungry, but I didn’t want to be seen around Miss Lena’s store today, so before I got to it I cut through the woods behind the Hicks place and came out at my grandfather’s house.
As usual at this time of day, Pa Will was sound asleep in his rocking chair on the front porch. Ma Tine had a brush broom and was sweeping the front yard. I had watched her make those brooms before. She would take a half dozen small saplings about five feet tall and tie them into a bundle with the brushy ends all together at one end to form a yard broom. Most everybody’s yard was bare and sandy with no grass, and a brush broom was a good way to keep it clean. Her yard looked clean to me. I supposed she just liked to see the lines the brush broom made in the dirt. “Hey, Ma Tine, how y’all doing.”
She looked up from her yard cleaning and said, “Why, sugar boy, where on earth did you come from? I didn’t see you coming down the road.”
“I came through the woods.”
“You best stay out of them woods, specially this time of the year, because the snakes are real bad. I killed one early this morning, right here in the yard.” She turned her head and spat a stream of snuff juice which left a long brown stain in her clean yard, then she turned back toward me and asked, “You hungry?”
“Yes, ma’am, I’m real hungry.”
“That don’t surprise me none. Come on in the kitchen.”
No matter what time of day, there was always a plate of biscuits in her oven. She took one out and bored a hole down into it with her finger, then she filled the hole with cane syrup, handed it to me and said, “Sit down at the table and I’ll pour you a glass of milk.”
She stayed and talked until I finished so there was no way I could snatch an extra one. I knew Jake would like one so I just asked, “Could I have another one to eat while I walk?”
“Good Lord, child, you must have worms.” She bored another hole in another biscuit and wrapped it in a piece of waxed paper. “There, now you won’t have to worry about getting your hands sticky with syrup.”
I found Jake right where I had left him, in the woods behind the cotton house. “Didn’t ’spect you back so soon,” he said, “’specially wid another biscuit.”
“I got something else for you,” I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out the tongue from Mr. Blossom’s shoe. Jake laughed and laughed when I told him how I had cut it out while Mr. Blossom was in the store.
“You is mighty fast wid yo’ pocket knife. Dat man gon’ be wondering for years what in de world happened to his shoe tongue. But de important thing is dat now I can finish de slingshots. I already got de rubbers on ’em—all we needs is de pouch.”
He went right to work. With his knife he trimmed the leather into two oval-shaped pieces, then drilled tiny holes on the edge of each one. Next, he took a piece of fine cord and attached the pouch to the end of the rubber strips.
“I be finished here in a minute. If you would go down to de branch and fetch us a few rocks, ’bout de size of a marble, den you can try it out.”
When I got back with a pocket full of rocks, Jake handed me the finished slingshot and said, “Dis one is yours. Mine got longer rubber strips on it. Go ahead, try it out.”
I thought it was beautiful.
Jake watched me place a rock in the pouch. Then he demonstrated as he said, “Now, grip the stock tight, straighten yo’ left arm out and lock yo’ elbow. Hold de pouch ’tween yo’ thumb and forefinger, pull it all de way back to yo’ right eye, close yo’ left eye, pick out a target, sight ’tween de fork and let it fly.”
I followed his instructions, picked out a poplar tree about twenty yards away, and released the pouch. Zing! Whack!
“Hey, dat’s real good fo’ yo’ first shot!”
I was stunned at the velocity of the rock when it struck the tree. “Good Lord, Jake, you could knock out something bigger then a rabbit with this thing.”
“I ’spect so, and you can improve yo’ accuracy if you uses a marble.”
“Huh?”
“Dat’s ’cause a marble be perfectly round. Hard to find a perfect rock. “Try another shot.”
I shot three more rocks, picking a smaller tree each time, and didn’t miss until the last one.
“Dat’s good shooting. If you practice a lot, den you gon’ get real good.”
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“You gonna try yours out?” I asked.
“Not right now. I gon’ have plenty of time for dat later, after you be gone. Nothing to do but sit around in dese woods. Can’t stand to stay in dat cotton house no mo, ’cept at night to sleep. Done read yo’ last Grit paper fo’ or five times; fact I just ’bout got it memorized.” He let out a long sigh, then continued, “And today just be Wednesday. Don’t know if I can stand three mo nights in dat cotton house. I sho would like to light out tonight.”
“You can’t do that, Jake, they’ll catch you for sure; besides you only have to stay in the cotton house for two more nights.”
“Uh, you said you knows a way I can slip outta here on Sunday while all de excitement of de bootlegger being caught be going on. Dat’s three mo nights.”
“That’s right, but you got to move out of here late Saturday night and sleep in the woods behind the sawmill.”
“Sleep over dere in de woods—how come?”
“Because you’re gonna be moving by midafternoon Sunday and you can’t very well cross the road in broad daylight.”
“I wish you’d tell me de details of dis plan you gots.”
“I will as we go along. By dark on Sunday night you’ll be in Choctaw County, then if you travel all night along highway eighty-four you’ll be in Waynesboro, Mississippi, by daylight Monday morning.”
“How you knows all dis?”
“Uncle Curvin told me. Once you’re in Waynesboro, then you can buy yourself a bus ticket all the way to California.”
“How I gon’ do dat wid only twelve dollars and thurty cents?”
“You said you was gonna trust me.”
Jake pulled out his big red handkerchief, mopped his face, got a faraway look on his face like he was million miles away and said, “I did, and I will. Any particular place I ought to sleep in dem woods behind the sawmill?”
“Just far enough into them so nobody can see you, but come Sunday morning, walk straight south until you come to the Mill Creek. When you reach it, you may have to go up or down it a little ways, but sooner or later you’ll find a big sweet gum tree with a broken limb. Me and Poudlum will meet you there around one o’clock.”
“Poudlum? Why he gon’ be wid you?”
“’Cause me and him gonna take their milk cow back from Old Man Creel’s house while everybody’s in church.”
His eyes grew wide. “Lawd have mercy, child! Y’all ain’t gon’ do no such thing.”
“Yeah we are. I got it all figured out. I remember a gate being down that fence line from where that mean dog tried to eat me. I mean to take old Sukie out that gate, then we’ll stay in the woods all the way to Poudlum’s house, except when we have to cross the road.”
“What y’all gon’ do ’bout dat big red dog?”
“He likes to eat raw chicken. I’m gonna take him a live one, throw it over the fence and while he’s having Sunday dinner we’ll get the cow out the gate.”
“Dat sounds good, but I be worried about you little fellas.”
It was beginning to get hot even in our shady spot in the woods. With the heat came the midday quiet when even the woods creatures were taking a nap. I knew it was time for me to be getting home.
I wrapped the rubber straps around the stock of my slingshot and put it in my back pocket. My stick was leaning against a tree. I picked it up, told Jake I would bring him something to eat tomorrow, and thanked him for the slingshot.
“Dat slingshot be like a spark compared to de sun if you manages to help me be a free man.”
I was thinking about what he had just said when he interrupted my thoughts. “How far back does dese woods behind dis cotton house go?”
“Goes on forever far as I know. I’ve been most a mile up that branch.”
“I think I gon’ try to scare me up a rabbit dis afternoon, den if I go far enough back in de woods I can build myself a fire and roast him. I needs me a hot meal. Sho would like to have myself a mess of greens and a pork chop, but a rabbit will be good.”
“I guess that’ll be all right.”
“Dat’ll take care of dis day, but I don’t know what I’ll do to kill de time fo’ three mo days.”
“Why don’t you write some songs?”
“Do what?”
“Yeah, why don’t you write some of them blues songs about sleeping in a cotton house or in the woods? You got a pencil and paper.”
“Lawdy me, now here you is telling me how to write de blues, but you knows, dat’s a real good idea.”
There was another big storm late that night, and this one brought hail. The heavy rain had already roused me from a deep sleep, then the intensification of noise from the hail transported me to full awareness. At first it sounded like the time I had taken a shotgun shell apart to see what was inside of it and poured the metal pellets into a tin plate. Then the hail got bigger and thicker and it turned into a huge roar. It ended as suddenly as it started. After a while the only sound was the steady dripping of the water sliding off the tin roof into the rain barrel. I thought Jake was probably glad to be inside that cotton house tonight.
Then I slept and when I awoke I knew it wasn’t early anymore because slivers of light from the morning sun were flowing through the crack in the bedroom door. I watched the tiny particles of dust floating in the air and marveled at how they were completely invisible outside the rays of light. I looked around and saw that the room was empty. I rolled out of bed, grabbed my pants and saw that my back pocket was also empty. My slingshot was gone. I had to find Fred.
While I was washing my face and hands on the porch I spotted him just past the wood pile and the sounds I heard told me that he had my slingshot.
I stood behind him, knowing that he hadn’t heard me walk up, and saw that he wasn’t doing too well at it. His target was an empty motor oil can which he had stuck up on top of a ancient cedar fence post where the fence itself had long ago rotted away.
After watching his fourth miss I said, “Let me show you how to do that.”
He jumped pretty good and said, “Why the heck you want to sneak up on somebody like that for?’
“You got any more rocks?”
“There’s a pile right there,” he said, pointing toward his feet. “Can’t hit nothing with this thing anyway.”
I took the slingshot from his outstretched hand, selected a stone, loaded it, drew back, took careful aim and released. Zing! Ding! The can toppled to the ground.
“How the heck did you do that?”
“Go put the can back up and I’ll show you.”
When he returned I handed the weapon back to him and said, “Here, try another shot, but listen real careful while I talk you through it.”
I gave him instructions exactly as Jake had given them to me and when he hit the can he said, “This thing is great.”
Then he asked a question which I was totally unprepared for. “Where did you get this thing?”
When I hesitated he asked again, “Well, where?”
I figured I had to think of a believable lie fast, but then I thought that I didn’t really have to lie. I could say where I got it, just not when. “Jake make it for me.”
“That nigger from the sawmill, the one that’s an escaped convict?”
“Yeah, the same colored man who made my stick.”
“When did he give you that slingshot?”
This was going to be close to a lie, but not quite. “A while back.”
“Where you been keeping it?”
“I had hid it under the house.”
Now that was a lie. “Where is mother and Ned?” I asked quickly.
“They gone with Uncle Curtis to pick butter beans. Let’s go see what they left on the stove, then we’ll shoot this thing some more.”
While we were having biscuits and jam Fred began to study the slingsho
t, turning it over in his hand, examining every part of it. After a while he said, “I believe I can make one of these.”
I seized the opportunity. “Sure you can. All you need to do is cut a forked oak or hickory stick out of the woods, find an old tire tube, a piece of leather and some twine, then just put it all together.”
A few minutes later I watched while he disappeared into the woods with our father’s hand saw. Then I disappeared in the opposite direction with two biscuits, a pint of blackberry jam, and a quart of last year’s peaches. Jake ate half the jar of peaches before he put the cap back on and said he would save the rest for supper.”
“Did you get a rabbit yesterday?”
“Sho did. Roasted him and ate de whole thing. It was mighty good, but not nearly so good as yo’ momma’s peaches.”
I noticed several pieces of paper sticking out of the pocket of his bib overalls. “You been writing some.” I asked.
“Sho has, been writing like crazy. Done got inspired being out in dese woods so long. When I gets to California I gon’ sing some blues like dey never heard.”
The annual ritual of ordering school and winter clothes took place at our house that night. My brothers were finished and it was my turn. My mother turned the wick of the kerosene lamp up because the light of day was just about faded away. “Step on up here closer to me,” She said.
She had a tape measure which she used to measure my arms, my waist, my neck, my legs, everything except my feet. For them she had me stand on a piece of paper while she knelt on the floor and used a pencil to trace the outline of my foot. She cut that outline out with scissors and would later mail it in to Sears and Roebuck for a pair of shoes along with an order for two new pair of jeans and two new shirts. These along with the hand-me-downs from Fred would be my wardrobe until next year. When she was finished she moved the lamp, all her measurements, the paper footprints, and the order forms to the kitchen table to complete her motherly task.
I heard her in there talking. At first I thought she was talking to herself, then I realized she was praying. “Lord, we got to have these clothes for these young ’uns. I don’t know how we’re going to pay for them, what with J. D. soon to be out of work. I been saving my vegetable and egg money, but it won’t be nearly enough. If by some miracle you could see your way clear to help us out, well, then we would surely be appreciative. Amen.”
A Yellow Watermelon Page 13