The Ozark Plantatin, in: Mammy Mae (1802))Series #3/#2))

Series #3
The Ozark Plantation, in:

Mammy Mae
(1802) #2 (3-4-2007)


The wick was burning in the porcelain, “He comin’ back from New Orleans,” said Judith Hightower, to Mammy Mae, “Dat dere man, he never quite, foolin’ around does he Ms Judith?” She didn’t answer, not a word, just listened, a smirk on her face, “He aint never had any mercy on nobody—aint satisfied, drive a woman crazy—yous should up and leave him!”
“You’re sure right,” said Judith, standing by the kitchen door, releasing a sigh, as if she was coming out of a trance, out of some deep thinking, yet she was clam, too calm, for her agitated nature living with Shep Hightower.
“He a comin’ in today, he say so when he left a month ago!” Said Mammy Mae to Judith who seemed to have gotten lost again in her daydreaming; “I never known anyone dat needed to get away as bad as dat dere man of yor’ does,” said Mammy shaking her head.
“Not much I can do, Mammy,” said Judith, with a half smile, seemingly fatigued from thinking.
“I knows wat to do wit him, tie himup in an empty boxcar an’ let da hoboes take care of him.” They both started to laugh, and then Judith commented, “I’ll have to think hard on that one.”
“Yous look so sad, child, wha’ da matter?” said Mammy.

Judith stopped looking at Mammy Mae, heard someone at the door, it opened, and then slammed shut, it was Shep, her husband. “He’s come home Mammy!” she said with a hard jaw, and gritting teeth, disturbed face. She was not open for any more suggestions.
“How was your New Orleans whore?” she asked Shep.
“You shut your mouth, just shut your mouth!” he replied.
“Stop what, the truth?” she calmly said, adding, “oh, it doesn’t really matter anymore.”
“You shouldn’t be saying such things when our Negros are nearby, gives a bad impression,” said Shep, looking over her shoulder to the kitchen seeing Mammy Mae sitting behind the table.
“Is that so…?” responded Judith, “you want to protect her ears do you…!”
“What’s come over you?” he asked Judith.
“Are you home on a friendly visit or leaving again tomorrow?” asked his wife (for some reason Judith was out of character, much more bravado than she usually was).
“Yes I’m home, for a spell, if that matters to you someway or another—anyhow, now shut up, I’m hungry….!” Then Shep sat down at the dinning room table, as Mammy Mae fixed up something hot for him to eat.

“Aint you comin’ to dinner?” he asked his wife.
Judith went to a back room, grabbed a horse blanket and walked out through the side door that lead to the kitchen, and out that door as well, as Mammy was bringing in some hot stew for Shep, Mammy got only a glance of her walking behind her, thinking she was going to the barn to put the blankets on the horses, it was a chilled evening, but she didn’t stop at the barn, she kept on walking, walking out into the fields, as the negro slaves watched her from afar, then she disappeared, just like a horizon.
In the morning, she was found dead, the blanket wrapped around her, expressionless, exposed to the chill of the night.
When they brought her back to the house, when Shep saw her, he simple said, “Godalmight, now what did that woman go and do!”

Epitaph and Funeral


The preacher, Bruce Danbury, from Dothan, Alabama, was in town, in Ozark, and came out to the Plantation, for the funeral, came to give the elegy, as Shep and several Negros, along with Mammy Mae, and a few towns’ folks, stood and listened:

“She was not so sophisticate or a connoisseur of course, and she will find a place similar to suite her in heaven I’m sure. She had few people to instruct her in life, down here Lord, and she never hurt anyone, nor really hated anyone but I would undoubtedly guess, she isn’t losing anything by dying, or staying down here (Shep looked hard at the preacher, very hard), likely she’s having more fun up yonder.”

Shep started to walk away, mumbling, “I got to feed the horses!”

The Ozark Plantation, in: Warehouse on Fire (1804))Series #3/#4))

Series #3
The Ozark Plantation, in:

Warehouse on Fire
(1804) #4 (3-6-2007)



“You sees wha’ I mean,” Mammy Mae said, “can yous imagine any woman livin’ wit dat dare man?” She hesitated, then added, “…well, now can you?” Young Charles smiled looking up at her in the kitchen; Shep was pacing the floor in the living room talking to Mr. Ritt, the banker from Ozark who was drinking a beer as Shep listened to his proposal.
Said Mr. Ritt in a calm but stern voice, “If we don’t work together on this, you’ll be working alone.”
“What,” said Hightower.
“Unaided…” added Ritt.
A hauntingness came over Shep Hightower’s face, he needed to build a fence around his property, lest the sheep, and cattle, dogs and wolfs, strange and wild mustangs, horses from other plantations, and invaders, gypsies remain on it when he was gone, and they were coming, at all different times now of the year, and the Negros wouldn’t tell them to go unless he was there.

(It was a time the whole countryside was filling up with profiteers, the sheriff couldn’t make the law stick to the hides of everyone, and often by the time he got to the issue, with a neighbor, or stranger, someone was dead, and it didn’t matter anymore, the issue was settled, and all knew this, collateral damage, or whatever you want to call it, it kept your land safe by acting quick, and that was ok with most of the plantation owners, and the sheriff. Much of the land they had in many cases was not registered legally anyhow, and thus, void of taxes, yet used by the farmers, or plantation owners, and when they went to register it, they often found to their dismay, they were a day or week too late; and so little land wars prevailed throughout this area.)

—Shep built a warehouse and loaded all the lumber he could put his hands on, in it, along with wire for a fence to circle his property—borrowed the money from the bank, in the process he cursed quietly, the following months at the entire Negro crew. He even had them work at night with lanterns.
One night he decided not to go back to the warehouse, to insure all was locked up as he usually did, he had left early that evening, and expected the two Negros that usually slept in the warehouse to do as usual to sleep there again, crowbar the door from inside, and have another lock it from the outside until morning, when one would open it up from the outside, and unbar it from the inside. The lanterns were kept inside the warehouse like all the tools used for making the fence.
Hightower was with J. Ritt, in town, it was Saturday night, and he had a few drinks. Ritt told him to go on home, make sure the Negros had everything in place. But Shep remained at the saloon, and slept it off at Ritt’s place down the road from the bank. It was at 2:00 AM he was waked up by Sheriff Smiley, a brother to Hightower’s neighbor, Sheriff Stan Smiley, he said in no kind voice, “Dem there blackies dune burned your warehouse to the ground Mr. Hightower!” Hightower shaking his head every which way got his horse saddled and high-tailed it to his plantation, only to find it burnt almost to the ground, ablaze from the wood inside was still producing some clouds of smoke.

(Monday at the Bank) “Alright, Alright,” Shep told Ritt, “you were right I should have stayed at home Saturday night, I suppose one of the crew laid a lantern lit in the warehouse when they were locking up, but they said they didn’t, no one remembering who did what, an accident, but I’ll ask Mammy Mae, she’ll tell me the truth, she’s on my side.”
When Shep got back to the plantation Monday evening he asked Mammy Mae if she knew anything about it, but she wouldn’t, say a ward, just said she didn’t hear or know a thing, though everything was fine, until someone came running saying, “Fire, fire…!” that is all she said, all she knew, all she said she knew anyway, who did it she said she didn’t know because she was in bed; how could she say anything, the horse doesn’t bit the hand that feeds them.

The Ozark Plantation, in: Mammy Mae's Secret (Series #3))1803))

Series #3
The Ozark Plantation, in:

Mammy Mae‘s Secret
(1803) #3 (3-6-2007)



Almost everyday, everyday that is when Shep was gone, Mammy Mae, went up the hill to the little plot sectioned off for a family graveyard, Judith Hightower was buried there, her tombstone read: “October 7, 1803, died Judith Hightower (Abernathy),” nothing else. This day, as others when Shep was gone on business or in New Orleans, she’d take an apple and some peanuts with her, stay for an hour or so, talk to Judith, or the headstone as if she was alive inside of it listening, and when she saw Shep, saw him like this day, Shep Hightower’s wagon approaching the plantation, from the dirt road along side the house, she ran down the hill, as if in a trot, almost head first as if to keep pace with the velocity of the nearing wagon, and right to the back side door of the kitchen she scrambled to and then through, into the kitchen and sat down behind the table, her table where she cut up most everything, and huffed and puffed to get her air back into her lungs. She was not young, nor slim; it was all she could do for the moment.
When Shep entered the house, he was still talking to himself, as usual, ‘…it didn’t take him long to get over the death of Judith,’ his wife, mumbled Mammy Mae, she was talking to the baby actually, little Charles, in the kitchen, him standing by her chair, holding onto her leg. She had taken him out of his crib, woke him up, there was three cribs in the house. In his bedroom, in the kitchen, so Mammy could watch him, and one in the main room by the fire place, so Shep could look at him at night by the heath.
She still had peanuts in her hands, she quickly put them back into the dish she had earlier taken them from, and they were moistened with her sweat.
“The town is too small for me,” said Shep aloud, so Mammy could hear.
“Dont New Orleans need folk like you…” whispered Mammy, playing with little Charles.
“What did you say?” asked Shep.
“I says, Mr. Hightower, dat dere tooth of Charles is jes’ peeking out…of de roof…!”
“How long do you reckon it will take for it to surface…I mean come out all the way?”
Before she could answer, Shep’s mind was back on money matters.
“You know where he’s at now…?” said Shep.
“Who!” asked Mammy?
“That banker, Mr. J. Ritt?”
“He dere in Ozark I reckon so,” said Mammy.
“No, he never got that far, he was in New Orleans with me, saw him there, I bet…him I’d beat him back home, .85-cents bet.”
He had run the horse almost to the graveyard to win that bet. Then he started laughing. “But tomorrow I’ll see him, get my money,” then he went and grabbed a handful of peanuts’, “I bet him .85-cents…” he said again, assuming Mammy didn’t hear him because she didn’t pay him any attention when he said it the first time. This time she looked up at him, away from little Charles and said, “Yous dont say…”; then speaking softly to little Charles, as Shep walked away, she said, “I dont think you’ pa knowd you mama is buried up dere on dat hill, buried up yonder, but I reckon I won’ forget.”

The Ozark Plantation (Series #3))Old Shep Hightower (And a boy named Josh) #1

Series #3
The Ozark Plantation
(and a Boy Named Josh)


Old Shep Hightower
(And a boy named Josh) #1


The Ozark Plantation (Series #3)) Old Shep Hightower (and a boy named Josh) #1

Shep Hightower came from New York State, in the Mid 1700s, they say around 1759 he appeared off a ship with some sailors, he was at that time, twenty-five years old, and made his way to what now is called Ozark, Alabama, in the dead of summer, perhaps around the year 1761, or so. Mrs. Hightower, back then, a Miss when she came up from New Orleans, some time thereafter, she was quite young, a few months past sixteen years old, she sat high-headed in a wagon, Shep remembered that, so he would tell in later years: they never even kissed until they got married, so he told everyone likewise, all the folks said in Ozark years later they just kissed where no one could see them.
John Abernathy, gave his brother, for his daughter $25,000-dollars to give to her upon her marriage day, this was in his will, and Jeff kept his word, a the wedding gift was all Shep needed to purchase what would turn out to be one of the riches plantations in and around the Ozark area, all 450-Acres of it.

It was the turn of the century when Charles T. Hightower was born (1800). This was also around the time the plantation was self supporting, and had a good cash flow, when he could afford, and purchased several Negros for his labor in the fields; in addition, it was also the time when Shep would take his trips to New Orleans, excursions he called them, and he never mentioned why to anyone, he just went, and met a Negress, a black woman he fancied, and paid her well for his pleasures, so he could keep it fancy free. Mrs. Judith Hightower, never could, if she wanted to, leave, where would she go? So she put up with, what she felt she had to put up with.

Somehow Shep dodged the war, and continued his affair with his—as he called her, ‘My New Orleans, Hussy,’ he didn’t think anyone knew of the affair, or what was going on, too close to the forest to see the trees, as they say, but Judith new it, and perhaps all of Ozark.
“You shut your mouth,” said Shep to his wife, “if you can give me a child, do it, or I’ll find a way in New Orleans…. (which he had anyway, already done)” And she simply would turn about and walk into the kitchen, sit down at the table, cutup tomatoes, or lattice, and talk to the old black cook, Mammy May, she called her. At night Mammy and Judith would sit by the heath and she’d rock in her chair, feeling the warm flames of the fire, and she’d talk about meeting Mr. Washington, and so forth and so on, and Judith loved those evening, Shep would be in New Orleans usually during those nights.
No one knew how Judith actually got herself engaged with Shep, he would never tell, it just happened one day, people said. Mrs. Hightower didn’t live a long life, although Shep did. Old Shep changed the birth certificate of Charles Hightower, his first son, and child, it was hard for Judith to live with knowing the truth of the matter, that his hussy gave birth to the white boy, and she raised him, “Well, that’s business,” Shep once told her, she was at his mercy but no gentleman would have believed that, had she screamed it to high heaven, after Charles was born. I mean, she lived well, and there was poverty all around her, who would want to believe it.
It was in the year, or thereabouts, 1807, when Hightower was in New Orleans, when he had met another black woman he took a liking to, she had a boy, and there was a deluge in the city, the Mississippi had flowed over its banks, as a wind and storm filled up the city likewise with its debris, and in the process of the flood, he took the boy, at her request, back with him to his plantation, his name was Josh.

3-3-2007


Notes: Grandpa Hightower [Shep Hightower] 1734-1829 Charles Terrance Hightower [1800-1880]: died of heart attack after years of dealing with his son’s death]