Written in Titled Vignettes
Old Josh, in—
Poor Black
(Sequel to: ‘C raddled by the Devil’: a Novel)
By Dennis L. Siluk
Index
Foreword & Descriptions
(1803-1813)
♦
(1862-1864)
Chatting in the Barn
(And the Slave Ship)
Fiddlesticks
Old Josh, from Ozark, Alabama
(And Memories from Marcus on the Slave Ship)
Josh Laying Sick
Josh Goes Fishing
♦
Yellow Negro
I Aint no Nigger
Josh Sings to Molly
(And the Shanty)
Joshes Ghost
♦
(1868-1913)
Black Stranger in Town (1868)
Across the Moon (1869)
(Charles Hightower’s Death)
The Wild Horse (1872)
Hanging of Amos of Stone Bridge (1883)
Moonshine and the Devil (1886)
Last Day in Ozark (1889)
The Brown Toad Race (1898)
Autumn Quiet (1907)
((1907) (Josh’s Death))
Centipedes in the Shanty (1908-1913)
Gabe and Sweet Chile ((1846) (1909))
The Marsh Angel (1910)
Names and Places (Back of book)
†
Book One
Mr. Charles Hightower, 1813 (23-years old,
In New Orleans)
Foreword: Old Joshua Jefferson (known in his older years as Old Josh), born 1803, died 1907, was found in New Orleans, during the spring of 1810, he was seven years old. Charles Hightower, from Ozark, Alabama found him, like a stray dog eating what he could out of the garbage, looking for mother, they had come over from Africa, and she had somehow escaped the hands of the traders, and Hightower took little Joshua and named him Joshua Jefferson, and when he could fully understand English he explained his name to him saying, “I named you Jefferson for President Thomas Jefferson, since he was born on the year Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase, 1803, from the French, which cost the Government of the United States a little over $23-million dollars, but added 828,000 square miles to its land mass about one third of the United States ((23% of the United States today)(which also included New Orleans, parts of Minnesota, and down along the rim between Canadian and Montana, and all the way down to New Mexico)); also, he, Jefferson, was sort of a philosopher, and Charles Hightower explained this to Joshua: saying the name Joshua also had a biblical history: Joshua of the Bible was born in a land that was not his, in Egypt, under enslavement, and in his case, in Joshua Jefferson’s case, he was brought to a land that wasn’t his, America, but back to the biblical Joshua, who was a Jew, and when Moses died, he took over where he left off, so he was Moses’ right hand man, and the most militaristic of the twelve tribes of Israel, he was a warrior, and Charles told Josh he would be his right hand man, he’d have to fight some battles in life though, and his name might fit him well for that, for his name meant: to deliver, to be liberated or to be victorious, and Joshua Jefferson would take this to heart in his own way throughout his life.”
And then went and paid for a birth certificate that read 1803, he could have been a few years older, maybe ten not seven, but that is how it turned out, and in time little Josh would learn English, and forget most of his African native tongue.
Joshua had asked Charles Hightower, what his name meant, and he, Charles tried to explain, “My family,” he started out to say, “came from England, came over to America around 1650, or so, first settled in New England, and moved on down to the South, to Alabama and North Carolina, Georgia, and New Orleans and so forth. Charles is an old English name, perhaps extending to and beyond Charles, King of England in 1625 AD, not sure, my mother’s Emily Hightower, she was born 1755, and she died a year after my birth, in 1790, it would seem her system weakened and, oh well, it’s all history now. So that’s me, Joshua.”
It was now 1862, Josh was, 59-years old according to his birth certificate, and he worked the Hightower Plantation all his living days, he had son Silas, and Jordon who was two years younger (Silas being born 1827, now 35-years old, and Jordon being born 1830 now 32-years old).
Across from the Hightower Plantation was the Smiley Plantation, owned by Mr. Jacob Smiley was 72-years old, born 1790, and his wife Maribel Smiley. Toby was the Negro slave on that plantation, the main one, there were several. And Toby was Jacob’s son, the same age as Silas thirty five, born 1827.
Charles Hightower, was born near Ozark, Alabama, in 1779, his family bought the land, 1200-acres back 1779, after the big war, the one Charles’ father fought in, down in the swamps of Florida, with Andrew Jackson, he didn’t rightly know when he pa was born, but he came over on one of those ships from England he told Charles Jr., when he was of formal reasoning. He died in 1800, he said he was 80-years old, so Charles Jr. remembered, but no one really discussed age back then. The called him C.J. or CJ Hightower Sr. or Charles Jason Hightower. Charles Hightower, was never given a middle name, his mother Aurea Hightower, her daughter Emma Hightower,
Descriptions: Josh was a thick boned man, a wide forehead, big hands, broad shoulders, six-foot two, perhaps 200-pounds. His eyes were a tinge small for his big head, and he always seemed to be in need of a shave, but wasn’t unkempt. He had big ears, and moved slow. He had a receding forehead, but enough hair to cover his whole head, not like his two sons, who had little hair to speak of in their thirties. Josh also had big feet, wide, and his cheekbones extended outward by the middle of his nose and up to his eye sockets, a square jawbone that seemed to lower itself a bit, and thick chin, short thick neck, and strong as a bull.
Silas, the older boy of the two boys of Josh, now men of thirty or more, resembled their mother more then their father, in looks, both had round chins, thinned out hair, yet it covered their small foreheads, Silas had big thick lips, whereas, Jordon had thin lips. Jordon took after his father in the lip area Silas was the more serious one of the two, and like his father had high cheek bones, but a longer nose, almost buckteeth, like his brother Jordon, who had really large buck teeth. Jordon played the Banjo, and was more mischievous. Silas and Josh never played any instruments. And they all liked to drink moonshine and dance about at night.
Continuing, Silas had large ears like his father and Jordon small ears like his mother. Silas had thick eyebrows like his father and Jordon thin like his mother. Jordon was the smaller one of the family the three some, perhaps five foot eight inches tall but robust in the chest, and hair on that chest; whereas, Silas, was perhaps five foot nine inches tall, a little thicker in body weight and bones than his brother, a fuller face also, and a little hair on his chest too.
Chatting in the Barn
(And the Slave Ship)
1862
Silas and Jordon Jefferson
Of Ozark, Alabama
“Wes at war!” said Josh ‘at war I says!”
But Silas paid little attention to his pa, it was as if he felt Josh was losing his mind this past year or two, talking just to talk, or perhaps talking to himself more than ever, for whatever reasons, perhaps attention, he’d not look even at Silas half the time when he talk, he’d just talk to talk, and kept on talking no matter if Silas or Jordon or any one was listening, it didn’t matter. It was as if something in his pa’s mind got caught and needed to wiggle free, as if he had to get it out, and talking did it. Right or wrong, talking did it, perhaps past frustration, or hidden anger, who knows, but it got out because he spit it out one way or another, either straight out or sideways, but it got out, and sometimes dangerously.
The problem being, for Silas anyhow, Josh’s older boy, there was work to be done on the plantation, and not enough workers to do it anymore, and today there was work to be done in the barn, lots of work, and if he turned about every time his pa said something, or had something to say, wanting someone to listen, and that someone was Silas, he’d not get anything done, and then Mr. Hightower, Charles Hightower that is, would whip him, will he didn’t whip him anymore, he did once or twice when he was a kid, the worse now was a slap behind his head or a kick where the sun didn’t shine. He never used anything other than his hands, nowadays, or feet, not a whip or shaving strap like the old plantation owners did, but just knowing he could and he might, was good enough. And Jordon was down is Ozark half the time, at that darn Grocery Store working.
“We is got to recover our freedom!” said Josh, with a patriotic arch in his back, and a somewhat grouchy voice, looking at Silas in the barn, then added to that, while Silas was still looking his way, “yes, I is talking to you, Silas, who you think?”
“What we want of a white mans war pa, just let them do what they is goin’ to do? Once we is free, they aint goin’ to free us down south here anymore then, than what we is today, its just a piece of paper that goin’ say we is free, but the mind of the white man aint goin’ to change for a hundred years and we is goin’ to be dead by that time, and if you keeps talkin’ just to talk, I is goin’ to be dead when Mr. Hightower sees the barn all full of this and that, gots to clean the manure before he steps in it,” says Silas.
Asked Silas, “Who says the war is ours?”
“I says—!“ said Josh, looking with a stern eye at Silas, looking and kicking a bit of hay about, pretending to work, and not really working, pacing between the wooden beams holding up the barn, pacing like the devil himself trying to think what he was going to say next, perhaps thinking about where he was going to take his afternoon nap.
“You is too much for me pa,” said Silas, adding, “pa, this here work is done, you go on to the shanty and seep it off, I think you had too much moonshine last night!”
“You young ones think we is jes’ ole ignorant folk—we is sometimes cuz if-in we known somthin’, we’d not be here today, but there goin’ to be a day when poor ole niggers like us, we is goin’ to swat the white man off us like the horse does to the fly with his behind tail,” said Josh, and picked up his cane he had laying against a pole in the barn and pretended to swat flies, and laughed, and Silas laughed and shook his head saying, “Some times pa, I think you is the funniest person I done ever known!
“I reckon,” said Josh, rubbing his eyes, “I is goin’ to take a nap and swat some more flies (ha, ha, ha—he went! as he walked out of the barn to his shanty his little hut behind the barn where he and Silas and Jordon lived).”
Yes in deed, Josh was feeling his temper rising, and lowering like a yoyo this past year, feeling his age, and his oats you could say, while trying to help his son Silas understand his thinking, but Silas was easy going, like Josh used to be, and I suppose Silas felt it better his pa sleep a little more, then he could get a lot more work done, because Josh he just walked sometimes aimlessly in circles thinking, just thinking and Hightower was starting to notice that, although he didn’t say a word, he stared enough.
As time went on, Silas learned how to listen to his pa but not listen to him (something called disassociation), this way he got his work done, and his pa thought he heard him most of the time, and Josh got his attention, and everyone was happy—for the most part; if you know what I mean by being happy, perhaps content might be a better word, but the work got done.
Silas had been a slave all his life. I mean, he looked up to his pa, respectful, but when Mr. Hightower came into the picture, he of course gave him his due respect likewise, not earned respect, but respect by rank, it was given to him because who he was, not what he was, or what he had done, for he had not done anything for the Jefferson’s, or for anybody but himself and his family. And Josh knew this kind of respect, although with Josh, Hightower was more a father figure than a boss figure, where as for Silas, he was more boss figure than a father figure, because Silas had Josh for a father, and Josh couldn’t remember his father, for the most part, and what he did remember was just the beating of drums, and folks dancing around a fire, and him being told to learn all he could about survival in the jungle, the big cats and so forth.
Cargo and Hatches
—What he really remembered, but never really told anyone, at this time, was the five-hundred or so slaves that were on the ship he was on, coming across the Atlantic, a slave ship, how the heat and the odor was horrid, that he and the other five-hundred were in a complete state of nudity, and although the Captain did not want them to go on deck for fresh air, nor even open up the hatches so they could get fresh air, the protest and sympathy for them among the ships mates, and perhaps a few absolutists at heart, was strong, and he allowed it; it was all so suffocating, people of all ages and sexes, children, women, men, old men an so forth, they all came onto deck like a storm of bees, and he was with his mother, that is what he remembered, and he looked up to her, proud he had somebody, but how did they get into this mess, he couldn’t figure it out. How did she allow such a thing to happen, and now look, fifty-years later, he is still a slave.
He wanted to tell Silas all of this, and this was why he was so profound with his anger, it was frozen anger, that now had thawed,, but didn’t have the words to tell Silas, how crowed the ship was, to suffocation from stern to stern, it was amazing when he saw them on deck, how they all had been crammed into the ships bowels, in some places children were pushed or packed into remote areas to make room for adults, not caring of life or death, and when they got on deck many had to be carried, they could not stand: that he, Josh, knew he’d never remembered, although this was something he’d had liked to forget. Eight or nine had died, and they were thrown overboard; some of the slave cargo, Josh remembered, some of the older men, and women were foaming from the mouth, hardly any room to breath. Out of the nearly twenty-days on that ship, some forty slaves had been thrown overboard; he remembered he was under a grated hatchway between decks, the space was so low that he had to—like everyone else—sit between each others legs. He remembered that he and his fellow men and women were called cargo. How could he tell his son this, and be looked upon as his hero, he couldn’t, and he wouldn’t and he didn’t.
I suppose Josh wanted to be able to have that same respect, the kind that commands because of who you are, not earned but because you stand out, above others, and other know you are you because you are more powerful than they while you both live in the same world, drink the same water, breath the same air, walk the same earth. It was hard for Josh in those years to see Hightower get that respect from his son, and perhaps Hightower knew this.
Josh stood at the barn’s door, watched Mr. Charles Hightower, the owner of the plantation, as he got ready to go to town, to Ozark, his son was with him Dylan (now eighteen years old), and Emma (now thirteen years old) his daughter both with him, and they looked at him so proudly, as if he was king, that was the look he was looking for in the eyes of Silas and Jordon.
Josh could see Hightower’s buggy stop, as he talked to one of the Confederate Military Officer’s, Josh thinking: they want him to join their regiment perhaps. Then giving it no more attention, or thought, he walked behind the barn and took a long nap in his shanty.
Fiddlesticks
1862
(The sun was rising over Ozark, Alabama, soldiers were here and there, bivouacked in pastures, plantation fields, alongside of roads, eating breakfast, marching, exercising, brushing down mares, etc. Some of the soldiers didn’t even have uniforms on, civilian cloths, they were Confederates.)
Josh was waving his hands wildly, with an old wooden stick, hollering at a Captain in a gray uniform, whom was shaving alongside the road, in his tent, as his wagon passed by his company of soldiers, on their way to the Hightower Plantation, his son, he even yelled: “We is all goin’ to be free men soon!” he yelled it from the top of his lungs, then he said, several times “Hooray…!”
Josh rode in the back of the wagon, holding onto those two sacks of salt on his lap, as his son Silas, scooted on down the dirt path, a little further, they had been to town and purchased several items there, for their owner, Mr. Charles Hightower, a retired country gentleman, who had been in these parts of Alabama ever since—or so it seemed— ever since Alabama was Alabama. The plantation was but ten miles up the road.
“Pa, you is goin’ to git us in a heap of trouble, jes’ you tote that there salt and stop name calling to the gray soldiers. You hear me pa?” Said Silas angry.
“If-in you give me that there whip I show you who I is, and you too; git them, we is got to git them out of the south for good. Hope the blue kills them all,” said Josh starting to get annoyed with Silas.
“Stop that there cussin’ pa, you is goin’ to git us in trouble I swear, talkin’ like that. You is the only one I hears takin’ thataway!” says Silas.
“Fiddlesticks, I is fixin’ to whip them there white grey folk you call friend, asks them to help yaw, see what they say? You aint got a word to say now I guess cuz I is right. Where Mr. Hightower, hes sittin’ his behind in his home like nothin’ is happenin’ he is watchin’ me like I is his cow, or his horse or his shoe or his fence,” said Josh, talkative as often he is.
“Yessum,” said Silas, “we be back in an hour or so, if we dont gits hung by the gray!
“Yes son,” said Josh, “…you keep talkin’ that way. Mr. Hightower he thinks the Lord done gave the white folk all the land in the world, only to them,” said Josh, “so they think!”
“I reckon so pa,” said Silas, exhausted from talking, and the heat of he day, then added to the dialogue, “you is gitten to be an old man pa, before your time.”
Said Josh so he could seemingly have the last word, which he gloated in getting, and often did get “They owns your flesh boy, and they wants your soul…Yessum, blind as the bat you is, they wants your freedom!”
(—They now were at the plantation, and they stopped at the wagon and Josh hobbling into the back area behind the barn, where his shanty was, and were a few other huts and workers were; there was something like a row of shanties, although his was separated from the rest. Waving his stick in the air, shaking it, spurts of mumbling came from him (not liking the Confederates), which was some ten miles back down the road now, and Silas happy to get back to the plantation. Silas dismantled the wagon, and moved he two horses into the barn, and then joined his father for a few shots of good old mountain style whisky.)
Old Josh, from Ozark, Alabama
1862
“I let ya know ‘bout that when the time come,” says old Josh, to his neighbor peering through the broken down fence, at the Smiley Plantation, only a fence separating the two plantations, the Hightower and the Smiley.
“Yessum” Toby said with a grimace, adding: “I aint doin’ nothin’ until youall let me know what you want me to do, and why!”
“Hush, Toby!” Josh says, as if he was in charge. Then looked about, looked every which way, turned his head over to his left shoulder, as if to clear his right ear, as if he was listening to something, or was expecting to hear something.
“You got to find the box that is hidden…” Josh says, with a serious tone to his voice, still listening, as if to hear foot steps come over his way, or behind him, any which way, as if this was classified information, and it was to him just that, and if it leaked out to anyone other than them two, he’d have to hightail it out of Alabama, right quick.
“Why do we got to be so quiet Josh, there aint nobody for miles around, jes’ you and me…?” asked Toby.
“You got to break that there window in the kitchen, when Mr. Hightower goes on down to Ozark, he goes once a week, on Tuesdays I reckon, you jes’ take your time, and go on up to his bedroom and under his bed is the box, I needs that there box, so I can go on North, I is going soon,” said Josh with a smile.
“Ooo I sees now, you wants me, to brake the window for youall, so I can rob Mr. Hightower of his box, and money in that there box I bet, and gives it to you, so youall can take it to the North, and then they finds me, and hangs me from the tall tree, cuz I help you, and you is in some place I aint never heard of, drinking moonshine, and laughing that Toby done took the box and gives it to you, so you can scoot where you wants to. You go and take that there boy, youall wants it, you gits it. I aint goin’ to do a thing!” Yelled Toby.
(Josh is leaning both his elbows now on the fence, taking in a deep breath, looking here and there to see who is watching and no one is. Toby now moves away from the fence, his son, also a servant slave on the Smiley plantation Todd Brown, is coming up their way, Todd wants to see his father, he is thirty-one years old, he just finished work in the stable getting Mr. Smiley’s horse ready to ride on into town. Jacob Stanley is fifty-two years old.)
“Pa,” says Todd, “If-in you wants to eat, the Smiley’s are done and we-all can go on down to the kitchen and gits what is left. The stable is clean pa, so dont worry ‘bout that. I think wes got biscuits for breakfast, I likes them, I sees it being prepared when I went to fetch you…!” said Todd, expecting his pa to follow, and perhaps Josh.
“Mr. Smiley, he done left, haw?” said Toby.
“Thats what I say…!” repeated Todd.
“What is Mrs. Smiley doing?” asked Toby.
“She is searching the house, and under the porch for rats and snakes with a broom, Clara and Dennis they is helping to clear the cobwebs off he house too,” said Todd.
Yelled Silas from a distance “Mr. Hightower he a lookin’ for yaw pa!
Toby looks at Josh, and Todd he is looking at Toby hoping whatever they were talking about can be finished later, because he is getting hungry.
“See yaw at church tomorrow,” said Todd, to Josh.
“Yaw, I guess I bes’ skedaddle before he tar and father me, the white folk they likes to do that you know, jes’ gives them a reason, and the tar gets hot jes’ lookin’ at it,” and Josh and Toby laughed, as Josh hightailed it back across the fields to his son.
Silas asked his pa, as soon as he got to him, “What youall talkin’ ‘bout up there at the fenced? I means, Hightower he been a lookin’ at yaw for a spell now.”
“Wes jes’ talkin’ …‘bout nothin’ I is nagging him, thats all, jes’ a nagging him, you is goin’ to church with me tomorrow, I hope, the good Lord he is a missin’ you lately cuz you aint been there for a month of Sunday!” said Josh, to change the subject.
“Church aint done nothin’ for me pa,” said Silas, as they walked down a slope to the barnyard in the back of the Hightower Plantation House, Silas’ eyebrows up high on his forehead, thinking about telling his father he didn’t really want to go to church, but he knew Josh felt it important for him to go once and a while, and he didn’t really one to get into a fight with him over it, and so he simply said, “I reckon it wont do me no harm once in awhile pa, but dont be expectin’ me to keep you company every Sunday,” rattled Silas, and Josh gave him a big smile.
“Is your brother Jordon down in Ozark working at that Grocery Store today?” asked Josh, he hadn’t seen him, and often he worked there, and sometimes he worked a week straight, slept in the back on a cot, Mr. Hightower allowed it when there wasn’t a lot of work on the Plantation to be done, and since the war was on, most of the slaves had run off.
“I reckon he be on his way this afternoon for a few days, that is what he says to anyway,” remarked Silas.
The Funeral
(And Memories from Marcus on the Slave Ship)
1863
Josh stood by the wooden cross, in the graveyard Jordan Macalister, his cousin, who had fought with the Yankees, had come home—come home in a wooden box, Josh was at the funeral, with his two sons Silas and Jordon, they had journeyed from Ozark, Alabama to South Carolina, Richland County; Josh was there to give a sermon, Mr. Hightower, his owner, by authority and proxy heretofore, thorough the Southern states, allowed him to migrate for the funeral from Alabama to South Carolina, he had a paper that said so, notarized indicating this Negro belonged to Charles Hightower, and it was permitted for him and his two sons to attend the funeral, by his authority.
Along with this part of the country having its share of Civil War problems, it also had its share of superstitions; from the superstition element, they were tales of terror that came out of Africa, canebrakes and jungles, out of its yellow waters, dikes and slave trade, nonetheless, Josh and his boys were there: perhaps some of this superstition coming also from the new Negro genetic pool in that area of a hybrid form, black with white and Indian blood now mixed.
Memories from Marcus on the Slave Ship
—Josh stood there, with the fifty others family members and all, and other black folks, negroes from families that remembered him as a boy, now in their 80s and 90s, remembered him on the slave ship, just like Jordan Macalister, who took the name his master gave him, he was on that ship, slave ship with Josh, he was a few years younger, Josh being somewhere around eight, nine or even ten, and Jordan being a year younger or so. Marcus Macalister was there also, Jordan’s father, he was 86-years old this year. He came out on the same Slave Ship, in 1813, with Josh and his Mother.
He, Marcus reminded Josh of Reverend Walsh that he was the one who got them to open up those air hatches for them on the slave ship coming over to America, he had been working on the ship, and had it not been for him, he himself might have been foaming from the mouth, and Josh suffocated likewise.
“I remember that big gun aboard the ship, on deck…” said Marcus to Josh, as Josh was getting ready to do his sermon. He reminded him also that there were 560 people on board not 500 as Josh remembered it; Silas overheard Marcus talking about the slave ship and all, it was all new, news to him. The old man also remembered a few of the crew spoke Portuguese, and he had kept in mind the words, they cried out ‘Viva!’ Josh listened, and he knew Marcus had to get it out, and for some reason he could, but Josh had a hard time talking about it.
“I remember brother,” said Josh, “when they done opened those hatches, all the women reached up to kiss their hands, thinking they done come to free us, even my mother did that, I suppose we ought to be grateful for the fresh air, cuz we never got the freedom!”
“Yous sounds a bit bitter yet Josh?” said Marcus.
“Yaw, I supposen I am, hard to bury that damn ship! Wes got to git on with the funeral Marcus stands aside so I can give the sermon!”
Silas was listening to all this, his eyes even got a little moist, he thought, or at least his face expressed it: I guess we really don’t know what is inside the other person the hardships they had to endure, thinking the hardships at hand are the hardest, when to Josh, life was really pleasant in comparison, maybe—just maybe, they gone through much more than they are letting us see, thought Silas, and for good reason, why ask for pity, when God let you find a way out of that black hole.
The Sermon at Mount Calvary Cemetery
By Josh Jefferson
“Jes’ before this day close Lord, my ole friend, Jordan Macalister, he done come with me on that there ship I dont like talkin’ ‘bout, you knows which one Lord, he and me, comes together—Yessum! now that there same ship summons him home, well, he on his way I guess, that there ship come back jes’ for him I bet, sure-enough; he be with you soon, from this here world before this here day is done and gone, shows him pity Lord, and save some for me, cuz I is still angry at that there ship, and I knows it, the young folks cant see how it used to be, cus it a new time now, the old forgotten, and maybe best it stay that way, and that is all I gots to say.!
Josh: Laying Sick
1863
“I is sick,” said Josh, laying quietly on his bunk bed against the wall of his shanty, covered up to his neck, he was shivering. Bone tired, dry mouth, pain in his spine.
“I know you is sick pa,” said Silas “I think I is goin’ to look for Molly, she can tells me what to do for ya pa.”
“Molly,” said Josh, with a weakened voice, an utter that sounded more interesting than his yelping about his aches and pains.
“Where is Molly?” asked Josh.
“I sees her an hour or so ago,” said Silas.
“You git on out of here son, and find that there dark eyed woman, shes alaying down yonder by the creek I bet, I sees here there now and then, tells Molly I is so…oo sick, I needs her right away!”
Silas rushed out of the shanty looking for Molly, she was a freed slave, with papers to prove it, and all the papers were signed officially from the Abernathy Plantation, Mr. Abernathy, of North Carolina, and came down to live in Ozark, a little over a year ago (1861-62) and to Josh, she was as lovely as a peacock, and only forty-years old, Molly Washington Benton.
She now worked for the Smiley and Hightower Plantations as a seamstress when they needed one, but had some medical experience in first aid; she had worked in 1860 and ‘61 for several months worked with the wounded black soldiers in North Carolina, when she wasn’t doing official duties for Mr. Abernathy.
Molly had a little hut, and a half acre of land she bought down by Goose Hill Creek, with the money the Abernathy family gave her, or so she told everyone, and she had family down in Ozark also she said, but nobody ever saw them, just heard about them from her.
How she got her freedom and money to buy the land, no one really knows, but some folks had said—all speculation of course—she was raped by a white man, a soldier who got drunk, knocked on her door in Fayetteville, and said “I come to screw you,” and it was during the day, and the sun was shinning through her window, and some folks saw him as she was pushed about, and this Private Hancock was doing the pushing, and it was also said, these good citizens saw him slap her and kick her. And when the soldiers came to find him, because he had gotten drunk on duty, and left his post, he was hiding under her bed. To keep it all quiet, the Hancock family paid the Abernathy family to free her, and give her $1500-dollars to get out of town and never return. And she did just that. She never did work long for Abernathy family and never spent much time on the plantation, because Abernathy kept her in a small hotel room in Fayetteville, for his personal reasons, told his family she was caring for the sick, and he looked to them, and she did care free for the sick.
Well, Josh got thinking, mumbling a bit (as Silas went to fetch her—): ‘here I am, not a tooth in my head, sick in bed, no wife, and this woman is coming, the only one around I like, the only one available worth looking at twice, who thinks I am…dying… (he sees her coming up the road through his hut window) ‘…here she comes like a darn nurse—a man doctor…’ he murmurs…
She is small (short), and fragile looking; like a rainbow; light brown skin, some white blood in her, perhaps, or Indian blood, something mixed anyway: as Josh always acclaimed. She always complained about Josh’s cussing, more so complain is what it really was, more than cussing, and he would agree with her he was a damned sinful man, and needed to stop it (but Josh was simply not ready to obey man, woman or beast, or at least, if he didn’t have to). If he got anything out of this showing, he was hoping he’d get some attention from her; she was kind of cute he thought; matter-of-fact, he needed a woman, perhaps didn’t need one, but would have liked one, and she was the best around. He had religious in him, an ear for a good sermon, and gave a few, a heart for the word of God, and when he prayed, he always told God he was not half as bad as any average white man, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to get through those pearly gates, that all he needed down on earth here now was his freedom and a good woman, and Molly fit the bill.
The weather was damp, it had been raining and that also sapped Josh, and now he was all of 60-years old. Just as he was feeling pity for himself, Molly walked into the shack, saw Josh laying down on a cot, the one Jordon used when he was home, not working at the store in Ozark, a window above the cot, was slightly opened for fresh air, Josh smiled and pulled up the only chair in the shack by his bed, sat up, she lifted his hand, took his pulse, wiped the sweat from his forehead—; Josh waved Silas on, to go, get out of the hut, and so he did.
“You got a slight temperature Josh, and a real sweaty neck,” she commented, and then she wiped it dry with a cloth. He never took his eyes off her as she tried to fix the chicken-feathered pillow under his head.
“You is pretty as those peacocks I sees in the magazine, Molly, does youall have a man to make love to?” he asked her, almost in a humble voice.
“You are better already, I see Josh—“said Molly.
But Josh’s mind was on other things, as Molly knew. He then got a pain and arched his back: then with his hanging hand he went to grab Molly’s dress (or perhaps it was something else):
“You aint dyin’ for a while old man,” she said, as she turned around about to leave the shack with a smile on her face, adding,
“I aint begrudging you Josh, cuz you tryin’ to do what men like to do, but you aint getting’ anything free.”
Old Josh smiled; she was right, as always, he didn’t want to marry her, he simply didn’t want to marry anyone, and he didn’t have the money like the plantation owners had, and she was expensive to keep he knew, and she couldn’t be used by men. Then she was gone. Silas then came back in the hut.
“Looks like pa, you is goin’ to die a single man!” said Silas, “but I was hopin’ for yaw.”
Josh: Goes Fishing
1863
Living on the plantation as long as Josh had, he learned where all the good spots for fishing were, and when the chores were done, and sometimes when they were not done, because sometimes they seemed unlimited (meaning: feeding the pigs, milking the cow, husking corn, and so on and so forth), he’d scoot on down to the river or creek, and go fishing for entertainment, he had a way of manufacturing his entertainment, be it with his sons, or himself. And when he didn’t like doing a certain job or chore that was when you couldn’t find him unless you went down to the creek.
There by the creek he’d fish for trout, or catfish, which ever came, he ate or whatever got hooked on his hook, he’d bring back to his shanty and he and the boys would eat, with that bamboo pole of his he caught many a fish, and it was a few times in-between all this fishing, some Yankee soldiers saw him, and tried to persuade him to join their Army, but always Josh told them he had two boys he had to support, he just left out their ages. And plus he remembered his friend, the one he just went a year back to his funeral, back to South Carolina, the one that came over on the ship with him, and his master named him Jordan Macalister.
Well, today was not one of those days where a soldier came to ask him to join, but he was thinking hard on going fishing because he didn’t like the task assigned him, he just got fed up with wringing chicken necks for the cook at the Hightower Plantation. He didn’t mine doing it, he just didn’t want to do it all day long, because Mr. Smiley left a dozen of his chickens with Mr. Hightower for him to wring their necks, and the preacher left a half dozen, and Hightower had a dozen, then he’d have to clean the mess up, but if he didn’t do it, then the cook would have to, or someone would.
He said to Silas (it was still early in the morning, close to 9:00 AM), “Why cant they find their own nigger to ring those chicken-necks, who they think I am? I rather churn the butter today, or help in the kitchen make some of that cornbread, and stir some of the boiling cabbage, not twist necks all day long, and pull those feathers out, and has to make pillows out of them, so the white folk can say ‘woo, how soft it is’ and not think a nigger done made it soft for them.”
Josh was gone now, no one knew where he was…yet everyone knew, or expected him to be, at Goose Hill Creek fishing, if not sleeping.
—Old Granny Mae Mann (79-years old in 1863), the cook at the Hightower Plantation (she had been cooking there when Josh had arrived in 1813), was making ready lunch for the Hightower kids, it was now noon, the boy and girl, had ate biscuits and honeycombed chicken, and after they left, Josh came up with some catfish, two squ rels, and asked Granny Mae to cook them for him and his boys, he’d carry them on over to his hut, as soon as she was done.
When Granny had cooked it all up, she put it in pot for him, and covered it with a cloth. Josh went back to his shack, and found out Jordon went to Ozark to work at the grocery store, he had left a note, Josh could read and write, but at a very elementary level—and Silas was up in the backwoods someplace doing something for old man Hightower. So he sat at his rustic wooden table, in his shanty, on his wobbly wooden chair and ate three catfish, and two squirrels. Then got thinking: I’ll go catch some more fish.
Well, Josh had gotten back to the creek, he tied a fishing line—after taking off his shoe—around his foot, after taking his shoe off around his ankle, laid down under a tree, actually around his ankle, and fell to sleep, he was fuller than a milking cow that had not been milked for a month.
Silas saw his father sleeping, and the string tied around his ankle, and it was wiggling, a fish was caught on the hook, and he cut the string, and let the fish go knowing Josh would stick around all night trying to catch another excited about the first catch; then, Josh woke up, “What you doing boy, you done let my fish escape?”
“No pa, it was the alligator he trying to get your fish, and if I dont let him go, I fear the gator done git madder and come up here and eat your leg, so I save you pa, Yessum, I done saved me pa…!”
Josh sits up, looks at his leg, Silas, the water, “Alligator you say, haw?”
“Yessum, a big, big one too,” said Silas with a grin.
“I thinks you is the alligator, that is my opinion!” said Josh.
“Pa!” said Silas, “nobody lookin’ for yaw yet, so if-in you gits to the barn to help with the work, Hightower, he aint goin’ to be the wiser!”
“I wonder how big that there fish was. I reckon he maybe was a whale, he done pulled my foot almost off my leg,” said Josh, Silas holding out his hand for his father to grab onto, and he did grab onto his hand, and Silas pulled his pa up onto his feet.
“Granny says you done got some catfish and squirrels for me, she say she cook them up…?” remarked, and questioned Silas.
“No, she is wrong, your fish jes’ git away and he down to the river now, the Mississippi, and going down to the Gulf, and he laughing at ya cuz he was your dinner.”
Yellow Negro
New Orleans (1863)
Old Josh got thinking after Molly left, he had laid back on the cot, Silas was out in the carrel, he got thinking of the time he went down to New Orleans, that was in the summer of 1856, with Mr. Hightower. He spent most of his time on the Warf, or pier area, bought some items, Mr. Hightower wanted. It brought back old memories of his childhood being there. His face darkly carved like a bulldog, big feet, large hands, beady eyes, and wide forehead. He walked about like an ape, hands swinging every which way, looking but not looking. Perhaps looking for something he might recognize from his childhood, when he and his mother walked the dock area.
He had been separated from his runaway wife for a long spell now, although I suppose they were never married by a piece of legal paper, never did a judge sign his name onto it that is, just common law marriage; as far as he figured it, he was widowed, and often told folks that if they asked where the boys mother was, she was dead.
Now he was back walking about in New Orleans, the very place Mr. Hightower found him in 1813, some 40-years later. Josh’s dream became quite real for him, and quite detailed. He saw many women walk by, even thought to himself: ‘What would I say to her, to any woman that got interest in me?’
He hadn’t been with a woman for –fifteen-years, and then, then out of the blue, he hears a voice, it said:
“Ha honey follow me, I’ll warm you bones for you…give you some whisky!”
He did a double take on that word…whiskey part, and turned about to see who she was, and if she was really talking to him?” a Negress had spoke those words to him, near him, he confirmed.
“What,” he said, “youall speakin’ to me?”
“Yous not white are you, behind that big black face? Cuz if you are I anit speaking to you, and if you is, I is speaking to you,” she said with a emphatic voice.
Her dress was pink and she had a seductive smile and laugh, and had a nice look to her face and a nice pear shape when she walked; Josh had Hightower’s money to buy some hoes, shovels, axes, and a plow for the plantation. His voice hung back with a laugh—
“Is you a whore?” he asked, and started to follow her. “No, I is no whore, big nigger, I is a woman of the city, who thinks you are a fine looking specimen of a man!”
“What does all that talk mean—spess-men?” asked Josh.
And before she could explain what the word meant, they were at her apartment, Josh sitting down on her cot, and her feeding him several shots of high grain whiskey, and she slipped him a mickie, something in his drink to get him smashed, sick, drunker than a skunk.
Fretfully, when Old Josh woke up she was gone and he was sick, sicker than a drunken pig; that evening Hightower found him staggering in Jackson Square, asked Josh for his money, the money he had leant him to purchase the merchandise, not seeing his hardware anyplace, looking around him some, not even a hoe, he knew something had happened.
Josh was pale as a ghost, his head looking down, sitting on a bench like a droopy jellyfish, with no light in his eyes.
“Pardon me, Josh,” said Mr. Hightower again, touching him on the shoulder, towering down on Josh’s head, “I don’t mind you getting drunk on your own time, but mine I do, especially when you are carrying my money,” he said, as Josh tired to look up at Hightower, straining to do so.
“I be better on down the road a spell, when I gits some food in me, that there alligator meat gits to me.”
Hightower looked surprised that Josh had taken off the shoes he had barrowed him, at the plantation he seldom wore shoes.
“Stand up, up!” commanded Hightower, now pulling him by the arm, Josh confused, wired, his brow full of sweat,
“Damn if the dog doesn’t bite the hand that holds the bread,” said Hightower, as they both walked in the French quarter. He knew what had happened, and in a way he blamed himself, Josh hadn’t been to New Orleans or been with a woman for a long time, and so Hightower left it at that.
“Pa,” yelled Silas, “is you having a dream or nightmare, you are moaning like a sick horse!”
Josh woke up, “Oh, yaw, yaw, I was dreaming I was in New Orleans, back in ’56.”
“Molly say, she hopes you git better and visit her some time down at the creek!” said Silas.
“She say that haw, maybe I be better tomorrow.” Said Josh with a sly look at Silas.
“I Aint no Nigger”
1863
It has been a month since Josh got over his illness where Molly had come over to assist in his recovery. And when he had that dream, about him being in New Orleans back in ’56 again; today he and his boys went to the Hightower picnic, and there he got to talk to Molly, and he was hoping to see Aunt Bessie, she’s helped raise Josh’s boys, she’s the same age as Josh, the picnic was good, and Josh is now back from the river picnic, talking to Bessie, asking a few questions by the fenced in the carrel area, Bessie’s brother, Malcolm works for the Smiley’s, as does Bessie. Bessie kind of likes Josh, and knows he likes Molly.
Back from the Picnic
Says Josh to Bessie, “We all, me and my boys and I been down by the river fishin’!” (Josh a little drunk)
“With who…” asked Bessie?
“With me, and my boys, I jes’ tells you that.” Said Josh a bit irritated.
“Did you talk to that Molly girl?” asked Bessie.
“Me and Silas and Jordon and boss Hightower, and some white folks, we down there fishin’, caught a turtle, and I drank their whisky, and helped pour the white folks whisky, and Molly she say hi, and I say hi, and then I say by. Why?” Said Josh with a laugh, because he made his last words rhyme.
“You aint funny Josh Jefferson, why you bein’ nice to white folk?” asked Bessie.
“Cuz they is good to me today, they done gave me five dollars and all the whiskey I can drink, and Hightower he like my pa, cuz I never had one you know; I mean sometimes he is, and sometimes he is now. What kind of answer yous want?”
“You aint give me a straight answer Josh,” remarked Bessie.
“Cuz I aint straight Bessie, I is drunk, what youall expect?” Said Josh, as her brother tried to pull her away, and take her back to their hut on the Smiley plantation, Bessie had been waiting for Josh all day
“Come on home Bessie, Josh, he done change his attitude, he like those white folks, he a real nigger now!”
“I aint no nigger to nigger,” said Josh, “if you needs a whippin’ to prove I is a better man than you, we can start it right here, and Bessie gits to see her brother beat up by a bigger nigger than he. So you watch your mouth, while you can.” Said Josh, and he meant what he said, and Malcolm knew he meant what he said, and Malcolm was ten years younger than Josh, and three inches shorter, and fifty pounds lighter than Josh, but Malcolm just stood staring at Josh silent, unsure of his next move.
All of a sudden Malcolm threw a punch at Josh, and Josh just grabbed his fist with his big hand, and with one quick twist, and jerk upward, Malcolm leaped a foot off his feet, and you could hear his wrist crack, and when Josh let go, Josh picked him up like a bundle of hay, and tossed him into the horse carrel.
“Your brother he is drummer than I thought,” said Josh as he walked away to his hut.
Josh’s Songs to Molly
Summer of 1863
A few weeks after that Hightower picnic, that is, the gathering down by the river, when Josh had come back to the plantation, and Bessie and her brother had a little confrontation, Josh had went back to his shanty, and made a song for Molly
They, Joshua and Molly are now sitting on the little porch, that porch Josh built in the 1850s, for days just like this, he’s be owing Molly all summer long, and finally she has come to his shanty again, to hear his song, and Jordon will play the banjo to liven the romantic mood up:
The Mocking Bird Song
By Joshua Jefferson
”Tonight she comes to the arms
And ole Joshua Jefferson, he happy
Like the cooing of the mocking bird
As the mocking bird sings…!Tonight she comes to my arms
Do you knows what that means?
I dont worry what the bird say
They like the eagle beak, trying
To listen to everything, so they
Can go gossip, tell what they see:
Wish I could take her today, my
Molly Washington Benton, down
To Louisiana, to New Orleans,
Hush those mean mocking birds
Clip their wings, send them home
To their mamma, one way!
“Oh, that is jes’ fine Joshua, not sure what it all means, except you think the mocking bird is nice, but he gits in your way, and that is not so good,” said Molly.
“Well,” said Josh, “I was trying to say, I likes you a lot, and here, take this glass of corn whisky, Granny Mae made it a few days ago.” And she did take it.
“When did you get your own hut, I mean, all the other slaves got to sleep with one another?” said Molly.
“Yaw, I suppose that the way it looks, bit it was back in 1823 I was a- longing for a place of my own. Mr. Hightower, sees that, and he say, ‘Joshua, I is going to separate you from the others, cuz you are my right hand man, I was but twenty-years old then, worked for Mr. Hightower for ten-years, he in his thirties I think, maybe more, I cant remember, and so he had a hut built for me and he gave me a gives me a steel cot, and in years I buy the bunk bed when Silas and Jordon was born, and I build on the back pantry, to put my coat and shoes in, but I don’t like shoes, Mr. Hightower buy me a pair, ten years ago, wore them twice, two funerals. Then I build this hear porch about five years ago, and the garden jes’ before the porch, and that is about it, oh—I puts in the window by the cot, in 1842, so I can see my garden and not have to out of the hut,” explained Josh.
“Fine,” said Molly, “but I reckon I best be getting on down to my little house by the creek before it gits too dark,” and before Josh could get up and try to kiss her, she was out the door waving goodbye to him, and Josh mumbling, ‘she faster than a rattlesnake.’”
Old Josh’s Ghost
Winter of 1864
Josh is sitting on his wooden porch, the one he attached onto his shanty several years ago, he’s talking to Mr. Charles Hightower, they seldom talk, but when they do it seems to always excite Josh, I suppose it is because in his own way, he has been given a little more respect, regard than the other slaves of Mr. Hightower’s, fellow slaves that once worked for Charles, there really are no more slaves on his plantation, just Granny Mae, and the Jefferson’s now, and the slave days are almost over.
Times are changing, Mr. Hightower is now seventy-five years old, and Josh is sixty-one, when they had met in New Orleans, Josh was ten, and Charles was twenty-four years old, a handsome aristocrat looking gentlemen, and he still was, but old, and his face no longer smooth, and Josh always remembered that; but he still had a mustache and a light beard.
Mr. Hightower’s buggy is sitting outside of the plantation fence on the dirt road, ready to be driven into town, to Ozark.
“Thought I’d stop by to see how you been Josh, are things ok with you and your family?” asked Mr. Hightower.
“I saw an ole ghost, he appeared to me the other day, Mr. Hightower,” said Josh, “the devil and his demons was in this dream also they his friends, he tell me they got different kinds of people in hell, and they got pastures, but I know they is full of fire,” says Josh, and Mr. Hightower smiles, he knows Josh likes to imagine things, and talk, and it is his way of entertaining himself.
“That there ghost was ole Henry, and I hears him say, ‘I is glad to see you Josh,’ but I aint glad to see him, Mr. Hightower, and he knows it, Henry Clayton, he used to live down yonder, by the ole fishin’ hole, by the creek, drinkin’ all the time, died of some kind of stomach thing, from drinkin’ and I tell him, Henry you stay dead, I don’t wants to see you…” chatted Josh.
Mr. Hightower didn’t really know what to say, he had just stopped to see Josh, as if he was his son almost. He saw then, Josh was getting a bit eccentric, like old Mary Lincoln, Father Abraham’s wife, up there in Washington, so folks talked about her, said she was a bit on the odd side.
“In the war of 1812, the war folks all forgot about, I was in it for a short time Josh, and I used to have dreams, perhaps delusions, I don’t rightly know, but I got these nightmares also, where I saw demons and other such things, too much stress on the mind and body does strange things, you raising two boys, and a wife that run off from you years ago, and your mamma who died on you, and that ship that brought you over here, is having its toll on you these years. Listen up, I am going to leave you this land, four acres of land and this hut and $3000-dollars when I die, you’ve been a good man all these years, I’ll leave it in my will, give you a copy of it, and maybe old Henry will disappear someday,” said Hightower.
And Old Man Hightower simply put his hand on Josh’s shoulder, said, “It’s been a busy half century together, hope we got a few more years together,” and walked away to his buggy. Josh just looking, wanted to finish his story, but was taken in by Mr. Hightower; he was the only one that could almost make him stutter and he was the only one Josh would stop and listen to.
Black Stranger in Town!(Spring of 1868)
In the Spring of 1868, Abram Boston, Josh’s brother in law came into town, Ozark, to find Josh, he heard he was still at the Hightower Plantation, and headed on out there (his sister being Josh’s ex-wife, Rebecca Boston Jefferson)
“Say Mrs., I’m looking for a Joshua Jefferson, I hear he works on this plantation?” said Abraham Boston, to Mrs. Aurea Hightower, who was working out in front of the plantation house on her garden, with her daughter Emma.
Emma looked at him, he was a black stranger, with a big smile from ear to ear, and she answered by saying, “I reckon he may be in his house, back yonder by the barn, and who you are?” she asked.
“I is his brother-in-law, and I came all the way from New Orleans to see him.” Abram said in a quiet voice.
Old Josh had seen the stranger and was hiding behind the cow corral and by some jimson weeds, he looked familiar but he couldn’t see all that well, it was a distance. The stranger stood looking, chewing tobacco, glancing toward the barn, as Mrs. Hightower pointed that way. The Abram saw Josh hiding behind the corral post, and started walking his way, said with a yell,
“Haw…Josh its Abram! Your brother in law!”
Josh continued to conceal himself, even though his brother in law saw him. Abram walked right up to Josh, looked him deadeye into his face, said, “Josh, why you hiding, don’t you remember me?”
Old Josh still remained quiet. Then Josh hollered at him, “Keep right on goin’ dont look back, I dont need your kind here!”
“Well, I reckon I cam-a long ways not for nothin’…” said Abraham still chewing his tobacco, while listening off and on to the mockingbirds singing on a nearby magnolia tree.
(There was dust in the air blowing about on this early spring morning, the scent of flowers filling the air and Josh wanted to lay down, didn’t really want his day disturbed; wanted to go fishing later, he was set in his ways, and here comes a stranger, yes a brother in law, but really a stranger, he hadn’t seen him for 25-years, now coming up the road on a sprinkled old horse, ties it to the fence, talks to his boss lady, and now is at the carrel for whatever reasons he didn’t know, and didn’t want to know, because it would cost, it always did. His second sense it was somebody from the past, back when he was married, who wanted to use that for some reason to get into his pocket,.)
“Looks like you are still a poor man, and its 1868, the war is over why you living like a slave?” asked Abraham.
“I’m goin’ on seventy-nine years old, Josh,” he said, as if his days were numbered—then spat into the weeds some of his over moistened tobacco he was chewing.
There was a shadow of gloom on Josh’s face, and a bitter sneer that he tried to hide.
Again out of instinct, or second sight, Josh invited Abram to his shack, for a drink of corn whisky, and as they sat on Josh’s porch (Abram noticing his two room shack, still chewing his tobacco, slowly, Josh noticed Mrs. Hightower had departed, went back into the house, after she saw everything was fine).
“My sister did you wrong Josh, com with me to New Orleans,” remarked Abram you can live in a big house with me and my kids, my sister she’s up north I hear, in a place called Minnesota.”
Then Silas come by, and Josh introduced their uncle to them, and Abram gave Silas a five dollar bill, saying he missed all his birthdays, so this was to make up for it.
Both Josh and Abram fell to sleep on the porch, drunk, and when they woke up in the morning, his spotted horse was in the carrel, and had been fed by Silas.
“Nah…! All right!” shouted Abram, in a rustic voice, as he stood up, flung his coat over his shoulder, spat out some tobacco onto the dirt a few feet from the front of the porch—put on his hat emerged onto the road in front of Hightower’s house, Josh had walked his horse up to the fence. At the same time, old Josh turned his head to see what his son was doing; he heard a noise in the hut, said to Abram,
“I hope Silas aint pick up your bad habit on chewing tobacco, cuz if he has, I goin’ to look for ya and throw all that tobacco away,” Abraham just laughed,”… just like you used to be,” he said, and mounted his horse and rode of.
And old Josh was happy as a bee with a bucket of honey, and ran back to the shanty to get his fishing pole.
Across the Moon
1869
Charles Hightower died in the fall of 1869, eighty-years old, leaving Joshua Jefferson $3000-dollars, and four acres of land, starting from where his shanty was; Dylan Hightower, his son now 24-years old, the same age Charles was when he met Joshua, was in charge, his daughter Emma 19-years old, his wife, Aurea, being forty-eight years old, they would continue to live in the Plantation House, but the days of heavy planting, and big crops were over.
Emily Hightower, Charles’ mother, born 1755, died 1790, died young, at the age of 35-years old, it was her dream to see the plantation strong and in its glory, Charles brought it to that stage, and he always felt proud, for his mother’s sake to have done it. His wife Aurea, was different, her pride was in her children more so than her husband and plantation, like Emily’s was; priorities for each person are often times different. Emily always said, God was first, then her and her husband, and then the kids, and then the plantation; she had it down to a system, Aurea, although a good wife, and excellent mother, never really had a system.
Emily died one night in bed, no one around to watch her, the doctor was downstairs having coffee with a few shots of moonshine them, and not really paying that much attention to his patients symptoms, evidently Emily couldn’t breath for ten to fifteen minutes, because that was the time period the doctor had life his patient alone, who was in a crises mood. When she died, died because of the doctors, carelessness, her Husband, Charles Jason Hightower, shot him I cold blood, shot him dead right at the table where he sat and drank his coffee mixed with whisky, shot him three times in a wild stupor.
The judge said, “We would have hung him anyways, for incompetence, you saved the court time and money Charles, go and have a good day, case dismissed, under the old law of, your weapon misfired, while in a fit of anger, fired accidentally, cuz I’m sure that your intentions were not to kill him, even though he deserved hilling.”
And the judge after Hightower left the court room, told the scribe not to write down the first part of the minutes of what he said, and to let him read it afterwards, in case he needed to fix a few sentences.
Josh still helped around the place, he had come to the conclusion he was going to die there, right on that plantation, it would have been too much a strain for him to have to try and start over in life. He was familiar with everybody and everything in that area, it was his home, and no longer angry at the ship that brought him to America, Mr. Hightower had made-up for that, I guess. He had a new light on the matter in 1869. Silas would remain on the plantation, and do most of the work, and watch over his father, while Jordon spent most of his time at the Grocery Story in Ozark, as a clerk, sleeping on a cot in the back of the room, and flirting with the negress’ as they came by to say their hellos.
Asked Aurea, “Josh, do you want to attend the funeral?”
“It wont be necessary,” he said sadly, and walked away, not to be impolite, but he was starting his grieving process I believe, Aurea heard him mumble as he walked away, “I can sees it from my shanty.”
The old Hightower cemetery was on a slope in the fields, with a fence around it. Someday, whoever bought the plantation would perhaps have to move it back farther, unless they wanted to leave that little patch of land, with several trees around it where it lay, and it was like an oasis, in the middle of the field, and nobody wanted to cut all those tall trees down, and try to even out the mound.
Joshua and Charles saw each other almost everyday for 56-years, more than his wife, children, and business partners, more than anyone alive; it would be hard on Joshua, but once buried, once Charles was six feet under, he, Joshua would do what Charles told him to do: not look back.
“Flowers, I’ll pick some flowers,” said Josh to himself, out loud, he now was 66-years old; still spry and youthful, his bones strong, his face showed time had passed, but not bad.
That night after supper, he walked into the fields, up that mound, and looked at the gravesite, the hole had already been dug he noticed, folks were coming from town all day to say their goodbyes at the house, where his coffin lay in an upstairs guest bedroom. He took in a deep breath, almost breathless before, stood in front of the hole, its edge, dropped his flowers into it, geraniums, blurry eyed, he said, “He be a coming Lord,” his reed-stemmed pipe in one hand, a bible in the other, looking down into the hole, “Yessum, he be a coming soon, tomorrow I expect Lord, his wife Aurea, she say so (Aurea was behind a tree crying, silently, she noticed Josh there, but did not say a word, and perhaps Josh knew she was there, but he did not say a word) but he dead, and we all some day goin’ be dead, so I be seein’ him soon I expect; he done took me out of hell in New Orleans Lord, and he tell me one day, ‘Josh, don’t you look back, its all up front now, nothin’ back there son,’ Yessum, he say son, and I try not to look back, but sometimes I cant help it, but he right Lord, aint nothin’ back there worth looking for or at.”
And Old Josh looked up, and sure enough, He saw Mr. Charles Hightower, or at least he’d swear to it, “There he is, he a riding his horse across the moon,” and he said it in a tinge louder than a whisper, and his wife, hiding behind a tree, watching everything, looked up, and she also would have sworn, at that very moment, her husband was on an old spotted horse one they had in the barn that died a few weeks before Charles had, there, crossing the moon Charles and the horse rode. Perhaps just as figment of their imaginations, but for that one moment in time, it was real, a real greeting, perhaps from beyond the living.
The Wild Horse
1872
“Git away!” yelled old Josh, kind of yelled, in a loud mumbled way, Mr. Hightower was coming near the corral as the horse pulled the old Negro around in circles like a rag doll, Josh being 69-years old, and thinking he can still do what he done when he was twenty-nine, or thirty-nine.
The horse snorted like a train in high gear but Josh hung onto his bridle, the harness, at the horse’s head, trying to restrain him.
“Let him be,” said Mr. Hightower, Dylan Hightower, the son of Charles Hightower (Charles had died three years prior),
“He’s too wild Josh, he’s goin’ to kill yaw, and my paw would kill me for letting you ride this beast!”
“No sire boss,” said Josh with a stubborn grin, “I is goin’ to show this horse who the boss in!”
Dylan looked at Silas and Jordon, “Can’t you do something, I mean he’s an old man, he’s going to kill himself,” said Dylan.
“Yessum, I understand Mr. Dylan, but me pa, he stubborn like a mule, maybe this horse will teach him a lesson, but I try my best…” said Silas, then yelled at Josh,
“You let that horse alone old man, he goin’ kill yaw!”
Old Josh just laughed.
“I reckon so,” he mumbled under his breath, as the horse kept glaring with his big dark eyes at Josh, and Josh doing the same thing back; a quick calculation of how long the old Negro would last was going through Dylan’s head, and it looked like t he horse knew something was up, that perhaps it was a kind gesture by the horse that the old man wasn’t giving him a lick of trouble that was worth much, so let’s have some fun with the old man, and the horse would calm down and then go wild again.
Then all of a sudden, the horse got tired of playing around with Old Josh, lifted his head (as Hightower repeated his warning to let the horse go), the horse now irritated, snorting, rose his head up higher, lifting the old man to his toes as he hung on, held on tight, holding the head of the horse like a snake, being lifted up and down like a yoyo, falling now and then against the fence, but not letting go (Hightower, now seeing enough of this, climbed over the fence, fearing the horse would run wild throughout the fields, after he killed Old Josh, should he open the gate, with Josh’s body being slammed against it).
Old Josh was mad, stubborn, like the horse, thought but Hightower knew the winner was not going to be Josh.
“I is goin’ to ride this beast, this wild horse,” said Josh in a challenging way.
The horse now eluded Josh’s two hands, and old Josh fell back, but dodged the hooves of the stomping horse, unbroken, and newly purchased by Mr. Hightower, and now Dylan Hightower was in the same corral Josh was in, and the horse saw this, and Josh didn’t get all the attention now, laying on the ground, the horse free of him.
The horse now was running in circles with a gleaming tongue as Josh tried to grab the rope, and did grab the rope, hung loosely onto it, from his unsuccessfully though, because the horse started to drag him, and he had to let go, and Hightower was trying to calm the horse down, hoping Josh would leave the corral willingly, and waving to Silas to come in and get his pa; but then Josh leaped, grabbing onto the rope, a second time, as the horse passed by him again; the horse now found his weight easy as pie to drag, and thus, dragged him in the mud around the cage like a rat. Then suddenly both man and beast stopped, both vacillating, the horse lowered its head, and before the horse lifted it again, Hightower grabbed Josh by the back of his belt, pulled him free of the horse, as the horse burst out and upwards on his two hind legs, now Silas was in the cage, and they both subdued Old Josh, and Dylan simply said, “You don’t have to prove it Josh, we all know you’re the toughest guy in town, just don’t do it again, I don’t want to have to bury you by my pa before your time.”
(Nearby, there were a few neighboring onlookers, a few youths walking down the dirt road out in front of the Hightower Plantation. They stopped to catch a glimpse, but dared not enter Hightower’s premises, lest Josh scorn them. The Pandemonium had stopped as Josh was now on the other side of the fence.)
The Hanging of Amos Jackson,
Of Stone Bridge
1883
Amos was born in Ozark, Alabama, lived in back of the cemetery, he often worked for Silas, Old Josh’s boy, in picking cotton for Mr. Hightower. Also worked for the Smiley family, there was a shantytown of sorts there, where huts, where the main building structures, and Amos’ hut was built right into the side of a hill, similar to a dugout house, but only half his house was considered a dugout. There were old dirt roads that lead into the shantytown, one in particular, had an old stone bridge on it, thus, that is how the town got its name, in 1863, “Stone Bridge,” the confederate military had built it, for a quick runaway incase the Union soldiers were chasing them: this way they could lose them in the chase.
Most of the shantytown was built out of sticks and stones, wood thrown away in Ozark, dragged all the way out to Stone Bridge by horse and cart, or donkey or cart, or mule or cart, and even some carried on the back of Negros that lived in the shantytown. It was the year of 1883; the summer heat was getting to everybody. Wild was Ozark, and its youth.
Most of the folks that lived in the shantytown threw their garbage over into the cemetery, and that was the hideous odor folks talked about, when they rode by the cemetery, sniffing it like dogs, and telling jokes in the saloons in Ozark about it coming from the huts of the Negros, consequently creating discontent among the masses.
Hence, it was on a hot evening, prior to dusk, several young white bucks from Ozark, came riding through the shantytown, of Stone Bridge, creating havoc.
You might say, Old Amos, was similar in ways, like Old Josh, but perhaps a less wiser person; but he had Josh’s temper if anything, and liked a good argument, no hair as they say, on the tongue—during such times. And as these young bucks trotted through the shantytown, whisky jugs in one hand, pistols tucked into their pants, behind their belts, against their stomachs, drunk they all started to make advances towards the black young women of the shantytown, and Amos saw one of the white boys leaning against a hut, with Ashley in his arms tightly around her shoulders and across her breasts
Saying: “I’m going to screw you right here and now.”
He, the young white lad, had a jug of moonshine in his left hand. Without any more a due, he walked up to the white boy—Amos (the white boy having his pants down, and trying to have intercourse from behind her) grabbed the jug of whiskey from him, splashed it all over his face, getting it into his eyes, as a result, he let go of Ashley, and she ran down the road, across Stone Bridge, and that was the last he saw of her for the night. But the boy was upset, and Amos, simply sat down on a huge rock, and laugh, drinking the white boy’s whiskey. Rape was common, even more so now than during the Civil war, which had been over for less than fifteen-years.
A few minutes must had passed, when Amos got up off that old rock and started to find his way out of the shantytown, it was vacant now, everyone had run across the bridge and were hiding.
There was a gun shot, its blast of energy passed old Amos’ ear, scared him so, he fell flat on his face, right there in the center of the dirt road, in the middle of the shantytown, and when he looked up, there were several white faces, facing him, it was now twilight. (The Bullet had left a tingle in his ear, so he couldn’t hear clearly what the boys were saying.)
That night, the boys tied Amos with a rope around his shoulders, and one around his neck, and one around his legs, it looked as if he was hogtied, and he was put on a wooden gallows; they had build sometime ago, therefore, he did not die fast at all, it was slow. And Josh, having went down to see him at his shanty dugout, it being the third day he was hung on that tree, down by Stone Bridge, still hogtied onto that tree, Josh not able to save him, or watch him die any longer, cut the rope around his shoulders, and as a result, his body fell a half foot, just enough to where the first rope around his neck strangled him to death had he lived, the white folks around would have hunted Josh and his boys down, and he knew that (his Tombstone read, born 1803, died, 1883). His son, Amos Lee Stonewall Jackson, born 1860, died 1911, was there to take his body down on the forth day).
Moonshine and the Devil
1886
Old Josh drank his share of moonshine, but was no drunkard according to him, and rightfully so, because he never really drank if he had work to do; he said he never craved it, he just liked it at night, said it helped him sleep, and right after that flintlock situation he wanted to prove it, matter of fact, he preached against it, believe it or not; one day, at the local church, he said in his sermon, that he gave after the preacher got tired, and wanted someone to talk about the evils of man, and Josh was always willing, and that day available, he said (and folks kind of thought he was a hypocrite for saying what he was going to say, but he also explained that):
“The devil he takes the fight out of the man, by feedin’ him with the moonshine. He done plays a trick on yaw all, he knows if you is, or if you is not the man to get drunk ever day. The devil, he even knows me, better than I knows me, says ‘I cant stand that Josh, cuz he dont drunk too much moonshine when he a-workin,’’ so you see the devil is not me boss, so I tells him: you is killin’ your time with me, cuz I can out drink you, and not drink tomorrow, he dont like that, he wants you boys and girls to drink all the long day, the moonshine; I is an ole timer, I can drink cuz I is used to it, but you is not, and the devil knows this, so he is waitn’ round the corner.”
It was a day, Silas and Jordon was proud of their old pa, and they showed it when they got home, they hid the moonshine, and Josh went crazy all night long, until he said the next day, “I is your pa, and yous got to tell me where the jug is, cuz the devil goin’ to find it, and gives it to those young ones at church, and he knows I can drink and not drink, its up to me.”
Well, Silas and Jordon felt sorry for their pa, and went to the back pantry, on a high shelf, where that there old flintlock was hiding, and pulled the jug out from behind it, and gave it to Josh, he was as happy as the rat in a hole with a ten-pound block of cheese.
Last Day in Ozark
1889-1890
A day in Ozark, it would be the last day Joshua Jefferson would ever spend sin Ozark, Alabama; it was in November 24, of 1889. He was all of 86-years old, and in the 76-years he lived near Ozark, he had only been in the city a half dozen times, and to him that was enough, but his previous times, the times before this time, which would be the last time, was some forty-years ago, take or give five this or that way.
Today, November 24, was his birthday, and he came down to see Jordon, who worked at the main grocery store, they were going to surprise him, and go have a light lunch someplace, all three of them: Silas, Josh’s older boy was with his pa.
He, Josh, looked about the city, and came to the conclusion it had all changed, since last he was in town. There were now beggars on the street corners with tin cups, a blind man was selling pencils, store windows had toys in some, in others underwear, clerks as young as he was when he first came to America in 1813, found in New Orleans like a stray cat by Charles Hightower—were taking orders from customers. There was also a park, where forty-years ago, there was none. A new courthouse, perhaps not new, new for Josh, new since the last time Joshua was in town anyway; the more he looked about, the more he wanted to escape, it was like being on that ship that brought him to America, he was becoming suffocated.
He had come to Ozark, for three reasons: one, to see his boy, Jordon and he along with Silas to have lunch with; two: to pick up some medicine from Dr. Sharp, for Mrs. Hightower, she was getting sick again, each fall and winter, since her husband died some ten-years ago, she got sick more often, and at longer lengths, that is, it took longer for her to recover; and third, to see how Ozark was doing, the town, the city itself, how it might have advanced, and now he was sorry he came for that reason in particular, and for that matter, the other two reasons Silas could had taken care of, because Jordon was nowhere anyhow to be found.
Josh paused at the Grocery Story, where his son worked, there the owner was, he had met him once, which was the time he had asked Josh if Jordon could live in the back room part time, as he worked during the evenings on inventory and so forth, and be security for the place at night, at times the owner had large stocks of supplies. Josh told him, it was ok, but should he find out he was using this time to do un-virtuous things, he’d grab his boy by the ear and take him back home.
“Hello Mr. Jeff Madison,” said Josh, “I is lookin’ for my boy Jordon, I cant find him in your store, yous know where he is?” said Josh.
“He left for his lunch, perhaps in the park; Silas, you take your paw on over yonder there (pointing at the park) and I bet you two-bits he’s there!” said Mr. Madison.
“Sur’nough Mr. Jeff, I do as you say, and see if he be there,” said Silas, and grabbed Josh’s hand to walk away; but he wasn’t there to be found.
There was a chill in the November air, and Josh pulled up the back of his jacket, a new one Silas and Jordon put money in on, for Josh, he pulled up the back of the jacket so the cold air wouldn’t hit his neck, said, “I hate to be like them, they is like bees looking for their honeycomb, all done lost their way home I swear,” said Josh feeling the impact of the people around him, staring at him, even though Silas would have told him, had he asked, they are just passersby, like the birds in the air going from one tree to the next, it was all cultural shock, he would not believe they were not abruptly paying attention to him, it was all a new scene, and to diminish it, he needed to get out of town, and that is what Josh demanded, and left with no more of a search for Jordon, other than a quick look in the park.
When Josh got back home, back to the plantation, Dylan Hightower, Charles’ son, took the medication up to his mother, unknowingly at the time, she’d be dead in 42-days, January 4th, 1890, she, Aurea Hightower, would die in bed—weakened by the weather, the stress of life, she was always a tinge fragile anyhow, and life in general was hard on her but she was 69-years old, and that was not bad for the times.
The Brown Toad Race
(Summer of 1898)
“Thats right,” said old Josh, “it aint no fun unless you bet!” “Got me a toad already, Yessum I do, fifteen-dollars I paid for this here toad, he goin’ be the winner tomorrow at de toad race…!” said Silas. “That there toad aint worth fifteen-cent son” said Josh, “what if your brown toad git lazy on us…!”
“How so?” asked Silas.
“Give me some of that there corn whisky” said Silas to Josh, “cuz I dont git too excited when I win that there $100-dollars, with this here toad of mine, and youall goin’ wish you invested in my toad, you and Jordon, he like a firewood pa,” said Silas annoyed with is father, both sitting in the shanty looking at the toad in a wooden box on the table, Jordon sitting on the porch playing away on his banjo.
“I can make him jump all the way from go to end, paw, jes’ you wait and see, tomorrow, at the races, you goin’ say: my boy Silas, he got one of those quick jumpin’ toads for sure!” said Silas to Josh.
“Naw, I dont believe this here toad got all that motivation in him son, he look like he want to eat and sleep his life away, lazy as alligator, who eat all day long,” said Josh.
Josh couldn’t think of what he wanted to say, hesitated for a moment, so there was a long pause, then abruptly was going to continue, when Jordon had come in to make fun, or fun at the cost of Silas’ toad, Josh was about to said something, but instead Jordon said: “That there toad puts me in mind of an old pigeon I used to have, I never will forget either,” Josh and Silas turned to look at Jordon, who seldom was around to give his opinion on any such matters, “So say what you is goin’ to day brother, so me and paw can argue some more on this here toad (the year being 1898, and Josh being, 95-years old).
“Well, that there pigeon of mine, I bought from a man who came up to Ozark, from New Orleans, I gives him a buck, one dollar, no more, he say yous got a king pigeon, and there aint no pigeon better than he, like the man tell you when you done gave him all you wages for six months, and give you that there lazy toad, look at him he sleep all right, anyhow, that pigeon of mine, flew back to his boss, and I ran after him, and when I find the pigeon, I find he done called the pigeon back, and he was cooking him in soup so I cant find him, so I say: Mister, you go this way, and I go that way, and maybe we find my pigeon, and he say ok, and the pigeon he is in the soup, and when the man goes that way, I grab the soup, and run to the grocery store, and eat it all in the back room.”
Said Silas with a grin, “So what you expect me to do, eat the toad in toad soup?” and Josh and Silas laugh. And then Jordon starts to laugh, and the toad jumps out of the box while they are laughing, and Silas notices and runs after the toad, and he gets under the porch.
Says Silas, to Jordon, “You done talked so much, the toad got smart and hightailed out, you should pay me for keep us busy why the toad figured out his plan.”
Said Old Josh, laughing, “He goin’ meet us at the fair tomorrow, at the race place (Ha, ha, ha).”
Autumn Quiet
(The Death of Joshua Jefferson of Ozark, Alabama)
1907
“You is getting’ old pa,” said Silas, “me and Jordon we can take more work, you is over a hundred…!”
“I done kept up this place 90-years alone; I can still do it, I sees you kids still cant keep up with your ole pa!”
Josh had to refocus, his eyes bleared, he spit out some tobacco, “Youall git to my age, God knows you aint goin’ to be able to work a days work, us old timers we got the stuff, wes born with it, like on that ship that brought me to this here country, it killed so many of the folk I lost count after I used my fingers and toes, yet I survived.”
Josh continued to scold Silas and Jordon for making him think he couldn’t do any work, where in essence they simply were trying to tell him, if he continued to think he was young as he used to be, it might be his death, but who knows, on the other hand, he never thought he could die, and here he was at a hundred-and-four years old.
“Oh,” said Silas, “now aint you the big shot and we aint kids paw, we is in our 80s.”
Josh looked hard into his eyes, into the eyes of Silas, “I guess you is right son, you look older than me, maybe you is my pa!” and they both started laughing. Sometime when you thought Josh was ready to eat you up, it was when he came down to earth, and was funny and practical.
Everything was still when Silas and Jordon returned back from the fields, a stillness discernible, they had been mending fences, still spry and still limber and still with vitality, both these aging old men, were more like Josh, than they thought, they never considered themselves old, until today, until Silas actually said to Josh, “…we is in our 80s.” it made him think.
As they dismounted the wagon, un-harnessed the horses, they sensed a motionless, windless atmosphere, not one animal sound, no: birds, cats, dogs, or chickens making any sounds whatsoever, Silas and Jordon kind of was spooked, looked about.
A dark long shadow moved across their path, the world they once knew, was coming to an end, change was about to take place, Josh’s voice was nowhere to be found. Then Silas recognized the figure on the wooden floor of the shanty, the door was opened, it was his pa.
He, Silas accepted his death, with awkwardness and stubbornness, not to believing he was really dead, but dead non the less because folks said so, and there was a funeral that proved it, and Jordon who was more practical on the matter, believed it to be so.
He buried his face in his hands at the funeral, his thighs weakened; he almost fell on top of the coffin, as it was lowered into the ground. It was October 7, 1907, he, Old Josh, liked fall, he liked the autumn leaves, the colors in them, and when they were gathered into a bundle, and burnt, he liked the smell, so it was a good time for him to die, and Silas he wrote a poem for Josh:
At The funeralI hear the harps of God,I Hear the voice of JesusRinging, ringing, ringingSinging, singing, singingCome, brother JoshuaCome see you’ mother
Angels’ with hands held outAnd pa he sees the throne,And the children playing the harp Ole pa he was a talkin’ manAlways worried ‘bout us boysOle pa he was a drinkin’ man
But he paid no one no harm
He love to fight Lord, I knowsBut he a quite man anyhowHe fuss ‘bout nothin’ all day longHe like a donkey, but sly as a fox
Yessum, ole pa was a talkin’ man
Who like to go to the creek afishin’
Chase Molly Benton around…
But he meant her no harm anyhow
So I hope you done hear me Lord
Cuz pa Joshua, he be knocking
Oh yes, knocking at your door Here me Lord! Hear me! Amen!Note: Read by Silas Jefferson, October 7, 1907
At his Father’s funeral
Centipedes in the Shanty
(1908)
Old Josh used to watch the centipedes with all their legs speed across the wooden floors of his shanty; he was amazed at all those legs working in unison. He wasn’t sure exactly how they moved, but they looked as if they moved without thinking, and they’d speed across one side of the hut, to the other, spot him, (like they do now Silas), they’d spot Josh, and try to hide here or there, before being stomped on with his big flat bare feet.
Silas, Josh’s oldest son now is doing just that, just like his pa used to do—his pa being dead now going on a year—; those centipedes, in particular, this one, the one that is bothering Jordon (for Silas simply plays with them, and stomps on them like his pa used to do, when he gets tired of playing) Jordon doesn’t care for them, he’s kind of afraid of such creatures, and avoids them like the plague, along with spiders and other creepy crawlers.
Says Jordon to Silas: “They sho have a strange looking body, jes’ keeps that thing away from me brother!”
Silas is playing around with the creature, knowing Jordon don’t like them, says “They move with a greet speed, to bad you aint like them!” (And Silas laughs and Jordon keeps his distance, and an eye on the centipede and Silas.)
Now Silas is following the creature with his eyes, Jordon is sitting on the cot, watching the creatures legs as it runs rapidly to and fro, looking for an escape hole, Silas at the kitchen table, now the centipede starts to zigzag, and Jordon jumps up on his cot (Silas laughs). Then Silas gets a cramp in his leg and falls flat on top of the centipede—with is face under it, and I think Jordon stops breathing for a moment, in disbelief, trying to figure out how he is going to get off the cot and out of the shack, he needs to see where the centipede is before he makes his move— looks at the front door, and if the pathway from his cot to the door is clear, he is not that concerned about Silas at all, nor willing to go see how he is.
Silas gets up, looks at Jordon, his mouth tightly closed, sealed by his tight lips against each other, Jordon asks, “What is you up to standing on like that looking at me?”
What Jordon doesn’t know, is that the centipede is in his brother’s mouth, Silas is a bit fogy looking at the floor and Jordon, trying to get his balance, Jordon is standing up on his cot, also trying to keep his balance, there are bricks under his cot so he is not fearful it will rip and he will fall through it like into hole under it, there is no hole under it, just bricks and more bricks. Silas walks over to Jordon, a bit dizzy, stands a foot from him now. He opens his mouth, and spits out the centipede onto Jordon, and he, Jordon, like a wild cat, jumps out the window, break the glass, and frame and all, undresses himself once on solid ground, and runs back into the shanty naked.
Jordon is not happy by all means—he’s got a look on him that could kill, but Silas of course is too big and broad and strong for Jordon to test his brother’s willingness to be pushed around, thus, he takes a plan B, and he grabs a bottle of moonshine, drinks half the bottle down, and passes out on the cot, and Old Silas (for now he is getting old like his pa got old, he’s 81-years old now, and his brother is 78-years old, both still playing like they are kids; Silas finishes off the bottle, and laughs his way to the buck beds, sleep on top, where he usually slept when his pa was alive.
Silas will die in 1909, a year from this centipede episode, and Jordon will be left alone, he will die in 1913. Silas, will have left a boy he named Josh, and thus, the name will carried on, for awhile anyways, Jordon, will not leave a link to the future.
Gabe and Sweet Chile
—1846 (1909)
Advance, well, the truth of the matter is, Josh had a wife, believe it or not. And her name was Marinutita Boston Jefferson Georgia, in short, she was called Sweet Chile. Her and her boyfriend, Gabe Georgia, visited Josh once and to Silas and Jordan’s surprise, they met their mother. She saw at first her two boys from a distance, then came closer to get a better look, but she wasn’t really there to see the boys, she wanted money from Josh, she was on her way down to New Orleans, and during that visit, Amos had been picking cotton over at the neighbors plantation, and stopped to see Josh, and got an eye full of Sweet Chile (and that was that), and she even winked at him, so he says.
Josh had married her in 1825, and she run off with Gabe, in 1831, and the boys had never seen their mother since. Silas was six-years old, and Jordon, six months old when she left.
Sweet Chile has a different story of course on everything, and Gabe, he is mad as a disturbed hornets nest, that Amos, who works on the Smiley plantation, is checking out Sweet Chile. Josh, he don’t care one way or the other, to be honest, he just wants her gone, and the sooner the better.
Mr. Charles Hightower, the owner of the plantation, has gone to New Orleans also, he often does, and only God knows what he does down there, but Josh kind of knows, he’s been down there before with him. In any case, he is due back tomorrow, and he’d not take a liking to seeing Sweet Chile around, she can make a scene. So here we are, all in the back by the corral, where old Nelly the cow is, the boy’s are staring at their with wide open white eyes—like eggs, and their mouths open like hungry lions, and Gabe pushing Amos away from Sweet Chile, and Josh saying he hasn’t any money to go on back to where she came from (Silas is nineteen years old, about, and Jordon a few years younger).
The Get-together
Silas is rather sick, and he is in his shack, thinking about the time he met his mother, it was back in 1846, he only saw her once, and her boyfriend, who call her his wife, but it was really not by law, but common law, he proclaimed her to me so, it is 1909, and he will die in a matter of weeks, he’s been ill a while now, and Jordon is caring for him, it would seem along with old age, his heart is weakening, he is of course, up in years, he is 82-years old, and here is what he remembers as he lays on his bunk bed, on the bottom of his bunk bed, he has changed from the top, to the bottom, because he no longer can jump up and onto it:
“Sweet Chile, I done thought you flew the cope, that you’d be down in New Orleans doin’ what you do best, and we all knows what that is?” said Josh, with a sour tone to his voice.
“Is you callen’ me a whore?” said Sweet Chile.
“No, cuz my boys is here, but if they be not, I’d be so doin’ jes’ that”
“No need to cause trouble over spelt milk, Josh, I is the better man, cuz I got Sweet Chile!” said Gabe, with a proud and provocative tone.
“I done married a mule, you is too good for her, but you is a fool to say, I is dumb, cuz yous got to be dumber than I, cuz you is still with her, she done flew the cope long ago, I is the lucky one, you…hummm—still the dumb one and dont rightly know it,” said josh.
“That there friend of yours, Amos, he best keep his eyes on the sun or the ground, cuz I is aiming to pluck them out from those big sockets in his head, for lookin’ like his is lookin’ at my wife!” remarked Gabe.
“I is ready ole man, cuz I pick cotton, I gits a good right arm, and aiming to punch you in that there big snoot of yours, and Sweet Chile, she gits a good man like me, and gits rid of you once an for all!” said Amos, with a serious look, Josh not believing Amos would really be interested in her.
“Youall dont know what you is saying, she is like that moccasin snake, she kill yaw with one bit,” said Josh.
(Sweet Chile is just looking and laughing, at these men fighting over her, and giving Josh a smirking smile back, kind of saying, ‘Look, I still got what it takes,’ and Josh nodding his head, the boys looking at Josh and their mother, and wanting to have a conversation with her, and Sweet Chile wanting to ask for money from Josh, because she hinted she was broke, and wanted to head on down to New Orleans, she was coming down from North Carolina, and nothing is happening that should be happening, because Gabe is mad at Amos.
Now Charles Hightower came back early, saw all this commotion going on down by Josh’s shanty, and he recognized Sweet Chile, and she knew Mr. Hightower of course, and was a bit afraid he might call the sheriff, and have them tar and fathered, if she caused Josh too much trouble, so she told Gabe to shut up. She looked at her boys, said, “They gittin’ big, I suppose they goin’ to be like you, and god forbid,” and she grabbed Gabe’s hand and pulled him along, towards the corral fence, and out to the dirt road, saying “I told yaw Gabe, he aint got no money, and my kids aint got no time for me, so wes jes’ go on our own way like we been doing,” and they left as mysteriously as they came.)
And this is what Silas remembered, as he lay in his bunk, shaking his head haply, and almost laughing, saying to himself, “Maybe it was better we had never seen her, pa was good enough for us,” but sometimes it is nice to fill that gap of curiosity, if only to find out, God saved us from a worse upbringing.”
The Marsh Angel
(1853)(July 10, 1909)
Advance (Genealogy): Josh Jefferson, as we know, was born 1803, died in 1907, at the age of 104, and yet his birth date could be older he was brought from Africa, and found by Charles Hightower, also he could be younger by a few years, but his birth certificate which Charles had made says 1803, and his death certificate reads 1907. His Silas Jefferson, was born 1827, died 1909, and left a son, by Louise Montgomery, she was born 1837, her date of death unknown, she was known in the Ozark, Alabama area although, as the Marsh Angel, and may have died in that old shantytown outside of Ozark, where Amos was hung. Silas Jefferson, dated her for a short period of time, and she, Louise, had a child by him, one he never talked about much, never seen, if only at a distance, named Josh Washington Jefferson Montgomery, born 1853, and died in 1927, to my understanding in New York City. Josh W.J. Montgomery had a son Josh Jefferson Montgomery Jr. born 1890 and died at the ripe old age of 82-years old, in 1972; and that was when, to my understanding anyhow, the legacy of Old Josh Jefferson, the first, ended, or died out. But who knows, there could be a descendent here or there.
Josh Washington Jefferson Montgomery is at a funeral, it is July, 10, 1909, Ozark, Alabama: it is being held at the little cemetery in the back of Silas’ old shanty, the one his father lived in, and he and Jordon, his brother lived in. I repeat, Josh W.J. Montgomery is present, it is his father’s funeral, and Jordon Jefferson is present, and he can see the similarity in Silas son. Silas never had spoken to his son, not actually spoken, once in an Ozark bar, when Josh W.J. Montgomery was working, washing dishes, Silas came in for a drink, and a few of his friends pointed out Silas’ son to him, and someone even said, “Your paw is over there, go say hello!” But the boy was but fifteen at the time, didn’t know what he looked like, and wasn’t sure if they were kidding, and although he looked about, he didn’t recognize anyone, but who would he, he never say him to his knowledge, and so that was left alone. But today he is seeking closure on this long saga for him, he will talk to Jordon, and get the full story behind his prior existence, the one that brought him into this world, and I shall tell it to you, as Jordon had explained it to Josh W.J. Montgomery (Jordon has agreed to tell him the truth and nothing but the truth, if only he can stand it, and if he can’t then he shouldn’t be asking for it because he is going to get, perhaps more than he bargained for):
“Silas, was 26-years old, Louise Montgomery, was a thin tense light skinned black sixteen-year old girl born and bred in Ozark, Alabama, down by the bluffs, in a shanty hut, by Goose Creek Wells, a location that has but several huts along the creek, she had sex appeal at a very young age, at thirteen, quite developed, and she is getting a name for being a prowler or stalker or even could call her an intruder into the affairs of other folk’s marriages: she is of mixed blood, black with white; she likes white folks who have money, older black folks who have influence and young black folks who can show her a good old time and remain fancy free. She perhaps is ahead of her times; the Civil War is mounting, but not present yet.
“She walked the dark streets of Ozark at her young age, and left Mamma at home, at 13-years old, she had her first affair. Old Josh called her: The Marsh Angel, because she was pretty, and the opposite of an Angel, rather a dark-angel, which he couldn’t say because it was a pun on words, he really meant she was what she was, a soiled young tramp, plus, Silas would have gotten mad, had he not averted the name in his heart out loud.
“Josh knew she needed looking after, that she had surrendered to a number of men, and to his boy, Silas, also.
“When she first met Silas, she sat bolt upright, looking at him, as if he was to be her instructor. Silas had a blind spot, he didn’t know, or see her reputation—too close to the forest to see the trees I suppose, it was not good nor evil, but perhaps somewhere in-between, good being unconditional, evil being conditional, she had a quality though, beyond sex appeal, not sure what you would call it, perhaps passionate beauty, mixed with tense expectations, with some kind of edgy secret in her countenance, a glow beyond normal in her fresh composure, depending on who you are, were, and what she wanted.
Goose Creek Well
“Silas felt his father knew about him and Louise, and Josh knew that Silas felt he knew he knew of their relationship, yet still uncertain he was, because it wasn’t mentioned, not out right anyhow, perhaps by mannerisms, and facial expressions, but to no end it remained a quiet known secret, and that was that, the eyes perhaps told an element of truth, that he was involved beyond the petty stage. But that was as far as it went. They met for the whole summer at Goose Creek Well, but when a stranger, a Blackman came to town, a tall handsome Blackman, said he was from New York City, a free Blackman at that (free, not because the Yankees won the war, there was no war yet, it was brewing thought) but free because he was free long before the Yankees stepped foot in Alabama; in any case, a romance started up, and Silas was overlooked; his name was Alvin G. Thomas.
“Josh had watched Louise grow up and the New Yorker, whom looked more white, than black, had told Louise he had went to Yale, perhaps to impress her, for who could prove otherwise, Josh often saw them together, standing and touching and all that kind of stuff on the local corner, he was in his mid-thirties, so to Louise, he had youth, vitality, and it looked like money, he didn’t need the white folks money, and therefore, she didn’t need white folks either.
“Throughout the summer of 1852, Silas and Louise had their fling you might say, she portrayed a woman twice her age; week after week, and into the months, they were seen together, into the first weeks of fall actually of 1852,
“She wants to marry me,” Silas told his pa; but Josh just laughed, putting in the groceries onto the wagon’s wooden floor, he was doing some shopping for Mr. Hightower at the time. Silas got a bit disturbed. Josh knew Louise would not make anyone a good wife, or so he thought, and didn’t speak his thoughts out loud, perhaps because Silas would take offense, and he’d not have anyone to look after him, in old age; but this of course is just a guess, but a pretty good one.
“Hightower once said to Josh—and he never forgot it, remembered it when he needed to, ‘I’ve come to believe Josh, it isn’t all that important what you do, as long as we here in our home (mansion) are comfortable in bed,’ that is what he said, and what Josh remembered, Josh of course, never ceased to take advantage of that, took it to the edge of reality you could say at times, and did only what was necessary. So he was thinking for a while, he may have to raise another kid, because he knew, Silas had gotten pregnant, but it turned out this stranger, this Alvin G. Thomas, stole her heart, and when the child was born, she was in New York City. As far as Silas knew this slick New Yorker took care of the child and it was said, and now one knew for sure, Louise had died around 1867, they say of childbirth; perhaps Thomas’ child.
“Other rumors were, and they came from a man named Gabe, is that he saw her in New York City once, and she told him she was raped, that was in 1866. After that, no one knows for certain.”
Said Josh W.J. Montgomery, “I suppose we all got to live our lives out as we see fit, and if we have expectations of others, we is just goin’ to be let down, so thanks, Uncle Jordon, cuz you is my uncle you know, and a good honest uncle, I cant ask for more than that.” And he left the way he came, quiet, but a little more content. He told Jordon he was heading up to North Carolina, he had some business up there, whatever that was, he didn’t say, and Jordon didn’t ask.
About the Book: The stories of Old Josh, have been read worldwide, in particular on the internet, by over 60-websites, and translated into several languages, and read by thousands of readers in the past four years. The first six stories of Old Josh were written in 2005, and the following twenty stories thereafter in 2006. In 2007, a dozen or more were written, and a few in 2008, with a total of 47, plus two more written for the new book, making the number 48-stories in four’ years, about 24-are involved here in “Old Josh…”. They were all combined, in July of 2008, to form a book, linked together expanding over two-hundred years. Old Josh was not meant to be a book per se, but has now ended up being just that, and now being added into the collection of two other books of stories making the book a saga: “Cradled by the Devil,” and the short collection of linking stories called, “Mayhem, in the Countryside.” Once put all together, it has formed created a legacy, a work scarcely done by authors, or attempted.
The stories take you from Africa, on a slave ship, to New Orleans, and onto Ozark, Alabama, on the Hightower Plantation, where Josh will spend his life. In the linking books, or stories, the saga continues, by taking the reader to and through WWI, and the Abernathy, Stanley, and Wallace plantations in North Carolina, and on to the Vietnam War, all the way to the turn of the 21st Century.
