Old Josh’s Ode to Bessie

Part I, 1849


[Josh has taken a liking for Bessie, she works with her brother on the neighboring plantation; helps Josh with his two boys, and now Josh has created a song for her, he is wooing her, it would seem. She has come over to his shanty in the back of the Hightower house, by the carrel. They are now sitting on the little porch, in two rockers, and he is singing this song to her; Josh is not know to have ever been too romantic, in the past, or future, nor in the present, but he is here a little more balanced than in most previous episodes.]


Josh’s Ode to Bessie

By Joshua Jefferson

Tonight she come to dhe arms of Josh
I can hear dhe cooing of dhe bird’
dont youall hears whut dhe birds say?
I can hear dhe cooing of dhe bird’
miles an’ miles ‘way…

he stay: Josh he on his way!
Aint you hear whut dhe bird’ say?
Oh, stay, stay dhe birds say,
hush dhe mout’, de birds say
Josh is on his way,

Bessie, Bessie ain’t you here
she a-likeen-to dha sound of dhe bird
ef-in she don’t hurry on up…
dhe bird say, its goin’ to be
way too late, fer Bessie an’ me!

5-2006 (No: 1965)



Old Josh, in: Sweet Bessie
Part II, 1849


Said Josh to his son Silas, sitting one evening on his front porch of his shanty, in back of the Hightower barn, “Bessie in a bad fix!”
“Why you say that pa?” asked Silas.
“She and her ex-husband Hank, be back in the woods fishin’ down by Goose Creek, and they be comin’ out through the ole road in the night, I sees with me own eyes, Sweet Bessie layin’ cross the grass an’ she say:
‘Look here now, Hank, whut is hit youall wants?’ and Hank is this kind of nigger, and he say ‘Youall aint nothin’ to-me,’ and he had haul- off and slaped her in the face—I sees her face, and there she be, on the grass: I got a thinkin’ he dont like her seein’ me!”
“Then whut happened pa?” asked Silas.
“Well, Hank, he gits scared when he sees me, wants to run but he don’t…he have a knife in his hand, and Sweet Bessie she callin’ to the Lord to save her and me. She done tells the Lord, help Josh bite Hank to death, she say, ‘Ef-in he lose his mind Lord, you got to take him, and puts him down yonder…!’ She mad as a Billy-goat.
“Sho’ —enough pa, she luck as the day is long, I reckon,” commented Silas, listening like an owl for the conclusion, a corn-pipe in his mouth, just chewing on its end, no tobacco in it, and a jug of moonshine by his feet, ready to pop the cork, but too intrigued to do so in fear he might miss something his pa will say.
“Well, Silas,” said Josh with a deep inhaling, “I done save her I reckon, and I am his omen to him now!”
“Why youall say that pa?” asked Silas.
“I done thought I knows women, but I finds out I aint known nothin’ ‘bout them, they is like sunshine and rain, every hour of the day, you got to keep your step and eye on them, and you gots to watch you’ own step, cuz you inners dont tell you mind to stop, and youall ready to die fer a hug and kiss, and you know, the birds and the bees want a piece of the pie.”

(Josh never did answer Silas original question, because he didn’t want to tell Silas, he beat Hank up, and Bessie felt sorry for Hank, and she told Josh to go, and cared for Hank. And I think Josh felt a little foolish after that.)




Old Josh’s Conversation with
and Lula the Cook
Part III, 1849


Old Josh and Lula the Cook, on the Hightower Plantation, in Ozark, Alabama, are talking about the relationship between Bessie and himself: Josh telling her, that it doesn’t seem to be working out, and Lula implies Josh needs to getting a good woman, he’s no spring chicken, matter of fact she says he is in his late forties, close to fifty (Lula, the black cook, assistant to Granny Mae, comes and helps out now and then, when Mrs. Ella A. T. Hightower requests it, often referred to by Aurea )…

“I hears the argument Josh,” says Lula, “You and Ms Bessie fight-in all the time, an ole man like you, whuts got in to you both, shes a young one, half your age?”
“I aint no ole man yet, Lula,” said Josh trying to think of an answer why he and Lula fight all the time.
“You think you owns Bessie, and her family comes to take her home, cuz you and Bessie do all that sugar-eyeing and kissin’ and who knows whut, then fight-in like you are two devils, and her family wants her fresh for a rich man I suppse,” commented Lula, shaking her head to the right and left, not up and down, and letting out a sigh.
“Supposen we do…all that whut you say, why her family git in our way, come her and takes her home, that aint their business, she old enough to say ‘leaves me be,’ but she dont.” said Josh, head up in the sky as if picturing past events.
“Well Josh,” said Lula, with a smirk, “youall got the advantage with that there tongue of yours, it aint got any shame, and Bessie, gits a no-good ex-husband, and a noisy family, but I cant blame her, cuz that there is all she gits to have besides you, and a few young men down there at that Ozark bar, you aint no price for no woman either Josh, so don’t go thinking you is.” Said Lula, adding “I like ya Josh, but likin’ someone and livin’ with the person you like, and is like you, is—well, I hates to say it, a nightmare. Its like jumping out of the chicken coup, into the frying pan, I jes’ as well stay in the coup and wait for the slaughter to come, cuz I know it’s a-comin’. So you see Josh, she aint git no better with our without ya…”
“Well, I reckon that is the way some folks think, I waz kind of wild, stubborn in my younger day Lula, had some bad ways, had to raise two boys, but I aint all that bad anymore.” Said Josh, adding, “I hears Bessie’s Hank, hes-a making bad remarks ‘bout me being ole man, like youall say. He lives in New Orleans, and comes here and goes to the bar in Ozark, and has all them gals, and finds Bessie, I think Bessie and me, we loves each other.”
“You is foolish Old Josh, she loves fire, and you is fire when there is no fire around, and when there is, you is jes’ a candle in a window. She likes the fire in Hank, she jes’ love fire, you is no more than an old horse in a barn to her,” said Lula.
“How come you say that?” asked Josh, with a hurt look.
“I aint see why you fret ‘bout her, I suppose you have changed, but she aint, and ef-in you chase her, you aint never goin’ to keep up with her, her mama wants money for her, thats why she comes to fetch her,” said Lula.
“Well,” said Josh, a little disappointed, “You is right I suppose, but my heart say I loves her…!”
“No,” said Lula, “I knows men, and that aint the heart talkin’ cuz after you and her makes love, youall fight like the dickens for hours, that aint love, that there is wantin’ to change someone, or control someone, who dont want what you want, but maybe jes’t that fire, that there is all you both want, and afraid you cant have sittin’ on your door steps when you wants it.”
Josh didn’t argue about it, he just up and left out the screen door in the back of the kitchen: I don’t think he ever saw Bessie again, I think she left or New Orleans, shortly after that meeting between Josh and Lula, looking for more fire.


The Year set for these four sketches was 1849; all four sketches were made linking to one story in particular, sketch one was called, “I Aint No Nigger!” ((5-19-2006) (Episode No: 9)) this sketch was separated from the other four, and the year was changed to 1863 for the happening, and it was with Bessie Ann, not the original Bessie in Old Josh’s Song to Bessie. Thus, the other three sketches were left alone as they fit more properly together. The first sketch “I Aint no Nigger,” was not changed in content, just separated.
Old Josh’s Song to Bessie, sketch two (episode No: 10) written (5-19-2006), actually five days after; and sketch three, Sweet Bessie (Episode, 11, written, 5-26-2006): and sketch four: Old Josh and Lula the Cook (Episode 12, 5-2006). All sketches or episodes are linked to ‘Old Josh’s Ode to Bessie’ renamed,’ November, 2008.

Old Josh, in: Sugar-eyeing

((1870s) (Episode: 69))


Sweet Molasses

Silas did have a young lover (a few of them), sweethearts; one of them, her name was Sweet Molasses (Jefferson, if you want to add that onto the name, although they were never married to Josh understands). She was born in Ozark, in the shanty town near by it anyhow, and had a child named Minerva, born 1873. But let me backtrack.

The child was born but didn’t seem to cry enough, as it would have appeared it should have, after birth, and within the following two weeks of the birth.
Sweet-molasses was where she waned to be, it must had been because she could have left, it was no longer the slavery days, she was free to do as she pleased, but she stuck around for some reason.
At birth of the child, it cried once, and she waited or it to cry a second time, but it didn’t. Silas become melancholy, he knew it was his, but Sweet-molasses didn’t announce who the father was, for personal reasons.
Sweet-molasses was no child, not in 1873 anyhow, born 1856, she was seventeen-years old, and she was in love with Silas, whom of course was much older than she. The child was named Minerva.
You might say, Sweet-molasses was a girl of her times, she wanted the child, and the father, Silas, but she didn’t want to live in the south, she wanted to North, her aunt was living in some cold city up in Minnesota, and she was invited to join her.
She begged and cried and shouted for Silas to leave the plantation and go North with her, and Josh heard about it, didn’t take it too lightly. Said Josh to Sweet-molasses one evening, “Enough of those tears, youall want money from boy, take him away up North, an’ he aint got any to give yaw, so take your bastard girl and leave us alone!”
“Much obliged,” she told Old Josh back, and so ended any future conversations between those two.

She then went back to help with the wash at Mr. Henry J. Birmingham’s small farm across the road, he being in his mid-seventies and his maid, as she was referred to, Mahogany, now in her early eighties, and Sweet-molasses asked for her advise.
“Cant find my handkerchief,” she said to Sweet-molasses, she was still crying, and not sure if that was a pun or sincerity that came form Mahogany, but she added to her dialogue, “Maybe you ought to wash those tears off your face, you got a child to raise, no sense in waitin’ for a Silas, youall be waitin’ tell the boy is grown and gone on his own, you gots to figure out a plan, and work it child; Silas he was just sugar-eyeing you for sport, men like to do that, you got to give them an ultimatum, one of those things that say, you will or you wount, and if-in you wount, I is goin’ north, and youall will never see that child again.”
“Ok,” she said, in a rut of dismay, “I be goin’ to tell him this one way or the other, and I goin’ to tell Old Josh to shut up and it none of his business, if´-in he comes to bother me again I mean to be takin’ that train north.”


(A week later, in the afternoon Silas meets Sweet-molasses down at Goose Creek; the child is now two-weeks old.)

“Maybe I could write yaw,” said Silas, “if-in you is set on movin’ up north?”
Silas knew what the conversation was going to be, and said what he wanted to say right away, before Sweet-molasses could even present her case.
“It then sounds like you be still in Ozark I guess, I was hopin’ but no use in talkin’ your mind’s made up I see…”
“I know hit,” said Silas, “that right…!”
“Can you imagine everyone around saying…this and that, and your pa, he sayin’ I a whore, and the child a is a bastard, youall be a-shame of me, soon after ef-in I stay and we marry down here in Alabama. They die laughin’ Silas!”
Silas listened carefully or so it appeared, but didn’t give much sympathy, “Yessum, I guess I understand, but too many folks up yonder there and I hears it cold as that there North Pole, beyond.”


That evening Silas talked to his father about his situation, and didn’t get much sympathy either, he kind of got what he gave to Sweet-molasses, a blank face, “If-if you go sugar-eyen and you anit doin’ any empty talkin’ what-youall think is goin’ to happen? Its better to go possum hunting than sugar-eyein’, cuz you don’t get in all this trouble.”
“Well,” said Silas, “aint we got to make find some moonshine, its gittin’ late, and I bet Granny Mae, or Lula has some in the kitchen.”
“Yessum, lets go fetch some…” said Josh.



Note: written out on Restaurant paper, at the “La Mia Mamma,” 11-11-2008, and rewritten 11-21-2008, at home, in El Tambo, Huancayo, Peru

Old Josh in: Fraternizing with Nelly the Cow!

[1864] Parts I of II


[Advance] There was a cow over in the pastor across the old dirt road, up a short ways, that separated Hightower plantation from —Henry Jackson Birmingham’s, smaller plantation, almost a hobby farm type—the cows name was Nelly: the maid whom lived with him, and was the talk of the county while living in Ozark, name was Mahogany, Henry was in his mid-sixties, and Mahogany in her early seventies. Folks said they were really married, white to black, but Henry would never admit it, had he, he would have been skinned alive, and her, Mahogany, tar and feathered. Anyhow, the KKK, left well enough alone, as well as Henry kept it quiet, and he did, and some say he even paid them off monthly, that is, until he moved out of Ozark, and into the countryside.


He, Henry J. Birmingham, bought the place more as a retirement home, than a business (in Ozark, he was a shoe maker, seller, fixer), in 1872, several months had passed, and Mahogany had met Old Josh, but had not said much to him about her husband, no need to I suppose, she just thoughtfully talked about whatever came to mind, and Josh was a good talker, and it was a silk like hot afternoon, about it, not much to say I would think.

They had bought the place from Thomas August Smiley, a white neighbor, next to the Hightower plantation, Thomas owned a spot of land there, he didn’t know the history behind Henry Birmingham’s live-in maid being female black, and now body knew she had inherited some money, and got the place for a good price, with cash, but Henry of course was the buyer.
Mahogany, had taken a liking for Silas’ younger brother, Jordan while living in Ozark, as well as for the white neighbor Abernathy, down the road a spell, opposite side of her farm, near the Hightower’s; Jordan who works in the country story in town (Ozark, Alabama) had taken a liking for her (Jordon who lives in the back of the store most of the time, when not helping his pa at the Hightower plantation that is).
Jordon, is now home with his brother Silas for the weekend, to help his pa. Ella Hightower, Mr. Charles T. Hightower’s wife is kind of always in the background, but she is there nonetheless, seeming ill a lot. Charles, also heavy with age, has had his heart trouble in the past.

There was a cow (Nelly) in the pastor, Henry Birmingham had bought him a few weeks ago from the Charles Hightower, it was watching old Josh as he fiddled about—the cow being behind a wooden fence, across the road, up a little ways, and Old Josh, mending the fence alongside the road in front of the Hightower Mansion.
Nelly just watching I’d say, without interest, as Josh fiddled about fixing, or trying to fix the fence door, to be correct, the hinges on the door, and he saw the cow from the side of his eye, over across the fence, borderline between the two properties had there not been a road in-between, the cow was just staring, yawning, as Josh looked, now leaning against the fence a bit, Silas was alongside the barn greasing a wheel for Hightower’s carriage, Josh got annoyed at the new comer in his new neighbor, not because he was white and the maid black, because he was happy to get rid of Nelly. And now she was still annoying him, from a distance.
During dinner the old cow would ‘moo’ throughout the night, like a sick dog, Old Nelly was with the Hightower’s a long time, perhaps 15-years. But he was afraid to acknowledge the cow any longer in fear, she’d moo, more. But he couldn’t take the mooing all night long, so he put on his cloths, and walked up to the fence, the cow recognized him right away, if not by voice, by his mannerisms, somehow the cow acquired some confidence, and stopped its crying.
It was a little past 2:00 a.m. in the morning he slipped the cow something to eat, something fashionable, and the cow took that particular reserve, peculiar, but became quiet, as if Old Josh had re-adopted it. Thereafter, gracefully, the cow lay down in the slightly wet (from the dew) grass.
Now Old Josh simply went back to his hut, and fell back to sleep on his cot.


Night after night the cow seemed to be looking at him, when he did his work, and when he didn’t it ‘mooed’ loudly so he could hear him, perhaps even looking for Old Josh, which annoyed Josh to no end.
It was as if the cow—from its distance, could look at him or looked over him insignificantly, almost to the point of controlling Josh’s temperament. Perhaps it was much like Josh, who craved attention. Often the cow waited for Josh to come over feed him, and Old Josh did. No one knew why Josh did but Josh himself, but people do strange things, perchance the reason might have been, to stop his daily interruption of the cow haunting him, because after the visit, and after the cows moment of the visitation, it went quiet for the day, or night.

Fraternizing

The morning sun seemed to fall directly over the cow’s head, and it seemed to have a smirk on its face this sunny morning, or so it looked as its head was pointed in his direction, where Josh was, a distance away of course, his eyes old, it mind thinking whatever cows think, a jog of moonshine in Old Josh’s hand, hidden in behind his back, the cow was predictable, and Old Josh walked over to it, the cow looked away from Josh as if it was—for once in its life—ashamed of its behavior—but nonetheless, aggravating to Josh, until Josh shared that moonshine, Nelly actually was smirking at Josh, purposely smirking that is.
Josh walked over to the fence, jug in hand, over to the shanty, his hut, looked long and hard at the cow, over his shoulder, then at the barbwire laying against the barn, he had to do some mending today.
“Whut youall git in that jug?” yelled Mahogany to Old Josh. (Nelly was fast asleep on the grass.)
“Spring water—,” quivered Josh as if to say it was none of her business, but didn’t, he just gave her a stare, a long gaze that said what he was thinking.
The growth of the weeds kind of sheltered, and camouflaged Josh, on the other side of the road, the cow had consumed the bulk of the jug.
“Josh,” yelled Mahogany, “If-in you dont stop feedin’ my cow with that there moonshine, youall is goin’ to git in trouble, Mr. Highter dont take to drinkin’ moonshine on his land, nor Mr. Berham…feedin’ dat dar cow of his the same…!”
“Hus,” said Josh, adding, “Black witch… I reckon you no kin of mine, dat right?” And Mahogany just starred not knowing what Josh meant as the cow wobbled up to its feet, as if to stick up for Josh, “Mo…oooo!” said Nelly, and old Josh translated that into more moonshine, and walked over to Nelly, gave him a lick. Said to Nelly,
“I reckon youall wants a drink cup wont you?” And Old Nelly slurped it up, along with Josh.
Then Josh looked up at Mahogany, said with a grin, “If-in you cause me trouble, I might jes’ go on and talk to your owner, and tells him, ‘bout you and Jordon…down in the back of the store in Ozark.”
“I knows how to drink out of jug Josh, here fetch me the jug, ef-in youall dont mind?” And Josh passed the jug, and it would seem they, Josh, Nelly and Mahogany all had something in common.

Part one, “Fraternizing with Nelly the Cow!” was written 8-2-2006, reedited and revised, 11-21-2008 (Part two, not used for the book, “…Poor Black” was written a day later, 8-3-2008).

Old Josh, in: Cold and Hot Veins

One summer hot day, in 1859, Ella Hightower walked into the study room of her husband’s, Charles Hightower, “Dear, excuse me—“ she said, she had interrupted him, the neighbor Mr. Smiley, was standing by her husband, Charles now stood up from his desk, Mr. Smiley, was shaking her husbands hand, while putting some money in his pocket. It all happened quite fast, too fast thought Ella, as if for some reason, she was seeing something she should not have seen, or they did not want her to see. Mr. Smiley’s eyes were red as if he had finished weeping. He quickly left the room, somewhat giving a look of embarrassment towards Ella.
“What is it?” asked Ella to Charles, sitting her position in front of his desk, hands and eyes, as if to quietly get a direct answer.
“What did he want?” she insisted the second time.
“Nothing really of importance, just conversation,” said Charles.
“What?” said Ella, “it looked more like a transaction of some kind? Adding, “His eyes were red as if he had a hangover!” she implied.
“No, he was not drinking,” Charles responded, looking at her naively, and with a little chuckle.
“Well,” she hesitated frowning, “are you or are you not going to tell me, it was no accident he came here, and you are not being truthful to me.”
“I borrowed him $500-dollars, he said his wife is ill, and the crops are not doing well for him, and he had to hire a wash woman, and another cook, and he has to supervise the fields and now the household, until she gets better, since she’s been down a month or so,” said Charles.
“Why—how much do you think it costs to run this plantation a month?” asked Ella.
“Perhaps that amount, more or less,” said Charles.
Ella shifted her body away from the front of Charles for a moment,
“We could have used this money for next month’s bills, you’ve got two kids to think of, a wife, me, and Old Josh, and his two sons to feed, along with Granny Mae, and the other helper, and this is a mistake to be giving money away when they cannot afford to pay it back, you need to run after him and get the money back now,” she demanded.
Charles lingered about pushing his chair behind his desk back, walked to the front of it, held his wife, “Listen up,” he started, “please understand, I’ve known the family for most of my life, and so has my father, can’t you see, who else would he go ask for the money from, but me?” said Charles to Ella in a soft troubled voice.
Ella gave her neck a twist as if to say, forget this logic, we’re not in the banking business, and said absolutely, “it’s a good way to lose friends, and cause chaos in a family; it’s just a bad policy to lend money out without any collateral, you need to adopt an attitude of saying “no” this isn’t the first time, but it is a bad time, since we are not completely above water ourselves with the bills.”
The argument in the room might have been overlooked, under better circumstances, but war was coming on, and the Confederate Military was building up, and there was talk of having Charles becoming a Captain in one of the Alabama regiments, thus the future looked bleak at best, and there was a chance that Silas and Jordon, Josh’s boys might be drafted into the Confederate Army, unwillingly of course.

Ella walked over to the Smiley Plantation, when her Husband was down in Ozark doing some shopping with Silas, Old Josh’s boy, and she took Old Josh along to see the Smiley’s and see if Mr. Smiley’s wife was really sick.
As she neared the plantation, across the fields, she saw Mrs. Smiley sitting in a rocker looking out her living room window, fresh as a daisy, musing at the workers planting flowers around her Mansion. Ella and Josh didn’t go any further, she didn’t want to interrupt the scene, she turned to Josh as if to discuss the issue, but Josh knew what it was going to be, he saw Mr. Smiley counting the money when he came out of the Hightower house, he produced a grunt, nothing else, as Ella frowned; they exchanged no words, but walked silently side by side back to the Hightower Plantation.
When Josh left Mrs. Hightower, she exploded inside the house, Granny Mae heard her from the kitchen, and so did Lula, the assistant cook.
Then when Charles came back she confronted him, “You silly fool,
Josh and I went over to talk to the Smiley’s and they were planting flowers as if they had a million dollars, and Mrs. Smiley, was drinking tea by the window, with a $500-dress on, our money.”
“Well how could I guess, I would think you perhaps got something wrong during your observation?”
“The trouble with you is, you feel sorry for the wrong persons,” said Ella.

A few days passed and it seemed the unpleasantness of this particular issue had passed, but was not forgotten completely. Ella had went to town by herself to do some shopping, and a few hours after she left, Charles went. It was a very hot, hot day, and Charles had to go to the court house to do some documentation. He sat with a crowd of twenty-other people waiting by two windows, after a few minutes several more folks came in, had to stand in the small overcrowded room, no one willing to give up their seats, and Charles told himself: why should I, my wife always says I’m too much the gentleman, thus, I am older than sixty, let them stand, he took his number (as did the others, and read the newspaper waiting to be called by one of the two clerks.
Now the room was full bodies, body to body, everyone sweating, and the lady in front of him, close to the windows was asking other folks for their ticket, to exchange for her ticket, that she might go ahead of the others, she was a ways up, and it was just a whisper, not easily heard. He, Charles usually would have given his seat and number away to a woman, any woman; today he was not going to, not after his wife said he was easy, maybe to easy.
After three hours, the lady fell to the floor, and there was a rumble in the room, she fell onto someone, bounded off the person, and dropped to the wooden floor, a heatstroke or perhaps just fainted, people were saying; then Charles feeling no one was helping the women, after several minutes, stood up and pushed his way to the woman, out of curiosity and pity, and grabbed her franticly and was mumbling something, as he rushed her out to the fresh air and over to the doctor’s office.
Said Otis, the bartender from one of the local bars nearby,
“Why, that was Charles Hightower with his wife, Ella.


Inspired by my Sister in Law, in Huancayo, Peru.11-22-2008

Old Josh, in: “Black-hide!”

(…and pumpkin soup)




[Spring of 1885; Ozark, Alabama]



“Say you! whar do ol man Josh live?”
“Ah…down de road a piece,” says Silas to the stranger, “ ‘bout a mile, at the Hightower place, but ef-in youall wants to find him, you wont find him, anyhow, hes gone fishin’ I reckon.”
The stranger had stopped Silas while riding down the old dirt road, that lead towards Ozark, to go to a store where his brother Jordon worked to get supplies, they got a discount there for renting out Jordon.

At the Hightower plantation, the black stranger knocked on the door, and Charles Hightower answered and the stranger asked where Josh was, said old man Hightower, “You should be using the back door, and asking Granny Mae, not me,” yet Charles hollered for Josh, but he didn’t answer, looking toward the back of his house, toward the barn and beyond were the enclosure was.
“He’s gittin’ on with age…” the stranger said to himself quietly.
Old Josh had seen the stranger and was hiding behind the cow corral bend over some, and behind some bushes and jimson weeds, to insure he was fully covered.
The stranger was now sanding looking through the open area of the corral with his owl-like face—Old Josh’s knees bent, acing a tinge, but not willing to stand up yet.
Thus, he remained hidden about one-hundred feet away. The stranger just stood there chewing his tobacco, glancing here and there; up and down over this way and that way—eyes eating up each square foot (Mr. Hightower had left the front door to attend to other business, and Granny Mae, with the help of Lula the Cook, who worked part time help, from the Shanty Town, down near Ozark (who had helped the Hightower’s since 1849, now in her 80s, and was given a lump sum of money to buy her shanty, from Shep Hightower, Charles’ father, and her freedom papers), was peering out the window at the stranger.

“Hey! whuts youall want?” asked Lula the Cook to the stranger.
“Im lookin’ fer Josh Jefferson, my name is Abram!” said the stranger, then he saw his brother,
“There you are,” said Abram, jes’ a-sitten… behind those there bushes…whut fer?” he said; yet old Josh continued to conceal himself, even though Abram saw him and put his foot on the fence, the wooden railing, near Josh.
“Waz you callin’ somebody—? …git your black-hid out of her!” said a voice.
Abram looked deadeye into Josh’s face, from a distance, from where he stood with his foot on the fence, was perhaps twenty-feet.
“Say Josh, whut you doin’?”
Old Josh still remained quiet, then Josh hollered at him, “keep-a right on goin, dont look back, I dont see your-feet movin!”
“Well, I reckon I came a long ways fer nothing…” said Abram still chewing his tobacco, while listening off and on to the mockingbirds singing on a nearby old Alabama Oak.

(There was dust in the air, this early spring morning, blowing about, flowers filling the air with light odor scents; Josh wanted to lay down, didn’t really want his day disturbed; wanted to go fishing, was about to before he saw the stranger coming up the road on a sprinkled old horse. He walked like his brother, didn’t really know it was him, but had a second sense it was somebody from the past, back when he was a boy in the Congo, a little brother, he thought had died, but was being cared for evidently by one of the relatives of his mother, things he forgot; he was not stolen from the tribe like he and his mother, when out one day in the wild meadows (thus left behind); he was really more like a half-brother, same mother, different father.)

“Looks like your in the poo’ house Josh,” he said to Josh with a grin.
“Im 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.
“You done left me in the Congo, I waz jes’ a boy—walking here and there lookin’ fer you and ma, till folks say you git picked up by some white gorillas and taken away! and they picks me up, liken did to youall, an’ I be taken to St. Louis, Missouri an’ I be a butler all these days, now I is free like you, an’ I git $2000-dollars fer my services these last ten-years, come-on with me, we can buy land and be free…?”


It showed on their faces, the long and hard years of labor, loneliness, on both their faces, a little less on Josh’s perhaps, or so it seemed: he took things a bit lighter than Abram; accept, or learned to accept what was, was, had Abram showed up twenty-five years ago things might have been different, possibly for this moment, would never had had to occur.
“I’ …s got money to buy your freedom,” said Abram, to Josh.
A shadow of gloom was on Josh’s face, and a bitter sneer that he tried to hide, said, “I is free, been free fer twenty-years, glad to see you is doin’ fine brother, but you got to do whut you think you got to do, me, Im fine here, I got my boys, and—oh well, I got my shack. What more do I need, no big change fer me at 82-years old, jes’ want to go fishin’ and that stuff.”

Now Josh and Abram sat on Josh’s porch (of his two room shack); Abram still chewing his tobacco, slowly. Hightower had departed.
“Josh, come wit me,” said Abram abruptly in a soft voice, as if he was a big brother. They sat there for hours, drinking moonshine, and talking, and both fell to sleep, and Silas come home, tip-toed past them, slowly, not to wake them up, and into the hut, and sat down by the small wooden table, and had some pumpkin soup.

In the morning Abram looked at Josh, they had fallen to asleep and woke up, where they sat, and Abram’s old spotted horse had not been fed, and was pacing, nibbling over in the bushes eating whatever. It had been something like, eighty years since they had seen each other, long years for both brothers.
“Nah…! All right!” grunted Abram, 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 back of Hightower’s house. 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 his boy,
“That there chewin’ is goin’ to kill you uncle yet!”
Abram heard it, and I suppose that was good enough for him, he had acknowledged him to his son, and they drank together, and they fell to sleep by one another, like back in the Congo, when he was four and Josh was eight, then he looked at his brother…, said in a murmur, “… damn his black-hide!”

Written 1/20/2006; the Author lived in Ozark, Alabama in the mid l979s.