Old Josh, in: Heyo the Road!
1863, Ozark, Alabama—a Civil War dilemma!
When Josh Jefferson left for New Orleans with Mr. Hightower’s buggy and two horses, Silas and Jordon and I worked on preparing the barn. Silas went off on his own and to mend a fence out in one of the fields and there was just Jordon and me. Granny Mae was looking out of the Hightower kitchen window, at the new corral, Silas and Jordon had build a few days earlier; now they had two, one behind the barn the other alongside the field. That evening I was sitting outside with Silas, Jordon and Granny Mae, and Mr. Charles Hightower came back from the city of Ozark, seventeen miles down the road. He told us he had taken all the money he had out of the bank and bought supplies, and had given Josh a sum to pick up other supplies down in New Orleans, those that Ozark couldn’t provide. The plantation was going broke.
“Okay,” Charles said. “If you think you can run the plantation any better than I, go ahead and try.”
“I done already acknowledge,” I told him, “I couldn’t do any better as his manager, perhaps as a buyer though, you pay full price for everything.”
He turned about, spit out some tobacco, and then laughed. Mr. Hightower was all right in a way, stubborn like a mule, like his whole family. But he got along alright with Josh and his two boys, and Amos from the Stanley plantation, and the Wallace brothers, from their plantation, and Granny Mae, the cook, and sometimes me, his manager of sorts, but at times I think I was more his adviser.
“Yes sir,” said Charles murmuring in front of all of us, a fire going on in the yard—everyone sitting around it crossed legged, “it’s easy enough to talk about running a plantation, setting here without any responsibility to keep it going, no risk to you folks. But I’m the one that has to make friends with the gray and the blue; they all want something every time they come marching by my plantation. This civil war is getting to me. I don’t care for either one of them, Confederate or Yankee patrols; they don’t give a damn for me either, only that I can feed their troops free. Josh is down trying to buy some equipment for the plantation, maybe it’ll help production.”
“I suppose,” I said.
“Youall should sell da food to da soldier’s befur they take it from yaw!” Granny Mae said. Realizing there was a risk of running out of seed and food and soon they’d be eating the horses.
Charles said, “They aint satisfied with making a deal, they think it’s my patriotic duty to give and give until I can’t give anymore.”
“I git an idea,” said Silas, “dhe Yankees pays dare men in gold, wes jes’ gots to wait fur the pay wagon, and steal it, den we aint got to worry ‘bout findin’ money to pay da new bills.”
“Take from da taker,” said Jordon, supporting his brother’s whim.
Granny Mae started to holler now, “No, sir! I reckon wes need da gold, but I got more sense than to take it from da Yankee pay officer, wes niggers and dey hang niggers fur dat, or worse.”
“That’s enough,” Charles said. “Have you folks eaten yet?”
“Wes got our moonshine, that will do,” said Jordon.
“I see—” Charles said. Then Mae stopped yelling: she started to chew some tobacco. “Yessum,” she said, “I guess we-all got to do what we got to do…”
Charles stopped chewing. “Huh!” he said, in surprise. “I reckon they’ll be coming up from Ozark, tomorrow morning with the pay, most likely, very early, they use mules so they’ll be going slow, and a simple buckboard, with several soldiers surrounding it.”
Granny Mae looked at all of us, “So youall goin’ to do it fur sure?”
“You go on in the house, Granny,” said Hightower, “rest up.” Then he turned to me, “You’ll have a chance Fitzgerald, to see if we can get away with it tomorrow, then I can pay you for the last eight months due you.”
Charles stood in the side kitchen doorway, “You all got my respect,” he told us. He knew, and I knew by looking at him, all he really had was a handful of darn farmers, but we all knew he was smart……although, how was he going to pull this off we didn’t know.
Old Josh came back that evening, with only one horse, and Mr. Hightower, just sunk his head into his chest, “What more could go wrong,” he whimpered.
“How far are the Yankees from us?” Charles asked Josh.
“I reckon da is ‘bout seven miles down yonder, campin’…!” said Josh.
Charles explained their little plan, the one he really didn’t have, the one Charles couldn’t figure out how to implement yet. Only Josh didn’t wait for Charles to ask him, or answer him, he told him, “I can git dat dare payroll, quicker than dhey can fill da hole under dare noses with food during breakfast!”
It sounded fine when he said it, like the shrewd man he was, but it baffled Charles nonetheless.
That night Josh, me, Jordon and Silas, went out hunting for forty-large, sleeping rattlesnakes. Josh had said they liked the sun, got their motivation then, and were the weakest in the night, and so we all went hunting. When we came to the first one, he looked at me, “Boy,” he said (Josh being sixty-years old), “when you grow up like me, it aint any no trouble to get dhem critters,” and he took a big swig of whiskey, “they like to bite mules and white folk, not niggers like me,” he commented, then grabbed the snake by the head, and back end and he made funny faces at the snake, and tossed him into a big potato sack.
That night we got twenty-nine snakes, some small, others big, but none too big. In the morning, Granny Mae looked at all the sacks outside her kitchen window, and heard the rattling of the snakes. She watched the sacks while they jumped, “How many?” She asked.
“Twenty-nine,” said Josh, “when they stop to rest the mules, and have breakfast, we is goin’ to release the snakes on the road, and the mules will go crazy, and so will the soldiers, and you can go on and grab the payroll bag (it was near dawn now).
“Yessum,” Silas said, “dhat sounds like a good plan.”
“And when da come a-lookin’ fur us, we goin’ to leave a few more snakes in back of us!”
Granny Mae stepped back from the sacks, didn’t sit down on the steps like Josh, and Silas and I did.
“The troops should be down the road some fifteen miles,” I said, “should we get Charles up?”
“No,” said Josh, “he ant any good fur this, he git us all hung!”
They kept hidden, and kept a fast pace through the wooded area, parallel the dirt road, that led to Ozark. I don’t know how Josh kept up with us all, but he did, stomping through the foliage, each of us with a sack or two of snakes. Granny Mae stayed behind, even though she wanted to participate, she was near as old, or perhaps older than Josh.
All they had to do now was spot the mules and soldiers. At first, Silas wanted us all just to sit still and wait for them, but I objected to that, feeling they’d think we were all from the Hightower plantation.
After two hours, we realized we needed to reserve our energy, and we heard a buckboard, and mules coming up the road, “I’m worried about this,” I told Josh, “perhaps we ought not to risk it?”
He didn’t say a word, just untied a bag, it looked like the five snakes in the bag wanted to jump out and eat Josh. Then he turned and looked at me. “Mr. Fitzgerald,” he said, “youall be ready to grab that leather bag,” it was just sunup.
We threw three sacks of snakes onto the road, the wagon was nearing us, and the mules sensed something was wrong, and we slipped back into the woods. We went just fast enough so they could not get a good look at us, perhaps thinking Josh and Silas and Jordon were runaway slaves. There bivouac was still three miles up the road.
We put the other sacks down on the path we were going to take, running, if they should decide to chase us. But the time they found us, we’d be long gone for sure, or at least that is how I figure it; the snakes would take care of that. So we did exactly that, loosened the sacks, so the snakes could fight their way out if I didn’t have time to completely untie the ropes around the sacks, as we ran through the woods, back to the plantation.
The mules went crazy, and the buckboard tipped over, and the four Yankee guards on horseback alongside the buckboard, got madder by the minute, as the snakes bit the legs of the horses, and they took off everywhichway, as did the mules. There was just enough light to see my way to the wagon, grab the leather bag and hightail it out of there, releasing the ropes around the snake sacks completely, for the snake to block the pathway, and again as the four soldiers came after us, I could hear their once galloping hooves, stomping fast, hard and mad at the snakes, as we all turned off into the woods.
That’s what we did; we couldn’t even see each other, until we got to the plantation. As I ran, I had my doubts about this, and then the sound of horses behind me was gone. We didn’t have time to tell Mr. Hightower a thing, we just all hid in the barn—and caught our breaths, and later that morning Mr. Hightower told us, “They came to my door, and asked if he saw four niggers, and I said, ‘I don’t know what you are talking about,” and I really didn’t. I think they didn’t want to tell me they were robbed, they wanted to see if I might have implied such a thing, thus spilling the beans, but as I said, I didn’t even realize what you did until now.”
And then I began to laugh, I had put axle grease on my face, making me the forth black person, and then I handed him the bag of gold, we never even counted it, and Mr. Hightower busted loose, and said, “What do I owe you now, Mr. Fitzgerald?” and he handed me eight months wages in gold, went into his house, came out with three jugs of whiskey, gave each one to Josh and his boys, with a $20-dollar gold piece to boot.
No: 477 (9-25-2009) Episode number 85/• •
When Josh Jefferson left for New Orleans with Mr. Hightower’s buggy and two horses, Silas and Jordon and I worked on preparing the barn. Silas went off on his own and to mend a fence out in one of the fields and there was just Jordon and me. Granny Mae was looking out of the Hightower kitchen window, at the new corral, Silas and Jordon had build a few days earlier; now they had two, one behind the barn the other alongside the field. That evening I was sitting outside with Silas, Jordon and Granny Mae, and Mr. Charles Hightower came back from the city of Ozark, seventeen miles down the road. He told us he had taken all the money he had out of the bank and bought supplies, and had given Josh a sum to pick up other supplies down in New Orleans, those that Ozark couldn’t provide. The plantation was going broke.
“Okay,” Charles said. “If you think you can run the plantation any better than I, go ahead and try.”
“I done already acknowledge,” I told him, “I couldn’t do any better as his manager, perhaps as a buyer though, you pay full price for everything.”
He turned about, spit out some tobacco, and then laughed. Mr. Hightower was all right in a way, stubborn like a mule, like his whole family. But he got along alright with Josh and his two boys, and Amos from the Stanley plantation, and the Wallace brothers, from their plantation, and Granny Mae, the cook, and sometimes me, his manager of sorts, but at times I think I was more his adviser.
“Yes sir,” said Charles murmuring in front of all of us, a fire going on in the yard—everyone sitting around it crossed legged, “it’s easy enough to talk about running a plantation, setting here without any responsibility to keep it going, no risk to you folks. But I’m the one that has to make friends with the gray and the blue; they all want something every time they come marching by my plantation. This civil war is getting to me. I don’t care for either one of them, Confederate or Yankee patrols; they don’t give a damn for me either, only that I can feed their troops free. Josh is down trying to buy some equipment for the plantation, maybe it’ll help production.”
“I suppose,” I said.
“Youall should sell da food to da soldier’s befur they take it from yaw!” Granny Mae said. Realizing there was a risk of running out of seed and food and soon they’d be eating the horses.
Charles said, “They aint satisfied with making a deal, they think it’s my patriotic duty to give and give until I can’t give anymore.”
“I git an idea,” said Silas, “dhe Yankees pays dare men in gold, wes jes’ gots to wait fur the pay wagon, and steal it, den we aint got to worry ‘bout findin’ money to pay da new bills.”
“Take from da taker,” said Jordon, supporting his brother’s whim.
Granny Mae started to holler now, “No, sir! I reckon wes need da gold, but I got more sense than to take it from da Yankee pay officer, wes niggers and dey hang niggers fur dat, or worse.”
“That’s enough,” Charles said. “Have you folks eaten yet?”
“Wes got our moonshine, that will do,” said Jordon.
“I see—” Charles said. Then Mae stopped yelling: she started to chew some tobacco. “Yessum,” she said, “I guess we-all got to do what we got to do…”
Charles stopped chewing. “Huh!” he said, in surprise. “I reckon they’ll be coming up from Ozark, tomorrow morning with the pay, most likely, very early, they use mules so they’ll be going slow, and a simple buckboard, with several soldiers surrounding it.”
Granny Mae looked at all of us, “So youall goin’ to do it fur sure?”
“You go on in the house, Granny,” said Hightower, “rest up.” Then he turned to me, “You’ll have a chance Fitzgerald, to see if we can get away with it tomorrow, then I can pay you for the last eight months due you.”
Charles stood in the side kitchen doorway, “You all got my respect,” he told us. He knew, and I knew by looking at him, all he really had was a handful of darn farmers, but we all knew he was smart……although, how was he going to pull this off we didn’t know.
Old Josh came back that evening, with only one horse, and Mr. Hightower, just sunk his head into his chest, “What more could go wrong,” he whimpered.
“How far are the Yankees from us?” Charles asked Josh.
“I reckon da is ‘bout seven miles down yonder, campin’…!” said Josh.
Charles explained their little plan, the one he really didn’t have, the one Charles couldn’t figure out how to implement yet. Only Josh didn’t wait for Charles to ask him, or answer him, he told him, “I can git dat dare payroll, quicker than dhey can fill da hole under dare noses with food during breakfast!”
It sounded fine when he said it, like the shrewd man he was, but it baffled Charles nonetheless.
That night Josh, me, Jordon and Silas, went out hunting for forty-large, sleeping rattlesnakes. Josh had said they liked the sun, got their motivation then, and were the weakest in the night, and so we all went hunting. When we came to the first one, he looked at me, “Boy,” he said (Josh being sixty-years old), “when you grow up like me, it aint any no trouble to get dhem critters,” and he took a big swig of whiskey, “they like to bite mules and white folk, not niggers like me,” he commented, then grabbed the snake by the head, and back end and he made funny faces at the snake, and tossed him into a big potato sack.
That night we got twenty-nine snakes, some small, others big, but none too big. In the morning, Granny Mae looked at all the sacks outside her kitchen window, and heard the rattling of the snakes. She watched the sacks while they jumped, “How many?” She asked.
“Twenty-nine,” said Josh, “when they stop to rest the mules, and have breakfast, we is goin’ to release the snakes on the road, and the mules will go crazy, and so will the soldiers, and you can go on and grab the payroll bag (it was near dawn now).
“Yessum,” Silas said, “dhat sounds like a good plan.”
“And when da come a-lookin’ fur us, we goin’ to leave a few more snakes in back of us!”
Granny Mae stepped back from the sacks, didn’t sit down on the steps like Josh, and Silas and I did.
“The troops should be down the road some fifteen miles,” I said, “should we get Charles up?”
“No,” said Josh, “he ant any good fur this, he git us all hung!”
They kept hidden, and kept a fast pace through the wooded area, parallel the dirt road, that led to Ozark. I don’t know how Josh kept up with us all, but he did, stomping through the foliage, each of us with a sack or two of snakes. Granny Mae stayed behind, even though she wanted to participate, she was near as old, or perhaps older than Josh.
All they had to do now was spot the mules and soldiers. At first, Silas wanted us all just to sit still and wait for them, but I objected to that, feeling they’d think we were all from the Hightower plantation.
After two hours, we realized we needed to reserve our energy, and we heard a buckboard, and mules coming up the road, “I’m worried about this,” I told Josh, “perhaps we ought not to risk it?”
He didn’t say a word, just untied a bag, it looked like the five snakes in the bag wanted to jump out and eat Josh. Then he turned and looked at me. “Mr. Fitzgerald,” he said, “youall be ready to grab that leather bag,” it was just sunup.
We threw three sacks of snakes onto the road, the wagon was nearing us, and the mules sensed something was wrong, and we slipped back into the woods. We went just fast enough so they could not get a good look at us, perhaps thinking Josh and Silas and Jordon were runaway slaves. There bivouac was still three miles up the road.
We put the other sacks down on the path we were going to take, running, if they should decide to chase us. But the time they found us, we’d be long gone for sure, or at least that is how I figure it; the snakes would take care of that. So we did exactly that, loosened the sacks, so the snakes could fight their way out if I didn’t have time to completely untie the ropes around the sacks, as we ran through the woods, back to the plantation.
The mules went crazy, and the buckboard tipped over, and the four Yankee guards on horseback alongside the buckboard, got madder by the minute, as the snakes bit the legs of the horses, and they took off everywhichway, as did the mules. There was just enough light to see my way to the wagon, grab the leather bag and hightail it out of there, releasing the ropes around the snake sacks completely, for the snake to block the pathway, and again as the four soldiers came after us, I could hear their once galloping hooves, stomping fast, hard and mad at the snakes, as we all turned off into the woods.
That’s what we did; we couldn’t even see each other, until we got to the plantation. As I ran, I had my doubts about this, and then the sound of horses behind me was gone. We didn’t have time to tell Mr. Hightower a thing, we just all hid in the barn—and caught our breaths, and later that morning Mr. Hightower told us, “They came to my door, and asked if he saw four niggers, and I said, ‘I don’t know what you are talking about,” and I really didn’t. I think they didn’t want to tell me they were robbed, they wanted to see if I might have implied such a thing, thus spilling the beans, but as I said, I didn’t even realize what you did until now.”
And then I began to laugh, I had put axle grease on my face, making me the forth black person, and then I handed him the bag of gold, we never even counted it, and Mr. Hightower busted loose, and said, “What do I owe you now, Mr. Fitzgerald?” and he handed me eight months wages in gold, went into his house, came out with three jugs of whiskey, gave each one to Josh and his boys, with a $20-dollar gold piece to boot.
No: 477 (9-25-2009) Episode number 85/• •
posted by Dennis and Rosa Siluk at 2:10 PM
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