Читать книгу El Segundo - James Newton - Страница 9

The Love, the Laughter and the Plan

The winter months were bitter and sweet. December to March, school was out for us share croppers. Consequently, we had more time on our hands and a bit more liberty.

Daddy kept the meat slaughter house going, so there was plenty of food. We also had the luxury of having enough shoes and clothing. Normally, we had to go barefooted from March until the next winter.

It was an unwritten law for the share cropper. Hardships were expected. Especially when you have a 15 person family to clothe that included 12 kids, Mom, Dad, and Snow Kirk, our adopted brother from another mother. But right now, it was time to go to the Old Brush Arbor for more of my Grandmother Sally’s preaching.

It was one those Old Brush Arbor meeting evenings that I suggested to my brother Hamp that we would try something level the score by harassing and scaring the “Big Man” land owners who traveled freely on our broad, Slough road. It was time to exact a “toll” from these “landed gentry” who would often take a short cut on “Our Slough” road as a short cut to and from their “parties.

Making these party going big plantation owners drive that extra twenty extra miles was a victory. Additionally, we could always spoil the hot action and passion of the down town upper class church goers who would use our road as their lover’s lane. Dennis, my older brother was a handsome and intelligent young man, even though he was a share cropper, he had his share of attention from the supposed better class girls. But the taunting and the mistreatment got to be to much for him.

So, Dennis devised another plan. He asked our younger brother Hamp and I, “You boys ready to learn something new?" Hamp and I responded, “You know we are ready!" “Let's have some fun tonight”. he said. Dennis had us make a corpse dummy with a white mans face, make it look like a dead white man as realistically an possible, and lay it on the side of the road. Big Daddy land owners thought that the share croppers were surely after them. The lovers would come down the road heading to their lover's lane and would frightened so badly that the last this on their mind was "making whoopy" in the lane.

We felt nothing but contempt for these more advantaged socialites. Not because of what they had but because of what they did.

Mack was my brother older than Hamp and me, but he was younger than Dennis. Dennis was our Hero. But my sister, Mary Jane, was the most beloved of the siblings. She was both beautiful and educated. But, Mary Jane was a bit of a Tom Boy and always game to join into our war on the wealthy antics. She was popular in our Holler Roller group.

The first car to fall victim to our attack was a brand new Model A Ford that was driven by a ped legged store owner. When he saw what he thought was a white body laying on the side of the road, he pulled over to investigate. Had he thought it had been a black man, he would have kept on going. Slowly, he got out of his car using a cane and lantern, and very, very slowly approached the subject on the side of the road. As we watched hidden in the cotton fields trying our best not to giggle or laugh, he saw the bloody make-shift man dimly illuminated by a lantern. He threw his cane down and broke into a sprint with that wooden leg lifting high into the sir as he catapulted back to his Model A. Letting out what sounded like a yelp, he hit it the gas and roared.

Oh my Lord, how we laugh as that luxurious car screeched away. We quickly removed the dummy, brushed away all the wet dirt, and removed all the evidence.

Soon, we heard cars coming from Sumner with a bunch of white men and the new town marshal. This posse was primed and ready to find them a nigger.

Surely, they thought they must defend the rights of whites and the cultural apartheid of the South. When they found no body and no evidence, they all thought that Mr. Worley was either drunk or crazy. They left laughing and cursing at the same time.

Dennis told the rest of us to get back to the Brush Arbor. After running back, the meeting was still in full swing. The congregation was still shouting and speaking in tongues. Grand Mother Sally Scallions was still handling fire. We entered back under the Arbor never missed. We had the best fun night in Tallahatchie County Mississippi.

Brother Dennis drinking from the water pump next to the cotton fields with sisters Peggy, Polly and Ann in 1949.