The year is 1949.
Begin entry:
I'm six years old and it's an early spring morning when the pecan trees are just barely turning green and gold. On Saturday mornings, I help my daddy shell corn. When we open the corn crib we see a black snake slither out of sight underneath the stacked ears of corn.
"Daddy, did you see old Black Earl wriggle under the corn? Are you sure he isn't dangerous - it told on the radio that you can get kilt by some snakes if they was to bite you"
"Naw," he said, lifting me into the crib, "That's old Black Earl alright. He's just an old rat snake. See, he eats up the rats - swallows them whole and that way we still got plenty of corn so your mama can make some of that cracklin' bread you like so much." I settled down to try to shuck the corn. I had to grip the ear between my knees and use both hands to tear away the shucks a few leaves at a time. The shucks left little cuts on my hands that stung but I liked the corn crib even if old Black Earl did live there. Then my daddy began to tell how he'd learned to tell a lot of stories about snakes. He said his papa would whip his children if they harmed any of the Lord's good snakes - like the beautiful ribbon snakes or rat snakes or king snakes. Then he told me about a hateful old vicious cottonmouth that lived down in our cow pond that had eaten up all the fish and frogs in the pond and even swallowed several ducks that swam on the pond. But Daddy said one day by God he'd had enough of that. He took his shotgun down there and shot it full of holes and told how that ol' cottonmouth kicked upa big fuss, but once my daddy saw him he blew his head off and that was the end of that old snake's ornery old life. Then he told all about how good his old dog Boss was at killing snakes, how he'd get so mad he'd keep shaking them and tearing them into even when they were limp and dead.
"Calacie told me that if you need rain, just kill you a snake - any kind will do - and hang it over the pasture fence and in two or three days, it would start raining," I said. My daddy said that he'd heard that, too but he didn't have much luck when he tried it. The only thing was the dead snake made an awful smell, and Mama pitched a fit and said it wasn't religious to try to get rain by using Calacie's hoodoo spells. I asked my daddy if he said any words over that snake. "Naw," he said, "I just slung that big old rattlesnake over the pasture fence."
"Well," I said "Calacie explained about how you have to mumble special words and all if you want the snake to draw down the rain. I speck that's why your snake just rotted and got deader."
"You're probably right, Sister. Let's see if we can get this batch shelled before breakfast. Then I'll take it down to Mr. Sherford's grist mill and tonight we'll have some of that cracklin' bread."
I loved cracklin' bread and fried sweet potatoes. In the fall, my daddy would cut up the pork skins in little pieces and Mama would lump them into the big cast iron pot. I loved to watch the fire under the fat black pot and hear the hissing skins. Mama would take out the little crisp ones and salt them and let me eat some while they were still hot. She put up most of the skins in the pantry all crispy and golden brown to enjoy later. Sometimes we'd warm them up for a snack, but more often she would chop them up with onion and mix it in the cornbread batter and bake it in the corn stick pans. Then she would slice the sweet potatoes, fry them up, and sprinkle them with sugar. Mama and Daddy were partial to having fresh turnip greens and pot liquor when we ate cracklin' bread and fried sweet potatoes but Cabby and I hated that old horrible, stringy butter mess but lots of times we'd have to eat it. Cabby would screw her face up and choke it down and say: "I wish I was a boy. I wish I was grown. I'm getting out of this hick place and I'm never going to think of greens again."
"Mama won't let you not eat greens," I said, "but Gram said if you kiss your elbow you'll turn into a boy, but f you do I'll hate you because I hate boys."
"Lies, all lies" Cabby snapped. "Not a word of that mess is true - but you listen to that durn old superstitious woman if you want to."
"Gram's not superstitious, either. Keep it up and I'll tell Mama." I said.
So the greens would make us in such a bad mood that we'd usually have a fuss like that but we both loved each other over cracklin' bread.
My daddy and I started shelling the corn then. We turned the feed bucket upside down I stand on it and feed golden ears of corn into the sheller while my daddy turns the handle. Grains of corn pour out the shoot in a little golden stream. I like the fast rhythmic click-click-click sound the sheller makes. I like to hear the rushing kernels fall into the wooden box.
The breakfast we eat is Mama's fig preserves with slices of lemon on Mama's biscuits with country fried steak. "Well, Miss Daisy, I thank you for that fine meal." Daddy said as he grinned at Mama.
"Mama, please, please let me go to the grist mill with Daddy. Please." Mama said yes if I'd put on my headscarf because she did not want me to get another acute attack of sinus to scare her to death because earlier that spring I woke up one morning with a raging fever and I couldn't walk. My daddy was gone off that day but I heard her crying to Aunt Jessie and saying I had polio, whatever that was, but I felt too bad to worry about it. Dr. Stockton said the child has a terrible infection that has spread over her whole body - even in her knees. So I wore the scarf because I didn't want to feel that bad ever again.
I go back out to the barn and watch my daddy hitch Dixie-Jane and Pat, our two mules to the wagon. I pet the mules; Pat smarts at me. I wrinkle my nose at the hot smell of the animals. They're old mules, my daddy said we'd had them since my brother, Jim, was a little boy. Pat and Dixie-Jane toss their heads 'cause they're ready to go. My daddy swings me up into the seat beside him. This is a treat because most of the time we use my daddy's tractor now, but Mr. Turman has borrowed the new Farmall to plow up the cucumber patch.
We set out down the long, pebbled driveway. I watch the rhythm of the mules behinds and begin to feel sleepy listening to the creak creak of the wagon wheels on the gravel. We go by the cemetery where Aunt Rene's Mimosa trees are just beginning to leaf and where some scraggly remnants of yellow Forsythia remain but it's too early for tulips and hyacinths yet. I think about the tiny white star flowers already blooming near our rose bushes and I figure I'll go play with my fairy friend and my doll, Betsy McColl when we get back from the grist mill. But just as we are going over Greenbrier Creek bridge, we see a big truck tearing down the road. "That fool!" I hear my daddy say "He's not going to let us get across." So daddy pulls as near to the side of the road as he can, and the truck keeps coming. Daddy holds the reins tight. I hide my face on my daddy's arm. I'm really scared now. The truck is pounding and roaring over the bridge. I feel it swoosh by. Pat seems to be trembling. I hear my daddy say: "Jesus Christ! goddam everything to hell! That goddam saw on Ernest Aims' truck has cut poor old Pat wide open." I hear him try to comfort Pat as he strokes his muzzle. Then I see Pat's knees buckle down between the traces and I see Pat's guts slowly oozing out. Pat is moaning so pitifully and I start to scream.
My daddy lifts me down. "Run," he says "Run back to the house and tell Mama to get in the car and bring me the rifle. I can't let Pat suffer this way. Goddam that Aims bunch to hell anyway." Daddy is unhitching Dixie-Jane who is still wild-eyed and rearing and kicking. Pat still moans.
I run as fast as I can. I run right across the cotton field still lushly green from the cover crop my daddy plants to keep the soil rich and so the earth won't wash away when the heavy spring rains come. I run as fast as I can, crying and scared and breathless.
The back screen door slams behind me as I run through the house. "What is it? What is it?!" Mama's face is terrified. Even Gram and Cabby look scared. "It's that goddam Aims. Pat's goddam guts are all in the road," I sob to Mama. Usually, when I repeat exactly what my daddy says like that, Mama threatens to switch me or wash my mouth out with soap, but this time she just mutters: "Oh, Lord, Oh, Mercy, poor ol' Pat." Then I told Mama to take the rifle to my daddy and Mama says for Cabby to go down the road and get Uncle Dock and Mr. Turman.
Gram is listening to the radio. Pretty soon it will be time for Uncle Bob's Gang. He has good stories on his show and talks about strange animals like porpoises and a magic porpoise land. But today I can't even think about Uncle Bob. I can't even worry about whether my Gang Busters flashlight will come in the mail from Battle Creek. All I can see is ol' Pat trembling and about to fall and all of his guts in the road. When Mama gets back she says my daddy has gone to find my cousin, Carl Edward, the county sheriff, who used to play football at Ole Miss, he's going to swear something to put Ernest Aims in jail for killing our mule. Daddy says it's like losing a member of your own family. He says Ernest deserves to have his guts splattered all over the road.
I can see my daddy's cigarette glowing in the dark long after Mama, Cabby, and I have gone to bed. Mama lets me sleep with them because I am so upset that I couldn't eat supper or listen to Gene Autry and Gang Busters. My daddy was listening to the Grand Old Opry, but I didn't like Minnie Pearl's voice. Sometimes Ernest Tubb sings with her, he is Daddy's first cousin, they played together a lot when they were little. Tonight, Rod Brasfield is on with her. I did not like the way he talked, either. I wanted to talk the way Wendy Warren did when she gave the news. And I did not like the music on the Opry, either. So finally, I stared at a glowing coal in the fireplace until I went to sleep snuggled in Mama's arms.
Some time later we get all dressed up and go to Aberdeen. Mama says that big building is the courthouse. I wonder if a castle looks about like that. I like the smooth marble steps, the brass railings, and the wine-velvet draperies. When a man comes out in black robes and sits on his throne, I am scared. But then, I notice it is Judge Ashley. Ernest Aims is on one side of the room, and my daddy is on the other. Judge Ashley looks mad. But people just get up and talk. My daddy tells what happened and Ernest Aims' lawyer tries to make out it's my daddy's fault. Judge Ashley is frowning more and more. His hair is white and wavy.
Finally, he says to Ernest Aims, "Now, Ernest, you know what it means to kill a man's mule. That's a man's livelihood. So you know I'm gon' find against you. Mr. Moss has lost a lot of time and lost his mule, plus, he says his baby girl there has been sick ever since witnessing this deplorable accident. And now, Ernest, you know damn well you wrong to have that big saw exposed like that in the first place. You'll pay Mr. Moss one-thousand dollars to compensate for the loss of his mule." So then, Judge Ashley banged his hammer and said we should all go home to dinner.
After we all leave the courtroom, my daddy asks Ernest if he has a thousand dollars. Ernest looks worried and confesses that he does not. Daddy says he'll go with him to the bank tomorrow and sign a note with him to borrow the thousand dollars. Ernest looks relieved. After that, my daddy says we might as well all go on and eat at Greek's cafe since it was nearly dinner time. So Ernest went with us to eat, and Judge Ashley joined us at our table and we had big hamburgers with great big slices of onion on them. A nice lady gave me extra chocolate milk to drink.
So that's how we done the lawsuit, but Dixie-Jane looked sad and lonesome without ol' Pat, who was buried underneath the clump of oak trees where he had loved to wallow in the dust on a summer afternoon. And somehow, I never did want to help Daddy shell corn, and the cracklin' bread never tasted so good to me anymore after all that happened.
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