All God's Dangers by Theodore Rosengarten Read Free Book Online Page B

on,” I hit one or two fast licks to all my power. I knowed what he’d do to me but there weren’t nothin I could do at that period. He coulda killed me if he’d a wanted to. Weren’t nothin for me to do but fall out. I fell out of there like a rabbit with my heels up, just layin backwards on the ground. All I could say as I begin to catch my breath, “Huyyyhh, huyyyhh, huyyyhh”—my eyes done watered— “huyyyhh, huyyyhh, cough, cough”—just about gone.
    He told my sister, “Gimme that bucket of water, gimme that bucket of water.”
    He jumped at that bucket of water and commenced a wettin his hands and slappin it all over my face and head and all. I layin there, hollerin at him, “Huyyyhh, huyyyhh.” Like to slay his boy that day, as sure as you born to die.
    Some folks tell me, “Well, I’d just forget about it, I wouldn’t hold it against my daddy.” But my daddy was grown, he oughta knowed better. He couldn’t use a child like he could use hisself. For several years after that I couldn’t stand no cross-cut saw. How come it? The motion of a cross-cut saw across my breast—never has stood a cross-cut saw no more until this day. I been once killed nearly on it and I couldn’t stand it no more, look to me in spite of redemption.
    W HEN he weren’t sawin wood, my daddy used to cut cross-ties for Mr. Joe Grimes. That was Mr. Clem Todd’s son-in-law. Mr. Joe Grimes married one of Mr. Clem Todd’s daughters. And we was livin at that time on Mr. Clem Todd’s place. And right there welived till I got nearly grown. And so, Mr. Joe Grimes, bein the son-in-law, he bought all of Mr. Todd’s timber and had it cut up in cross-ties and he hired my daddy to cut em. My daddy cut cross-ties several years for the man. First ties my daddy learnt me how to cut, the way he learnt me, cuttin for Mr. Joe Grimes. Cuttin cross-ties is nasty for a man to do—with a broad ax and a club ax and a cross-cut saw. And my daddy couldn’t have made much money at it, maybe fifteen or twenty cents a tie.
    Cut down a big oak tree or a big hard pine, cut them ties out seven inches by nine inches by nine foot long. The railroad used to wouldn’t buy ties if you cut the logs out, put em on carriages for the circle saw to saw em. Used to wouldn’t have em that way; had to hew them ties with a broad ax and a club ax. I helped my daddy cut—O, it tested me; things my daddy learnt me, I’ve done em since then myself.
    So one day we was in the woods cuttin cross-ties for Mr. Joe Grimes and him sellin em to the railroad and pocketin whatever money come of it. Weren’t no trucks runnin then. You hauled your ties with a pair of good mules, hauled em to the railroad yard and stacked em. The railroad inspector from Atlanta, Georgia, would come and count them ties up. And one day—the road run along out yonder from where we was cuttin and me and my daddy wasn’t far out from the road, under a hill, cuttin ties. Mr. Grimes had done been there that mornin, got a load of ties before we got there and carried em off to Apafalya and put em off on the right-of-way outside the railroad yard and stacked em, come right back to get another load. And me and my daddy was down under the hill there cuttin. I looked up—happened to look up and I seed Mr. Grimes comin back there for another load. My daddy didn’t know Mr. Grimes was there. I wasn’t expectin the white man myself but I
was
expectin to get a beatin. Mr. Grimes stopped up there, just jockeyin hisself, and my daddy was in a wrangle with me bout somethin or other bout them ties. And he just went out in the bushes and cut him a sweet-gum sprout bout as broad as my finger and as long as my arm. And he whipped me up scandalous down there, under that hill. Mr. Joe Grimes was up there on that road lookin down at us—my daddy still didn’t know he was up there.