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"I'S WEAK AN' WEARY"
(Alabama)
Tom's note:
The editing notes on this life history was especially heavy, bringing the
text into the vernacular. This practice so far seems to have been
used exclusively on African-American life histories. Such editing to
bring the written word into compliance with how the words were spoken does
not appear to have occurred on the texts involving white subjects.
"Jes a minnit, Miss, I'll git right up
and talk to you."
Isaac sounded as though it was an effort to get out of bed and open the
door, as grunts came from the room.
When the door opened and he stepped out, it gave you the impression that
an old prophet had come back in the form of a Negro.
He is six feet tall, with broad shoulders that are very erect for a man
eighty years old. His close-cropped hair and sparse beard were snowy
white. His clothes showed signs of long wear, especially the thin faded
blue shirt. The brown trousers were held loosely upon him by suspenders
that had been mended with strings, and his feet were bare. He stood with a
questioning expression on his face, and he hesitated before speaking.
"You'll have to excuse me, Miss," he apologized, "I neber gits up early
any more, 'cause I'm gittin' so I can't hardly see. I's nearly blind, and
I's too old to work, so I jes' stays in bed unless somebody comes and
calls me.
"You see I's been livin' in dis section ever since two years atter de
s'render. I wuz six years old when my Ma and Pa brung me here. Dere wuz
five of us chillun, two girls and three boys. Dey's all dead now 'cept me
and one ob de boys, an' I don't know where he is. He strayed off some
place an' I ain't got no record of him.
"Yes'm, it gits pretty lonely here by myself, but de Lord has been good to
me. I's had good health all my life until not long ago I wuz a pullin' on
a vine and it broke an' I fell 'gainst a stump an' broke two or three of
my ribs. Since den I's got rheumatism and I gets weak spells.
"I sometimes wonders how I does manage, but God's got a few Christian
people left in dis world, and some of dem comes and brings me somethin' to
eat. You take not long ago, I'd been up to de store to git a little
kerosene, and de man what lives over yonder called to me and said, 'wait a
minute. In a little while here come a child bringing me a bucket wid some
grub in it. Some church woman had sent it by him. Dere wuz a piece of meat
in it, as well as cooked things, an' dat's de only reason I's got any meat
now.
"But I does know dat dere's as much difference in people as dere is in
chalk and cheese. For you take dat boy of mine, he's de only one left out
of de seven chillun me and de old woman had. One Sunday when dey had de
big baptizing three months ago, I asked him for a quarter, he said 'I'll
give it to you atter while. I'll come by your house atter de baptisin'.
Dat boy ain't been by here, nor I ain't seed him 'til de other day, when
de 'sociation had deir big turnout. He aint neber give me dat quarter, and
he had it de afternoon I asked him for one. Jes' to think how I worked to
take care of him, too. If I'd saved de money I's made on dis place, 'stead
of lettin' them run through with it, I wouldn't be poor now, 'cause I's
made plenty on dis place. I used to haul some good stuff from under dis
hill. I 'members one load of 'taters and beans, I got eighty dollars fer
it. Law, yes, I's raised stuff on de ten acres I cultivated, course I had
fifteen all together, but only had ten fenced. It ain't fenced now,
though. Folk's kept a stealing de posts and lumber for stove wood, until
dere ain't a one left. Den dey warn't satisfied wid dat; dey stole my
chickens, and finally, toted off my chicken house.
"My first house where we lived wuz down dere under de hill, where you see
dem big oaks trees. It got bad, and de old woman wanted a bungalow built
up here on de hill, so seventeen years ago I started dis house for her,
but never did git it finished 'fore she died thirteen years ago. It wuz a
strange thing how she wuz taken. She hadn't been feelin' rail good for
sometime, but wuz able to help in de field. She had a washin' she always
done on Mondays, den she helped me in de field 'til Friday when she
ironed.
"Dis Friday I carried de clothes as I
allus did. Dat night sometime she got up and fell in de floor. When she
got back in de bed she said she wuz all right. Next day she seemed to feel
bad, an' I watched her all day, but didn't say nothin'. Sometime durin' de
night I heard my old mule scufflin' in de barn and I went out to see 'bout
him, and while I wuz out dere I heard her fall again. So I hurried in de
house and found she'd fell an' pushed de window open, but had crawled in
de bed by de time I got to her. I told her den not to try to git up any
more by herself no matter where I wuz, call me. But she didn't say nothin.'
"Next mornin' she warn't able to git up, and by afternoon I noticed her
tongue wuz gittin' thick, and heavy. So I said to her, "Ain't you seed
nothin' this week?' and she said 'No.' So I asked her if de Lord seed fit
to take her, wuz she ready to die? She tol' me, 'You know I's ready. I's 'pented
an' been saved a long time ago; and you know she never spoke again 'til de
following Wednesday morning when it wuz jes a crackin' day; she jus
shouted herself away. Lord, dat wuz a good woman. She'd been a member of
the Ebenezer Baptist Church for years, an' she was also a member of de
Starlight Hall. De Hall is a 'sociation what takes care of de sick and
buries de dead. I's been a member of it 'til I got where I couldn't keep
up my sick fees. Dey tol' me dey'd bury me for what I's all ready paid in,
but I jes' has to 'pend on de good Christian people to help me when I gits
sick.
"I sometimes thinks when I gits hongry, an' specially atter de way my boy
acted, I wish I could die. If God don't care for me, de sooner and de
quicker I wants to go, for I knows he's ready for me. Long as he wants me
to stay here, he's go'na give me food.
"You know, Missie, I stands for what's right, and I don't believe in all
dis dancin' and frolickin', an' dat's de reason my own boy treats me bad.
Dey's all de time havin' dese wild dances and parties. Dat boy has got 'leven
chillun and dey is bad. One of his boys, my own grandson, robbed me here
'bout two years ago. I wuz gittin' a little help from de Government, and I
had three dollars and ten cents in my pocket. De wey dey knowed it wuz, I
went up to de store and I'm so blind I can't hardly see, so I asked him to
take a dollar and buy me some coffee, so dey seed me wid dat money.
"Dat night I took off my pants and hung dem on de bed post. When I gits on
my back I snores loud, an' dey could hear me, so dey work at my door and
gits it open and takes my pocket book, and when I wakes, my axe wuz lyin'
'cross my front door. I know dey had it to hit me wid, if I'd waked up.
But you see, God didn't suffer me to wake 'til de next mornin'. I know God
had a hand in caring for me, 'cause any other time I'd a heard 'em, 'cause
nobody can put dere foot on dat step 'less I hear 'em.
"But both of dem boys has paid for dere meaness; for Tunstall, my grandson
wuz sent up for eighteen months for stealin' a cow from de woman what
raised him. He even called de woman mamma, den stole her cow. De other boy
dat wuz with him is servin' three years for stealin' another cow by
hisself. So you see, folks thinks they can git away with their meaness,
but God sho' will overtake 'em. He settles wid 'em.
"Jes' like a fellow name Ed Seifert what has lived here close by me all my
life. Me and him both farmed, an' I allus had plenty tools, and when Ed
would need anything I loaned it to him. I's loaned him as much as ten
dollars at a time, when he needed money. Well, a few years ago Ed bought
hisself a cultivator, an' mine wuz wore out, so I saw him one day, an' I
said, 'Ed, I wants to borry your cultivator tomorrow if you ain't usin'
it.' He said, 'send over tomorrow and git it.' So de next mornin' my mind
said don't send, go yo' self, so I went; and when I got dere he said: 'You
can't git it.' Well, I jes' looked at him in 'stonishment, 'cause to think
of all the tools I had lent him, and even let him have money several
times, I jes' couldn't help but say, 'Well, what you know about dat?' But
I come on home, an' I didn't feel good t'wards Ed for a long time. But one
day I seed him on de streets in Mobile, and I went up to him, and say,
'Ed, I don't feel jes' right t'wards you 'bout de way you treated me 'bout
dat cultivator.' Atter dat, de bad feelin' left me and Ed'd come over to
my place. In fac', he wuz here on de Sunday he died, he and some other
mens come to see me, and Ed set on de bed by me. He left atter a little
while and went to his mother-in-law's house, an' drapped dead face
down`ard on de ground.
"Well, 'tain't no use thinkin' 'bout all dat now, for its all pas' and
gone. But dem things'll come back to you sometimes, When you gits to
thinkin' of de pas'. Dat reminds me of a strange thing dat heppened to me
years ago. One day dis same Ed Seifert I's been talkin' 'bout an' me wuz
a-comin' through de woods where we'd been chippin' boxes for turpentine.
Dis has been a long time ago, and night overtook us on de way home. Me an'
Ed'd been talkin' about sperits, when all of a sudden one of dem come up
behin' us. We both heard it an' stopped, an' when we stopped she stopped.
You know long years ago women folks wore big skirts wid a heap of starched
clothes under dem. Well, dis sperit sounded jes' like a woman wid starched
skirts walking fast, and every step we'd take, she'd take a step. Dey
would sound zum, zum, zum, zum. We never said a word 'til we got home, and
I asked Ed if he heard dat sperit? He said 'Yes" and I told him by the 'turnel
God I did, too.
"Another time over on Bluff Creek in Mississippi, I wuz goin' up one
trail-like road one night wid another man, and we had to pass a old
cemetery, and he'd been teasin' me 'bout g'osts and' h'ants, when all a
sudden we heard dis sound like de wind blowin' through the grass. We had
to pass one more grave dat was by itself up de road from de cemetery, and
jes' 'fore gettin' dere we had to pass a big crape myrtle tree, when all a
sudden dis g'ost come right through dat tree an' went 'head of us, makin'
a noise jes' like de wind. I told dat man to let it go, for I guess it was
going to de grave ahead of us, and I sho' didn't want to interfere wid it.
It sho' scared us both, but I knowed if trusted God it couldn't hurt us.
I's always trusted him, and you see I'm still here.
"I come from a family of long livers anyhow," my ma lived to ninety-nine
years old and my grandfolks lived nearly dat long, too, so you see I's
liable to be here sometime yit, but I hopes not, for I's weak an' weary of
dis sinful world.
"Mos' all dis younger generation is agin me 'cause I tells dem of dere
sinful ways. But I's go'na fight for de Lord as long as I kin."
Week ending Aug. 18,
1939.
LIFE STORIES SERIES.
Isaac Grove, Retired Negro
Farmer, Hillsdale Road, Cottage Hill Ala. Mobile Co.
Ila B. Prine, Writer, Mobile, Ala.
Text from: Library of
Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writers' Project Collection
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