Papa Plows with Shorty or The Disaster in the Garden

Lewis Grundy was an old black man. He was my friend. And I loved him.

I first met Lewis when I was 6 years old, I probably had met him earlier but I was too young to remember the occasion. All I know is, he was a part of my life and my family until he moved away while I was attending LSU in the late 1970's.

Lewis was my Uncle Rigsby's hired man, he kept up the nine acre yard that my Aunt Letaine turned into a garden spot in our little town of Oakdale, LA.

She had dogwoods and azalea bushes, and bridal wreath planted all through this expanse of tall graceful pine trees, and Lewis kept these grounds manicured to a golf course standard. The place was a showpiece in the early spring, it reflected the grace that was my Aunt Letaine. Generations of southern tradition and standards of protocol had to be upheld. That's the way it was in the south. That is what we are!

Lewis left home when he was 10 years old, or there about, he told me. He didn't know exactly when he was born, but he had to pick a date when he signed up for Social Security. He thought he was 10 years old in 1915, so he and the lady at the Social Security picked a birthday for him.

It was May 8th, when he signed up, so he left that office with a Social Security card and a brand new birthday.

Lewis told me that his father was abusive, and he and his little brother, suffered under the old mans tyranny. Sometimes it was almost more than he could take.

In 1914 the old man promised to let them plant cotton on one acre of the ten acres the family farmed. This was in southeast Arkansas.

The boys had high hopes for the money they would earn. They plowed the ten acres, helped plant the cotton, chopped the weeds from it, and nursed that crop through the season. Finally came harvest time.

They picked the puffy white bolls from the sharp stalks dragging a cotton sack behind them in the hot sun. Lewis told me his fingers bled while picking that crop, but he didn't mind. All he could think of was what he was going to do with his share of the money. He was going to buy himself a mule, and he and his brother were going to go into business plowing fields on shares.

They harvested a whole bale of cotton from that one acre, and he rode with it on a wagon to the gin.

At the gin his father arrange to have the cotton processed and held on an account until the prices went up. Lewis figured the prices were good enough for him but his father said no. Prices plunged, his father lost on the entire crop and reneged on his promise to pay the boys.

He left one night with only the clothes on his back, a small jug of milk, and a wedge of corn bread. He didn't return to Arkansas or have any contact with his family until 65 years later. He was able to contact a sister that still lived on the family farm. He moved there to live out the rest of his life and reconnect with his family.

So, aged 10, or about, Lewis headed west. His life was hard. He worked the wheat harvest in Kansas, he rode the freight trains from place to place, he eventually made it to California where he worked as an agricultural laborer several years.

One night, he and two others were asleep in a boxcar when the train detectives found them. They beat Lewis so bad that he lost his left eye, one of the others boys was killed, at least that's what Lewis thought. When he regained consciousness he was laying in the dirt he struggled up and left the area as quickly as possible.

Lewis worked as a farm laborer most of his life until he wound up in Oakdale. There, he started working for my Aunt Letaine and Uncle Rigsby.

In the 1970's he decided to semi retire, and went from the hard work of tending my Aunt's gardens to smoking meat for my father's BBQ business.

My Papa had a BBQ kitchen at his house where he did most of the cooking for his business. Lewis would sit in the yard swing and roll cigarettes from a Bugle Tobacco pouch while the turkeys, briskets and hams smoked on Papa's massive pit. I used to sit with him and listen to him tell stories about his life.

One day, I was thumbing through a farm supply magazine and saw a complete set of harness.

"Lewis! Look at this, I'm gonna buy me some harness and teach my horse how to plow."

"Sho'nuff, you gonna buy some harness?"

"Well, I aim to," I said.

He sat there and chuckled.

"You just like yo Papa," he said. "He had him some harness once and it dint go over so well. He had me harness up Doctor Rigsby's hoss, Shorty, once. Said he was gonna teach him to plow too."

"What happened?" I asked him.

"Well, yo Uncle James finally turned loose of some o' dat money of his and bought hisself a tractor, on account of one o' his mules up and died. He sold t'other mule and loaded up all the trappin's and brought em up to Miss Letaine's and she gib em to yo Papa."

"Mista Vernon," that's my Dad, " tole me come spring, we's gonna harness up ole Shorty and plow up Miss Letaine's veggible garden."

"I says, now, Mista Vernon, how come you wanna bother poe ole Shorty when you's got a perfectly good tractor setting in de barn? Weren't nuttin' fer it, he was dead set on plowing up dat plot wit dat hoss. I seen dey wern't no talking' him out of it too!"

He took a pull on a crumply hand rolled cigarette and continued.

"Now, yo Uncle James had gib yo Papa ever thing too. Dey was turning plows and middle busters and harrows and collars and hames and trace chains and well dey was ever thang a body needed for plowing. "

"So, de day come and I fetched Shorty out of de field . De collar were a bit too big on him, account o' it was fer a mule, and de trace chains hung kinda low but we get all de trappings on him and a'just de chains so dey work and hitched a turning plow to him."

"Mista Vernon tole me to get out in front and lead him and he'd take up de reins at de plow and we'd see how it would go."

"And how it did go? By Cracky it went fas!"

"Well, it went purdy good at fust, I had to kinda hold him by his halter on account de harness required a broken bit and holding him by de bit mess up de driver so, I hook my hand in de top of de nose strap and sorta pulled him along. Mista Vernon coax him along behind and we finally got him to move ahead a little."

"He done alright at fust, he leaned into dat collar and fairly turned dat soft ground over."

"Den we gets to de far edge o'dee garten patch and der wus dis old stump. De point o' dat turning' plow musta hit a root coming off dat stomp cus it stopped ole Shorty dead. Dat skeert him and he reared right up on us."

"Well, now remember, I had my han hooked in his halter and he fairly lifted me right off de ground and, dat skeert him more, on account I yelled out startled like when he tossed me up in de air!"

"Well now Capn', that's all it took ,that hoss went plum crazy. He kick out and tangled his leg in de traces and de single tree, when he couldn't go forward on account of dat plow being stuck in de stump he started backing up. Mista Vernon saw him coming back at him and couldn't get out o dem reins fas enough. He fell backwards and here come Shorty backing over de single tree and de turning plow and your Papa too."

"Laws I donno how Mista Vernon dint get stomped on. It was a mess. Dat hoss was all in a tangle and skeered and now he got plum mad and started bucking and kicking! It was a site!"

"Yo Daddy scrambled out of dat mess somehow, and tried to get a hold of his head."

"Dat hoss went at him wit his teeth bared like a mad dog. He was dat riled up!"

"He kicked and reared and snorted and bucked and fell through de barb wire fence. When he got up, there he went.

"He lit out cross dat field as fas as he could go. He drug harness and plow and all three strands of dat fence along wit him too. Dem fence staples was zipping outta de fence post like bullets."

"I went over and hepped yo Papa up, on account of he dove for cover, and checked him ober for damage but he was good."

"He say, Luris, go fetch dat dam crazy hoss afore he kills hisself or somebody."

"I go off after him and finally cotched up wid him on account of he got plum tired out dragging dat line o' truck aroun'. He weren't but scratched up here an der but you Uncle James' harness weren't wuth fixing. I gathered it all up and Mista Vernon hauled it off somers."

"So, I don't 'allow yo Papa is gonna let you git no harness, no sir."

Lewis Grundy was my friend. And I loved him!

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