Old Josh: Fiddlesticks
[Ozark, Alabama, 1863]
Chapter Episode Two; 8/13/05 The sun was rising over Ozark, Alabama, soldiers were here and there, bivouacked in pastures, alongside of roads, eating breakfast, marching, exercising, brushing down mares, etc. Some of the soldiers didn't even have uniforms, the Confederates. Old Josh was waving his hands with an old can stick, hollering at a Captain in a gray uniform, shaving alongside his tent, as his wagon passed by: "Yawl gonter los, Is bee a free man den!" Then he said some think like "Hooraw!..." several times. He rode in the back of the wagon, holding on to, two sacks of salt on his lap (as his son Tyrone, scooted on down the dirt path); they had been to town and purchased it for their owner, Mr. Charles Hightower, a retired country gentleman, who had been in these parts of Alabama ever since"or so it seemed"Alabama was Alabama. The plantation was but ten miles up the road. "Pappy, yawl wants to git us in a heap of trouble, jes yu tote dat salt and nummine cusses to the gray sojers. Yos hears me?" Said old Josh to his thirty-three year old son, "Yus han me dat whup, I sho the gry whos I is, a'd yu too; get dem out of de south for god. Hops dhe blue ketch dem and kild dem." "Stop dat cussen pappy, yous goine git us in trouble talken like dat. Yus the onliest one I's ev'r her tak like thut!" says Tyrone. "Fiddlesticks, I's fixin to whup you nigger, den wht's you goina do, asks the gray to helps yu! Yu aint hat any to say whuts I gots ta say. Wher Mr. Hihter, hes sittin his hom doin nothen, watchin us po' folks do his wok." "Yessum," said Tyrone, "wes be back in an hour or so, efs we make hit 'fore yus git us kild by the gray! ...yus keep talkin dhis away." "De Lawd giv de land to whit fok on'y?" said old Josh. "I reckon," said Tyrone, adding, "tole you more dat, nummine me"yu's jes an old man." "Da owns yo flesh, a'd day wants yo soul...yus blind as dhe bat boy; dhe'd got me freedom, don work dhe plantation all mi life." "They now stopped at the plantation; Old Josh hobbling into the back area behind the barns, where the huts were, where he slept, in what was something like a row of shanties. Waving his stick in the air, shaking it, spurts of hollering at the gray-coats (Confederates), which was some ten miles back, saying something to the effect: '...fiddlesticks...; and just caring on as if in his own world, then he turned to see how his son was, he was taking the horse into the barn, and had dismantled the wagon, Josh, saying low, "Dis is America, dis is dhe great land of freedom...." |
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