Solomon. Marilyn Bishop Shaw
late-season tomatoes and peas, she added, “My little garden isn’t what I’d like it to be either, but it’s done as well as can be expected against the deer and rabbits taking their share and more.” The diminutive woman stood straight and added, “But, we aren’t starving, and not likely to.” Moses knew he would continue working as hard as he could day after day and time would tell their story.
Solomon, a small, wiry eleven-year-old, worked the same long days his parents worked. He did a lot of hand labor—fetching tools, hauling out roots and limbs from newly cleared land, tending the animals. He was also learning to plow the mule. He wasn’t strong enough to manage straight planting rows, but could rough break new land.
Early one May morning, Moses deemed that they had broken enough ground to begin the corn planting, so off they went with Sunny and a little sack of seeds. Moses led the way making long straight rows with the wing plow. Moses’ footprints made a straight path, closer together than a normal stride because of the loose dirt. Into each footprint, Solomon dropped a kernel of corn.
When the two acres were planted, Moses unhitched Sunny from the plow and left him to graze, and he took Sudie with the rope drag into the woods to chop down pine trees. It seemed like they’d never get enough trees cut down to even begin a house. Solomon moved back to the start of the first row of corn and threw dirt from each side on top of the seeds so the corn would grow straight and tall. The hoe he used was a good foot and a half taller than Solomon, but he handled it with a practiced hand. “A body can get mighty thirsty, this heat and hard work,” Solomon said right out loud. He dropped the hoe with four rows to go and trotted toward the stream for a cold drink.
Moses unharnessed Sudie to graze and returned to the camp tired, hands blistered, arms scraped and scratched. Lela had finished putting in her kitchen garden with okra, collard greens, and onions. She was less scraped up, but just as tired as Moses. “Where’s Solomon?” her husband asked.
“I don’t know,” she said with a start. “I thought he was with you.”
“He was till we finished layin’ out the corn.” They were already moving toward the cornfield. “I left ’im to cover the rows and I cut some more trees.”
Everything looked perfectly right, until he discovered the last four rows of corn seed still open to the elements. His hands clinched and his hulking body began to tremble. “Tarnation and the devil! That boy done left a job ag’in.” Lela stepped back and didn’t say a word. She didn’t dare when Moses was in a trembling spell.
Stomping and boiling, Moses looked in all directions without finding their son. His anger boomed through the woods. “Solomon Freeman! You get here, boy. NOW!”
The scrub rattled a disturbance and Moses saw the boy heading back toward the field. “Why, there he is, Lela. There be the master of the house.” The boy’s steps slowed, recognizing the tempest. “Oh, my, wouldn’t I just love to have me some time to waste.” Moses’ voice boomed, “Boy, get here.”
“I’m here, Papa.” Solomon stood as distant as he thought he could get away with.
Opening and clinching his fists time after time and drawing in a deep breath, Moses spoke with dangerous control. “Step in, boy, step in and face it.” Solomon did what he was told. “Me and your Mama workin’ hard as bodies can work to make this place go and you take time to idle away the afternoon doin’ God knows what. Speak for yourself.”
“I’m sorry, Papa,” Solomon began.
“You always sorry. I wants to know where you been.”
“At the stream.” The words tumbled to build an explanation. “I worked steady, Papa, until late and I got powerful thirsty. It don’t take but a minute to run down to the stream and get a drink and cool down a little.”
“Musta been mighty hot, take you hours to cool down.”
Solomon’s, “No, sir,” was met with a grunt. “I got the drink and washed my face some. Then, there was a rabbit and I got it with my sling. We ain’t had meat in a few days and I thought a rabbit would fit pretty good over the fire.”
“That what took you rest of the afternoon?”
“No, sir.” Solomon knew he’d fare better if he faced his father right out. “No, sir, that wasn’t it. I gutted the rabbit and washed up. Then I headed back to finish the corn. But, I noticed a little trail under the brush and built a snare so’s I could catch another rabbit.”
“Humph. Just playing boy’s games when there’s work to be done.”
“No, sir. ’Tweren’t play, Papa,” the words had barely been spoken when his head recoiled from the back of his father’s hand. Lela moaned, but offered no other protest.
“Nothing wrong with the rabbit, boy. But the rest of the work still to git done. You gots to do your part.” Moses’ words were measured carefully, as he came back to reason. “I don’t ’spect a man’s load from you yet. Don’t ask you to do nothing you ain’t able. Now, finish the corn and see to the animals. They be any left, you can have supper.” Lela lingered long enough to be sure that the trickle of blood from his lip was the boy’s worst injury. Then she turned to follow her husband.
While Moses put Sudie in the lot and washed up, Lela put the rabbit Solomon had handed her on a spit over the fire, turning it occasionally as she warmed up the morning’s biscuits and boiled down some poke greens. Moses sat heavily on the log with the water dipper in his hand, and stared into the fire. “Biscuits and poke greens don’t stand up so good on they own. Rabbit go good tonight.”
“Uh-huh.” Lela waited, knowing he would talk soon.
Lela’s patience paid its dividend. “I didn’t hurt him, Lela.”
“No, you didn’t hurt him, not on the outside.” Lela sat and laid a gentle hand on Moses’ arm. “He works hard, Moses, harder than most men. And, he doesn’t act carelessly a purpose.”
“I know it,” Moses said, quietly. “It just sets me afire for him to do his wanderin’ afore he’s finished the work.”
“Is that all it is, Moses?”
“You do know me, don’t you, Lela? I guess it cuts me that he don’t like the farmin’ like I do. Have to say he a mighty help putting a little meat on the table.”
Giving the spit a turn, Lela smiled to herself and turned back to Moses. “When we got freedom, it was for all of us—maybe Solomon more than us. Why don’t you talk with him quiet like about doing his chores and let him know you appreciate his gift for the woods. That would mean the world to him. He looks up to you, you know.”
Moses knew she was right. “I’m tryin’ to get used to it, Lela.” He looked back at the fire. “That’s a fine big rabbit. They be plenty for all three of us to eat our fill.”
“Yes, Moses, there’s plenty for all three.”
3
The homestead was centered on a flat spot with a few small natural clearings. That meant fewer trees had to be cut down right away. The combination corncrib and mule shed with its attached mule lot were the first to be built. It was a small, pieced-together structure started with the few saw boards Moses brought from Georgia. Added to that were even fewer boards he spent all but his last coin on in Gainesville when he went to the land office to register their homestead. Pine logs for support poles, an assortment of rough-hewn boards, and an extra thick thatched roof would have to do until Moses had time to improve it.
Any good farmer knew that if he didn’t take care of his animals and his harvest neither of them would do him any good. And Moses Freeman was a good farmer. He had taken in everything he could during his lifetime of fieldwork on Harrison Walker’s Georgia plantation. He learned so well that he was given responsibilities, and even a few privileges, rare for a slave.
Aside from the fieldwork,