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he come to me and he picked me up by the arm and he held me up and he wore out a switch nearly on me, then dropped me back down. That was the first whippin he ever give me bout plowin. I just wasn’t big enough for the job, that’s the truth.
    And that country where we was livin was rough and rocky. And he—my poor old daddy is dead and gone but I don’t tell no lies on him—he put me to plowin a regular shift at twelve, thirteen years old. And I had to plow barefooted on that rocky country; anything liable to skin up my feet. And he’d go off, take his gun every mornin and hit the woods, practically every mornin, hit the woodsand the swamps, huntin. And he was a marksman if there ever has been one. He’d go off with his gun and come back just loaded with game—shootin a old double barrel muzzle-loader too. You’d pour your powder in it and put you some paper in there and pack that powder tight. And he kept little sacks full of shot in his huntin pocket. Put that powder in the gun barrel, pack it down in there, then put his shot in there, charge of shot, push it down to that powder, just tamp it in place. You couldn’t pack the shot in there; you could pack the powder close as you please, but when you put the shot in, pack it light. Then he’d pull them hammers back, take out his cap box, and set a little old cap on there—that’s muzzle-loader style. Then he’d shoulder that double barrel muzzle-loader up. It was a long gun, too, longer than the average breech-loader.
    And so he’d hunt and some mornins he’d tell his wife, my stepmother, “Give Nate his breakfast—” and he’d get his gun and step out the door, bolt across the woods, across the swamps, and he was gone. “Give Nate his breakfast and let him get to plowin quick as he can.” And he’d go off and hunt until late time of day.
    White people used to say—them Clays, we lived close to the Clay family: “Hayes sure is a hard worker,” and laugh about it. “Hayes is a hard worker. But he’s workin to keep from work.” That was funny to me too, but it was all the truth.
    I’ve known my daddy to kill more wild turkeys, wild ducks, and catch more fish in Sitimachas Creek up between Beaufort and Pottstown—we lived on the upper end of the creek close to Apafalya and Litabixee. And my daddy would catch fish, great God almighty. Catch em in baskets, two or three baskets; sometimes he’d catch more fish than the settlement could eat. And he’d get him some steel traps and go down to the creek—trap eels. Fish, eels, wild turkeys, wild ducks, possums, coons, beavers, squirrels, all such as that. But he wouldn’t shoot a rabbit if it jumped up before him; just didn’t fancy rabbits out of all the beasts of the forests and fields.
    Sometimes he’d come back off his hunt and come across the field—he knowed where he said for me to plow. He’d expect to find me there and he’d find me there. I’d be plowin right along and the old mule I was plowin or old horse, whatever he had, he’d begin to throw up his head, turn around and look at me and kick at the plow—I knowed I was in for a whippin then. Because it didn’t suit my daddy to have his mule actin up like that and his boy can’t controlhim, and me barefooted too, just a little old boy plowin in that rough land. I’d go on plowin and my daddy’d just stand off in a row until I plowed up pretty close to him. He’d say, “Nate.”
    â€œYes sir?”
    â€œWhat sort of plowin is this you doin here? What sort of plowin is this you doin?”
    He was like to blow me down. I’d tell him, “I’s doin the best I can, Papa, I’s doin the best I can.”
    Next word, “Drop them britches. Drop them britches.”
    He run around then to the old horse mule and begin to untie one of the lines from the