Of Castles and Homes

Last week, we learned of a mysterious farm hand in the Depression-era Arkansas Delta. Here is an account of the same man from a different voice.

The Last Cotton Boll

II

Sure, I can tell you about the one that they called Ferd Starling. You ready? Where should I start? Maybe by stating up front that I knew him before it happened just enough to recognize him. I knew which of the “shotgun shacks” was his and that’s why I knew him. When Daddy and Momma first got married they lived in that house for awhile until they could afford to move over on the Taylor place and that’s where we were living when I saw him the first time.

He drove up in one of Mr. Easter’s wagons one day while I was in the front yard chopping wood. I don’t think he looked any different than any other––a little bigger maybe. There was something about him that made you think he was a little smarter. I don’t know what it was, just a feeling or something in the way he talked. He stopped the wagon and I stopped chopping and he asked me if I was the Hinson boy. It come to me to ask why he wanted to know, but instead I just said that yes I was Timmie and could I help.

Was it my folks that used to live on the Easter place he asked and I said that was what I understood but I didn't live there long. I grew up on this place.

Come over here he said and again it come to me to ask why but instead I walked over. He reached under his seat and pulled out a greasy paper sack and handed it to me and I looked inside. There wasn’t anything in it but an old brown curved woman’s comb and I looked back at him, probably with a question on my face.

He said he found it behind the cook-stove in the house and since we had been the only family lived there in anyone’s memory that had a lady in the house he thought it might belong to my Momma. It’s tortoise shell he said and asked me if I knew what that meant and I said no and he said it was made from a turtle shell, only turtles around here weren’t big enough to make them from and this had been made from some turtle that lived a long way from here. He asked me if I had ever been out of Arkansas.

I said no and then thanked him and said I would ask Momma if it was hers. I wasn’t much interested in women’s stuff and I guess he knew that for then he asked me if I wanted to see something. When I didn’t answer, he reached under the seat and pulled out the prettiest 22-rifle I had ever seen in my life. Every inch of it was polished like it just came out of the box. I whistled and he asked if I wanted to hold it and of course I said yes I would.

He pulled the bolt back and checked the chamber and handed it down to me. I knew that I never had, and thought that I probably never would, hold anything that pretty in my hands, ever again. If I had owned that whole farm that Momma and Daddy were helping to sharecrop, I would have traded it to him for that rifle. Where did he get it I asked and he just said that a man who taught him a trade and other things left it to him when he died.

It is a beauty I said and handed it back to him real slow. He put it back under the seat and then reached behind him and pulled up three dead squirrels tied with a string. He handed them down to me and said give them to Momma along with the comb and she could cook up a meal that had come from that gun. I thanked him and then he said maybe I’ll see you again sometime and I said maybe so and he drove off.

It turned out it was Momma’s comb and it had belonged to her grandmother and probably was bought at Memphis when they were moving west. She said it was a nice thing for him to do. She had never expected to see it again and had been real bothered by that. She wouldn’t cook the squirrels, though, for she said she didn’t know where they had been nor how long they had been shot but I wasn’t to tell him that if I saw him again —just thank him for the comb and that was all.

I did see him again not long after that... He walked by one day in early fall carrying that rifle and a bag and saw me in the front yard and of course I stared straight at the gun.

He called me over and said he was going to Beauford’s Bayou to hunt squirrels. It was a kind of misty day with not much of a breeze and he said it was just the right weather for “still hunting.” Then he thought for a second and said that I might ask my folks if I could go. I said they and my little brother had all gone with my Momma’s uncle to Pine Bluff to visit and wouldn’t be back home ‘til after dark.

He just nodded and started to walk away. Then I yelled after him that I was sure it wouldn’t bother them. So he said come on then, let’s go.

We walked along together and he asked if I had hunted much. I said some but my Daddy worked so hard we had but little time. He asked if I had my own rifle and I said we didn’t have but one and it was an old one that had some rusty spots. But it shot pretty straight and hard, I thought, for such an ancient gun.

Well sometimes old things is good he said and we could always learn from them. We were to the bayou by then and didn’t talk much more. We walked out of the sunlight and into the dark woods along the muddy stream. It was only a little ways from the road and the cotton fields but it seemed like a different world. I always liked it there. We found a likely spot and sat down so any breeze would carry behind us. After a while, the woods just seemed to forget we were there. The mist settled on us real slow but it wasn’t enough to get you wet before it dried. I tried not moving a single muscle and thought about how some Indian probably hunted once in this very spot. I don’t know what Ferd thought about. He just stared out into the forest and nodded his head every once in awhile.

Sure enough, before long a whole family of squirrels came out to play and once they had climbed a giant oak, we moved into place. I didn’t even dare ask him but I suppose he knew what I was thinking for he whispered and asked if I wanted to shoot one. Sure I whispered back. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a few greasy looking shells along with a couple of matches and a pocket knife. He picked one of the shells and loaded into the rifle and handed it to me. He pointed to a large squirrel that had heard us by now and had frozen in perfect sight along a huge limb. I took careful aim and I’m sure I rushed it too much for we saw the bark fly a good foot or so behind the squirrel.

To my surprise it didn’t move and I handed the rifle back to Ferd. He said no, it was my squirrel and to try again. Don’t jerk it this time, boy, he said. Take your aim and then just pull your whole body tight all at one time like you was trying to make yourself small. I did just what he said and we both smiled when we saw the squirrel tumble off the limb and fall and then hit the ground with that thud that any squirrel hunter loves to hear. He said I would be a real hunter.

Neither of us had a way of knowing that six years later I would show a boy from New Jersey how to shoot Germans the same way.

We shot three more and then started home. I thanked him for the trip and said that Momma thanked him for the comb and he said take the squirrels with me. I tried to say no but he just said he was going to be too busy to cook any squirrels and I should take them. I didn’t want them to go to waste but I couldn’t help but remember the last time, though I didn’t tell.

Then he said something that struck me as odd. He said he really wasn’t that interested in hunting for squirrels. He was just out observing how trees were formed and he needed an excuse to be in the woods alone. His ways were different, I suppose.

It turned out that after I vouched for the squirrels, Momma did cook them although she was upset about the fact that I took off without telling anybody. She knew I was growing up, though, and she could tell it had been a real good time for me and she went ahead and let me enjoy the thought of it for she said folks like us didn’t have enough good times in life. I’ve thought many times, after it happened, that she was so right.

It started out innocent enough as most things do. It was a few weeks later and we were using up one of those fall Saturdays. It was me and the two Cooper boys and Bobby Skinner and of course Ricky Pickens who had got the whole trip up and who, as everyone knows by now, was responsible for what happened although others suffered for what he done.

We were what we called hunting although really we were just wandering through the cotton fields looking for something to shoot. The crops were all in and we walked through the dead, empty stalks. They would rattle when the wind blew and it was a little spooky like they were cotton-stalk ghosts trying to talk to one another. We were spread out, each with a rifle though the Cooper boys only had one between them so they had to take turns. They would get to arguing about whose time it was and Ricky would have to stop us and straighten it out. Goddamn it he would yell, you are scaring off any game within twenty miles so one of you take the goddamn gun till we get halfway across this field and then the other take it the other half. It wasn’t working too well, however, for they would start to argue again before we went fifty yards.

So Ricky was in a bad mood and it threatened to ruin the whole day and I was really getting ready to go back home. It helped a little when we found an empty Yellowstone Whiskey bottle. Ricky made us take turns throwing it up in the air while we tried to shoot it but none of us could. I tried a couple of times but didn’t have but a few bullets and didn’t want to use them up on such an impossible shot as that. So I quit and pretty soon so did the others except Ricky who seemed to have taken it on as a personal trial and kept shooting and making us, one after the other, throw it up for him.

We soon got tired and said that we weren’t going to throw it up for him anymore and that seemed to make him madder than ever. He called us a bunch of sissies and said we weren’t coming next time and that he would just bring some girls along and we could all go straight to hell. He had a mean street like that and that was the cause of our little run-in a year later on the main street in Armistead. But, back to that day, he was already in a bad mood when we reached the edge of the field and came out right up in front of Ferd’s house.

It sat there like every other shack up and down the road. It did have one old oak tree in front that had never been cut down. On the other sides, though, the cotton had been planted right up to the house except for a well and outhouse in back. It almost looked like it had grown right up out of the ground, along with the cotton. In the back it looked like he had at least two cords of wood cut up and stacked. He was ready for the winter.

Ricky said he was thirsty and let’s go make him get us a drink but I said I had to get home. He said he couldn’t make it home without a drink of water first and asked the others if they wasn’t thirsty too. Naturally they said yes and Ricky started off toward the cabin yelling for Ferd to come outside.

Nobody came and then Ricky went up to the door and knocked. Still nobody came so he opened the door. There wasn’t anyone there so he just walked in. I figured he would take a quick look and leave but then he hollered look at this shit, just come and look and the others walked toward the door.

I yelled Ricky let’s go but the others walked in too and they started yelling come look at this. It suddenly occurred to me that they might have found the gun so I walked in too.

It took a second or two to see in the dark room but I could see what they were talking about. There was a kitchen in back and a front room where Ferd stayed and that’s where we were. I knew we were in violation but I could no more move than the rest of them. There on one whole wall were pictures drawn on writing paper that were prettier than any book I ever saw. Buildings mostly—but buildings like none I had ever seen before. I didn’t know it then but they were cathedrals like they have in France and Italy. I’ve seen them since, but standing there that day I had never seen any thing like it. The sheets were tacked to the wall with roofing nails and in some places there would be six of them put together for one big drawing. Building after building seeming to be held the ground by little stone webs coming from the top and arching to the ground. Some of the sheets had small drawings of how stones and bricks fit together and notes written in the neatest handwriting I had ever seen.

I looked around and then I saw the books—row upon row. Ferd had made shelves from bricks and some old barn lumber and there were rows of books stacked against one wall. There was a table made of bricks and an old door covered with a piece of cardboard. And there in one corner was a bed made up as neat as you please. It was the strangest thing. In the other corner was an old stuffed chair and a wood heater and between them was an ancient table with a coal oil lamp on it.

We were stunned. The room got still and all we could hear was the sound of our breathing. It was deathly quiet.

Then we heard a loud thump and nearly jumped out of our skin. I was closest to the door and hated like anything in the world to look but I knew I had to. I turned and looked at the front door. There was nobody there. I walked to the door and down the steps and heard the knocking again. It was coming from the side of the house so I walked around and then I saw it. A large cotton boll, dried up and never opened, was swaying from a stalk in the wind and knocking against the side of the house. Just a cotton boll, that’s all it was and I yelled inside and told them and said let’s go.

They didn’t come out and I yelled again and then I heard Ricky say you son of a bitch you goddamned son of a bitch, who do you think you are? I yelled back and said what’s wrong and he kept yelling you son of a bitch. Then I heard a loud noise and I ran to the steps and looked in. Ricky was swinging something against the wall with the pictures on it and I yelled stop.

He just kept swinging as the pictures started flying off the wall. He said you sorry son of bitch , I’ll be goddamned if you do this and he kept on swinging and then he told Bobby to turn the goddamned table over and he started to do it and I yelled stop and started in and then he turned on me. Either help or get the hell out he said and I said stop this right now and said I would tell the Sheriff and he said we’ll be through before the Sheriff can come and go right on and tell him.

I’ll stop you myself I said and started in. That’s when they all turned to face me and I saw Ricky had a poker in his hand and the others all had a brick.

Come ahead Ricky said and we will fix you too. Now help or get the hell out he said and the others looked at me too. Looks of hate and anger ran down their faces like drool from a mad dog’s.

I said once more let’s get out and they all took a step towards me at the same time.

I backed down the steps and Bobby stood watch at the door while the others started in laughing and tearing the place up. I heard books hit the floor and sound of paper tearing. Please Bobby I said, you know this aint’ right I told him again but he just said get the hell on and it won’t concern you.

Oh no Ricky don’t do that I heard one of the Cooper boys say and I heard the splashing of water. I felt sick to my stomach and Bobby said get the hell on again.

I think about that decision a lot. There were four of them and one of me and we were a mile from the nearest house. We had stacked our rifles against the Oak tree and I backed up to where they were and picked mine up without turning around. I didn’t trust Bobby in this mood.

I held my rifle and looked at the house again. The knocking about had stopped and then I heard one of the Cooper boys laughing and yelling oh my god Ricky and then they both squealed and I backed up to the road and turned and left them there. I remember thinking I hope they don’t find his rifle but of course it turned out they didn’t and I went back home.

I told the Sheriff my side of the story and even the rest of them agreed I wasn’t in on it but to me that never meant I wasn’t as guilty as the rest. He—the Sheriff—was asking lots of questions about it but I heard that Mr. Pickens came to see him and the questions stopped. I never had anything to do with the rest of them after that except for beating up Ricky Pickens in the Main Street of Armistead a year later which made a reputation for me in town and it wasn’t a bad one. It was over mistreating a shoeshine boy though, and didn’t have anything to do with what they did to Ferd. At least I don’t suppose it did.

Ferd taught me some things and for that I am grateful. Those were different times back then, when colored people didn’t have what you might call rights or anything. They had to be so careful. So I wasn’t his friend or anything. Even if I had known him better, there would have been this wall between us. He just taught me some things, that’s all. I’ve always tried to learn from people whenever I could.

That’s about what I know about the affair, or what I care to remember. There was this one other thing. Years and many experiences later, after the storm of 1947, I was farming near Ferd’s old place and I found a crumpled sheet of paper that had blown into the hollow of a tree, laying there like it was a treasure map or something. I guess it blew there in all the commotion. It was faded and stained and almost fell apart in my hands. But I was able to unfold it and recognized the drawing and handwriting as Ferd’s. It was a part of one of the pictures of a church he had drawn. He had written on it:

Oh mighty structure.

The glorious buttress!

 So far to soar for man.

Someone had taken a pencil and changed it to:

Oh mighty strut
The glorious butt!

So fart for man.

I guess they thought that was funny.

To be continued …