I drove over to Charlie’s Truck Stop this past week through a steady downpour. We have had more rain this year than I can remember for quite some time. I hear the environmentalists complaining about global warming. I know folks around this part of the country who are more concerned with global wetting. I pulled up to the gas pumps in front of the store and shut off the windshield wipers and killed the motor. Jake came out and asked if I wanted some gas in my car. It was just something to say as he was already getting ready to put the gas in as he asked. I told him to fill the tank and stood there with him under the overhang as he pumped the gas. The rain was coming down steady, but there was no wind to speak of. We stood there with the rain making a steady beat on the tin covered overhang. Jake said this has been one of the wettest years he can remember and I agreed. In actual fact, we don’t have much to base our weather assumptions on. If it has rained for several days, folks in my area say it is the wettest they have seen it. On the other hand, if we have a week of hot and dry weather, folks say it is the hottest summer they can remember. All weather is relative.
Jake finished with the gas and asked about Mutt, wondering why he was not in the car as he has been lately when I drive up. I told Jake I had been out on the road most of the day making business calls and I had left Mutt at home. I had seen several clients and passed over an hour talking with each of them about their accounts and there would have been nothing for Mutt but to sit alone in the car. I thought he would be happier running around free at home. Jake said I was likely correct. We were just making conversation. I followed Jake into the store to pay for the gas and to get some dog food. Mutt is not a big dog, but he can put away the dog food. Seems I am always running low. Mister Johnson was sitting over by the pot belly stove in his accustomed chair and I went over to speak with him. Hermann Spencer was there as was Bob Havershold and Willard Smith. Mister Johnson was telling one of his yarns. I was happy to see Mister Johnson feeling good enough to be out and about again. I walked up to the stove and leaned on it. The weather is still warm enough that Jake does not keep a fire in the stove most of the time. Mister Johnson was telling a story from his boyhood when things were not quite so civilized as they are now.
“I was just a small child back then,” Mister Johnson was saying. “There were some young folks in the community that liked to pull pranks and some of those pranks had got plum out of hand. It had come to a face off between those boys and one of my father’s friends. The boys, young men actually, sneaked over one night and set this man’s barn on fire. In those days, this being a farming community and all, most of what a man owned was tied up in his barn. The loft was often filled with loose hay and, if you got a fire started in that hay, there was not much you could do about it but watch your barn burn to the ground.
“Well, my father’s neighbor happened to see these young hoodlums running from the barn after it was set afire and he went to the law to file charges. There was to be a hearing and a Mister Hardley, one of the bigger white farmers in the area, had some evidence he was promised to give in the case. You got to remember this was back in the old days when some people thought they could get away with anything they wanted with black folks. These young hoodlums had a chance to get away with their crime if there wasn’t nobody but black folks to complain against them, but if this Mister Hardley, a white man, gave his evidence it could become a whole different story.
“The young hoodlums rode over to the Hardley home on their horses one evening. This was back before people had cars and electricity and such. They rode over and called to Mister Hardley to come out of his house to talk. I was pretty good friends with Mister Hardley’s younger boy, Jimmy, and I was staying the night with him. I remember we was eating supper when we heard those young men outside calling to Mister Hardley. Jimmy’s father got up from the table and went to the front door and stepped outside. He talked with the young hoodlums for a few minutes, then he eased back inside the front door and motioned for Jimmy’s mother to hand him his shotgun. She did and Mister Hardley stepped back onto the front porch. There was some more talk and Mister Hardley said he was going to give his evidence and wasn’t no threats going to discourage him. The young men left saying Mister Hardley should be careful to see his own barn didn’t catch fire.
“Now Mister Hardley was well off for this area and he had one of the finest barns around. He decided to spend nights in his barn until the hearing, just in case the young hoodlums tried to make good on their threat. Jimmy told me later he was on the back porch with his mother and father as his father was preparing to go to the barn for the night when they saw a spark in the hay loft. It was late in the day after sunset getting on toward dusk and that spark showed up pretty good. Mister Hardley knew it was too late for his barn, but he ran out fast as he could with his shotgun and caught the young men leaving the barn. He shot at them and knocked the hat off one of them and caught the other in the leg. He got his animals out of the barn but, once the fire was started, there was no way to save the barn. Mister Hardley bought himself a thirty-eight revolver he carried for years saying if he ever saw those young men, he would shoot them dead. He never saw them and there was never any hearing. The young men left the country. Some said they moved to Missouri, but no one around here ever saw them again.”
I told Mister Johnson I was glad to see him out and about, then I took my dog food home through the pouring rain.
END
