Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 14:15:22 -0700
From: Macout Mann <macoutmann@yahoo.com>
Subject: In the Great Depression 8

This story is designed to show what life was like in the rural Southeastern
United States in the 1930s.  It covers several weeks during the summer of
1934.  I have researched as carefully as I could to make the dialogue and
events as authentic as possible.  It does contain examples of homosexual
sex, so please be warned!  The events depicted are totally fictional, and
any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.  Actual
places and products are referred to for the sole purpose of adding
authenticity to the story.

Please also be aware that nifty.org could not exist without contributions
from readers.  Please donate.  Donate what you are comfortable giving.  It
doesn't have to be a lot, but it means a lot to have each reader contribute
something.

It also means a lot to us authors to know that our work is being read and
appreciated...or not.  Please contact me at macoutmann@yahoo.com and let me
know you are enjoying or hating the story.


Copyright 2014 by Macout Mann.  All rights reserved.




                              IN THE GREAT DEPRESSION

                                  by Macout Mann



                                     Part 8

                             Blackberries and Snakes


During breakfast next morning Aunt Mary mentions that cook needs
blackberries for the Fourth of July.  Uncle Luke suggests that Jason and
Christopher gather them.

"Golly, Uncle Luke," Jason says.  "I saw a big blackberry patch over on the
old place that afternoon we went to see that still.  Can we go over there?
I'd like to show Christopher the still too."

"Well we pretty much disabled the still, so I don't think the bootleggers
will be around; so why not?  Dedra can make you all some sandwiches, and
you can show Chris more of the plantation."

Although the sixteen hundred acres are adjacent to the six-hundred-forty
acre home place, most of the old place has actually lain fallow for many
years.  A number of acres are planted in cotton or corn.  Several more are
used for grazing.  Most are forest.  Hardwoods and cedar.  In fact, what
reduction in the principal of the mortgages on the plantation has been
possible was from selling timber.  Buyers from the Lane Cedar Chest Company
pass through every four or five years.

Uncle Luke agrees that Christopher might ride Rowan, a stallion who is
younger than Maude but still gentle.

Dedra puts the boys' lunches in a saddle bag; they mount their steeds and
soon are trotting alongside the straight rows of cotton at the edge of the
old place.  The plants are good sized, but it will be a month to six weeks
before the bowls are ready to be picked.

Seeing the pasture beyond the cotton field, Christopher asks, "Why doesn't
Uncle Luke plant more cotton with all this land?"

"One reason is the Agricultural Adjustment Act which Congress passed last
year," Jason tells him.  "Cotton is one of the row crops the government
wants to discourage farmers from planting.  The idea is that if there's
less produced, the price will go up, and the farmers will make more money.
I do think we get a payment from the government if we don't grow as much.

"Another reason is that when picking time comes, it's got to be picked
quickly; and the pickers have to be paid.  So Uncle Luke only plants as
much as the hands that live on the place can pick.

"We don't get paid for the crop until it's ginned and sold."

"I guess I see," Christopher says.

"When Uncle Luke plants corn," Jason continues, "he plants feed corn.
Enough for our livestock for a couple of years.  The plantation produces
really fine hogs--you were saying how good the ham we had the other day
was—well they bring a real good price.  The reason is that they're fed
corn during the winter.

"The sweet corn that we eat grows in the vegetable garden behind the
house."

Adjacent to the cultivated field is a larger open area, which used to be
planted.  Now it's just weeds.  As the boys emerge, Christopher's shanks
evidently communicate something unintended to Rowan's flanks.  Rowan
gallops off like a thoroughbred with Christopher helplessly holding on,
Jason in hot pursuit.

After chasing the runaway a couple of hundred yards, Jason finally grabs
Rowan's reigns and brings him to a halt.

"Gosh, that was exciting," Christopher says.

"What the hell happened," Jason asks.

"I don't know," Christopher responds.  "I was going to catch up to you, and
zoom...he was gone."

"Well, if it ever happens again, pull back on the reigns as hard as you
can," Jason orders, "and yell `whoa.'  Yelling may not help, but it'll make
you feel better."

From then on, though, Rowan behaves.

Beyond the meadow Jason leads Christopher to what is left of the original
plantation house.  A victim of fire as well as neglect, only a small
section still has a roof.  Most is just a pile.  Partial walls, chimneys,
brick pillars, even parts of ancient tree trunks that supported the beams
of the original house.

The shape of the house can easily be divined, however.  The original
building could hardly be called "a log cabin," although it was hewn of
native timber.  It was four rooms.  Over the years the building was
expanded somewhat haphazardly, as Samuel's family grew and his fortunes
blossomed.  It finally contained sixteen rooms, all on one floor,
surrounded by ample veranda.

The boys entertain themselves by imagining which rooms were used for what
and by whom.  They decide to picnic in what appears to have been the dining
room, an area twelve by twenty-four feet.

Dedra has sent tomato sandwiches, baked ham sandwiches, carrot sticks,
figs, pecan pie, and a thermos of orangeade from the extra oranges brought
back from town yesterday.  The boys gorge themselves.  The horses also
feast on the tender shoots nearby.

Next Jason leads them to the still.  "Aint never seen how they make liquor,
have ya?" he asks Christopher.

"Na.  I'm seeing a lot of shit for the first time," Christopher admits.

The still is still further into the woods.  Luke and Jason have pretty well
demolished it, but Jason can tell Christopher what it looked like and how
it works, but it's obvious he's not fully informed about distillery.

"Uncle Luke says these guys could've killed themselves.  You gotta use
copper, if you're not goanna get poisoned.  But over here was the pot."  It
was a barrel that would hold maybe twenty gallons.  They put the mash in
there.  The mash was the corn and sugar and I guess some other stuff.
Anyway, here's where the fire was.  They boiled the mash and the steam went
through these tubes and back and forth or something, but anyway it wound up
here in those buckets.  And that was goanna be `white light'ning.'"

As inexact as the description is, Christopher gets the picture.

"Mr. Simpson goes over to Louisiana sometimes.  Sometimes, I think he may
bring some legal Bourbon back for Uncle Luke and I guess for others.  For
medicinal purposes only," Jason giggles.

"Drinking's not a problem up East," Christopher says.  "Mom and Dad have
cocktails all the time.  Sometimes he even gives me a sip or two."

"My folks don't drink at all.  I know there are bootleggers in town,
though."

"Being someplace where you can't get stuff just makes you want it more,"
Christopher opines.  He scratches his balls.  "I almost went crazy 'til I
found out you and I are into the same things," he adds.

Jason responds by scratching his.  "Aint nobody out here spying on us," he
giggles.

Soon they are doing what comes naturally, distilling a different kind of
liquid.  They take turns sucking and edging each other, until finally each
shoots distillate down the other's throat.


"I love to do stuff out in the open," Christopher admits, as he buckles up.
"Don't even care if somebody's watching, as long as it's not a cop.

"Near where we live is Prospect Park.  It's huge.  Has a big, long meadow
and lots of places to screw around.  And it hasn't been too well taken care
of.  Anybody you see is likely to be looking for what you are.  So's
anybody that catches you doing something.

"I go over there a lot.  There's this one Italian guy I see all the time.
He's in his twenties.  Must spend half his time in the park.  He loves to
suck cock.  Gets on his knees whenever he sees me.  But he and his wife are
also members of our parish.  I see him at church all the time too, but he
won't even look at me.  I wonder if he confesses what we do in the park."

Jason can hardly believe his ears.

It's time to pick the blackberries, though, and Jason leads the search for
the berry patch he'd seen.  It takes a while to find it.  Then Jason
explains that they only want to pick fully ripe but not mushy ones.  None
that still have traces of red.  They each have a gallon bucket, but they
mustn't fill it so full that, when it's hung from the saddle horn, the the
trotting of the horses will cause it to spill.

The berry picking goes well, until Christopher screams "bloody murder,"
runs from the thicket as fast as he can, and spills most of what he has
picked.  Seeing a three foot black snake is the cause of the uproar.

Jason finds a fallen branch and quickly dispatches the serpent.  "I should
have told you," he says, "snakes love to hide in berry patches.

"He wasn't poisonous.  Let me help you gather up your berries."

Jason succeeds in getting Christopher calmed down and back to picking.

"I wasn't there," Jason tells Christopher, "but several summers ago, my
mom, Uncle Luke, Aunt Mary, and a couple of other people were sitting in
the parlor.  The chimneys were all stuffed with newspaper like they are
now.  There was a shuffling of paper, and everybody thought there was a
mouse in the chimney.  The shuffling got louder, and Uncle Luke jumped up
on the big table.  He's terrified of mice and rats.  Then this Copperhead
falls out on the hearth.  That's one of the most poisonous snakes there is.
Everybody but Uncle Luke runs.  He jumps down from the table and steps on
the snake's head."

Both boys laugh.  Christopher doesn't seem so afraid anymore.

They take their time returning to the house.  Walk the horses to keep from
spilling the berries.

When they reach the stable, Christopher is able to unsaddle Rowan without
Jason's help.  They take the buckets of berries to the pantry and put them
in the ice box for Dedra to find tomorrow morning, then go to the house.

"I've just got to tell about the snake," Jason says, "but we won't say
anything about Rowan bolting.  Uncle Luke might put you back on Maude."

Aunt Mary is already getting leftovers ready for supper, so the boys find
Uncle Luke in the parlor reading yesterday's "Clarion-Ledger."

Laying aside the paper, he says, "That Eleanor Roosevelt, I don't know who
she thinks she is!

"You boys have a good day?"

"Sure did," Jason replies.  "Got enough blackberries to make a hundred
cobblers.  Showed Chris around the old place, let him see how moonshine is
made, and let him get scared outa his wits by a blacksnake."

Luke laughs and wants to hear the details.

Christopher recites what happened as best he can remember.  Jason fills in
what he can't.

"I told him about the copperhead in the chimney," Jason says.

"I remember that," Luke laughs.  "But, you know, Jason, your mother is
about as scared of rats as she is of snakes.  She would've jumped up on the
table with me, except...well, she was probably more afraid that the folks
still sitting down could see...could see her girdle...or maybe her
panties."  Luke can't constrain himself.

"That was uncalled for," he says.  "I shouldn't have said that...so don't
tell your mother I did."

"I won't," Jason laughs, "but that's really funny."

"So, Chris, how are you liking life down South?" Luke asks

"Brother Jack told me I would, but it's really been a blast.  I wish I
could stay longer."

"That's what he said, when he left," Luke says.  "Too bad you boys and
girls can't come more often.  We'd love to have you."

"Well, maybe I will, if I can ever raise the train fare," Christopher
responds.

Even cold, the sliced pork loin with left-over biscuits is wonderful.  The
sliced peaches in cream is even better.

There is a cool breeze blowing across the veranda as the four of them sit
in on the veranda in the twilight.  The sound of the croaking frogs and
singing crickets ends a wonderful day for both boys.