High Street, Murfreesboro

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This Week's Story

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I AIN'T GONNA FIGHT AGIN' ABE LINCOLN!

© 2002 by Ron Lupton ~ From conversations with his father,
Ottis R. Lupton, at Frying Pan Landing,
Columbia NC, in the 1970s

"Freezing drizzle. I can't believe it. This is like Colorado weather," I said, gazing through Viva and Dennis' window.

You could see a metallic glaze of sleet on the milk-colored country path that led down to the fish house and Frying Pan Landing. The road's incongruous snow-cream aspect was intensified by the stand of thick swamp on both sides.

Frying Pan Sound, or lake, lay toward the southeast like a platen of crinkled lead. In the gathering mist, everything had gone as gray as a Confederate cap. Sky, forest, and distant water, all the same. That soft road of vanilla-tinted mud leading away into the scene might have shown color in a photograph, but that would have been all. The rest could easily have been a black-and-white tintype.

"What? You didn't think it ever got cold in North Carolina, Ronnie?" Viva Spencer was pouring me another cup of fresh sassafras tea ~ one of those other lost flavors from my childhood. Folks out in Colorado didn't know what it was, that, and fish roe, blue crab, or North Carolina barbecue.

I asked, "Does it ever freeze over? The Pan, I mean?"

I made Viva's hot tea thick with sugar. It was heaven. I could hear my Mom working on the dishes in Viva's kitchen as I sipped.

"It used to freeze over now and again, 'fore they connected it into the Inland Waterway," said Dennis. "Used to be fresh water. It's brackish, now."

"Seen it freeze over many a time, years gone by," Viva said. She walked out into the kitchen to join Mom, the pot of scalded sassafras root and water in her mittened hand.

Dad had been sitting quietly, watching the sleet and letting Viva's exquisite country dinner settle. He turned away from the window and pointed toward the landscape with his pipe. "You know what? This reminds me of the day they buried Grandpa Billy Spencer. Doesn't it you, Dennis?"

Dennis, looking like a clean-shaven Smoky the Bear in human form, smiled and quietly nodded his great, graying head.

"Whole swamp froze over. Solid," Dad continued. "That was in 1917, I think. I was 12 years old then. I remember I rode my bicycle to his funeral right on top of the ice in the swamp. Dodging the trees and snags like a real obstacle course. Hard as a rock and slick as soap. Only time I ever had fun going to a funeral." He grinned. "Never forget it."

"I can't imagine what a blackwater swamp looks like frozen over," I said.

"Bad. That's how it looks," Dad said. "But it's fun if you've got a bike. And if you're 12 years old."

"He (Billy Spencer) was 86 years old," said Dennis.

"Yeah, and had a mouth all 86 o' them years," Dad laughed. "Always in trouble, or fightin' somebody. Wouldn't fight against Abe Lincoln, though."

"That must have been hard, bucking the currents of the time and place," I said. "Didn't you tell me this place right here even had slave quarters?"

"You can still see the mounds where they were, right across the yard," Dennis nodded.

"Yeah, he wasn't going to fight alongside any anti-Lincoln," Dad continued. He filled his pipe from a pouch of Half-and-Half, lit up, and stretched back in the big chair. Dennis had a fire going in the stove, my belly was full, and Dad was going to tell a story. Utter perfection!

"See, Grandpa Billy Spencer was already a workin' man with a family and a farm. Didn't need anybody tellin' him what he believed. So when Tyrrell County got to musterin' up soldiers, he said no thank you very much, but I ain't about to fight agin' Abe Lincoln, and went on to puttin' in his crop.

"Well, that went over poorly, and he was told to report for duty anyhow. Nothing doing, until they come and took him away. Made him go. Now, remember, Grandpa Billy wasn't afraid of nothing, or nobody. He wasn't a coward ~ he just wasn't going to do no fightin' against Mr. Lincoln. He stayed in the army just long enough to get his uniform and gear and, first chance, he run off. Come back home and picked up plantin' where he'd left off."

Blue bands of smoke curved around Dad's head like tenuous Saturn rings. He laughed, and the smoke on one side dissipated.

"Well, them Tyrrell County boys never was much for givin' up. Dunno if it was the sheriff, or military police, or what, but here they come after him again. Caught him again, too! Wife and babies a-cryin' there in the farmyard while they marched him off."

Dad turned toward our host. "He didn't have a very long military career, did he, Dennis?"

"No siree, bob!" Dennis said. "But he did get in the thick of it two or three times. Wouldn't talk much about it, though."

"One time, the army'd moved way up north, after them Union fellers," Dad continued. "Grandpa Billy said it was some of the coldest weather he'd ever been in. Like today, I suppose. Pennsylvania, or some place ~ anyway, the fellers were sittin' 'round camp toward dusk, freezin,' not able to get close enough to the fires to really get warm. Tremblin' and shiverin.'

"All the boys were low, he said, gloomy, missin' home, and good food and family. There was a mail call, and gee, he said, all the men were just dyin' t' get anything they could from home. Any news, good or bad. Well, one poor feller opened up his letter, and commenced to sink into a darkness of soul. Pretty soon, it was obvious he couldn't bear up any longer, and he just broke down and started in a-weepin.' You know, those loud, uncontrollable sobs that just shake ya all over.

"Well, the boys couldn't stand too much of that, either. Bad enough weather, and now their pal had gotten some tragic news from home, cryin' like a baby. Pretty soon they moved him over a little closer by the fire, and one of 'em threw an extra blanket around him. They tried to console him, but nothing worked. They patted him on the back and did what they could, but he just got worse, wailing and holding his face in his hands.

"Well, finally, Grandpa Billy's heart just went out to this poor soul. He bent down to him and said, 'Maybe ya oughta tell us what's happened, back home, y'know? Might make ya feel better.'

"Well, with enough encouragement, the story came out in gasps and blubbers. Seems one o' this feller's hogs back home had had a litter, and the old sow had rolled over on three of 'em and killed 'em."

"That was it?" I asked. "That's why this guy was taking on like that?"

"Guess so," Dad said, raising his eyebrows. "Grandpa Billy couldn't believe it, either. Stood up in that freezin' rain, walked over to the woodpile and grabbed him a piece o' kindlin' and threw it at that cryin' feller. Hit him hard, right on his ice-cold ear, too. Said that put the gent into a different kind o' mood, and when he and Grandpa Billy was done with each other, they was th' only two men in camp really warm!" Dad and Dennis both laughed. "He loved to tell that story," Dad said.

The sleet outside had turned into snow now, as the day waned. It was almost surreal, watching this erstwhile hothouse of dense green turn into a gray and white polar wilderness. I'd been raised all my life in Portsmouth. There, and now in Colorado. I'd never, ever seen it snow in North Carolina before. It was purely fascinating. Must have been for Dad and Dennis, too. There was a long silence as we looked through the window.

"I expect Grandpa ..... um, Great-Grandpa Billy stayed on in the Confederate Army after that," I said.

"Nope. Stubborn," said Dad. "Run off again, soon as he could. Had farm work to do, you know, so here he came on back home, walkin' up the road like he was comin' from town, or somethin'."

"They come to get him again, too," said Dennis, grinning.

"Sure did. But he run and hid in the swamp." Dad lowered his pipe. "Story goes he hid in a hollow cypress back in the swamp, until they finally give up and left him alone. Didn't bother with him no more, and that was about the end of the war anyway."

"Yeah, but you know," Dennis leaned forward, "forced to or not, he always figgered he'd served his time in th' army, and he wasn't gonna be slighted about it, or called a Yankee-lover. Anybody call him a coward ~ and plenty did ~ he'd teach 'em all about bein' a coward with them big ol' fists a' his!"

"Never have seen such big hands on any man," Dad said. "But Dennis is right. He wasn't gonna be slighted about what he considered to be his military service. So, anyway, County of Tyrrell, North Carolina, after the war was over, bought a monument for the Confederate War Soldiers. Engraved the name of ever' soldier that left from Tyrrell County to fight in the Civil War. Put it up right in downtown Columbia, North Carolina, right down the road, here. I'll show ya tomorrow.

"Anyhow, Grandpa Billy Spencer heard his name was absent from the list. Not on the monument. Didn't take long, him thinkin' that over. Story goes he picked up either a maul, or a grubbin' axe, and walked all the way from the farm to downtown Columbia. Folks got word he was comin' into town, so by the time he got to the monument, there was a pretty good-sized bunch watchin' him. Well, he r'ared back and swung that maul at that monument and busted him off a big chunk out of it. Looked at everybody, said: 'Now my mark's on this thing, too!' Walked back to the farm. Satisfied."

"Satisfied as Billy Spencer ever got," Dennis grinned, "which usually wasn't a whole lot."

"Can you still see the mark he left?" I asked.

"Naw," Dennis said, shaking his head. "Guess somebody patched it. Don't matter. Grandpa Billy done all he wanted to about it."

I watched the snow continue to fall on the wilderness just outside the window. The dim gray had given way to a light, delicate, blue-white just prior to nightfall. I wondered if it had been a night like this that Great-Grandpa Spencer had hidden in that hollow tree, out in the swamp.

And whether, if he hadn't done so, I'd be around to watch the snow covering up Frying Pan Landing.

~

Click here to eMail author Ron Lupton

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Even in an era of global warming, it's sometimes hard
to get to the main road

Eastern NC snowfall, 2000

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This Week's Verse

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Oh, the snow, the beautiful snow,
filling the sky and the earth below,
over the housetops, over the street,
over the heads of people you meet.
Dancing, flirting, skimming along,
beautiful snow! It can do no wrong;
flying to kiss a fair lady's cheek,
clinging to lips in frolicksome freak;
beautiful snow from heaven above,
pure as an angel, gentle as love.

Oh, the snow, the beautiful snow,
how the flakes gather and laugh as they go
whirling about in maddening fun:
chasing, laughing, hurrying by,
it lights on the face and it sparkles the eye;
and the dogs with a bark and a bound
snap at the crystals as they eddy around;
the town is alive, and its heart is aglow,
to welcome the coming of the beautiful snow.
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(An excerpt from "The Snow, The Beautiful Snow," a very long poem by an unknown author. Written originally around the time of the Civil War, the poem was later discovered by Walt Whitman, and reintroduced by him.)

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WHID NEWSOME'S ICE WAGON

© 2002 James D. Pearce

His name was Whid Newsome, and he had a farm outside Ahoskie on the Winton road that he struggled to hold onto all through the Depression, when an extra dime meant more food on the table.

He worked all the time, but the job for which he was best known was driving the ice wagon.

It was a big, wooden, box-shaped covered vehicle, open at the center of the back from bottom to top and at the front from the spring-supported driver's seat almost to the roof. It had big wheels at the rear and a smaller set near the shafts up front for steering. Hanging from the rear was a wide wooden step, secured about halfway between ground-level and floor-level.

It looked like a castoff from a Gypsy caravan.

When he was on the go, Whid sat high on the seat with his elbows resting just behind his propped-up knees, holding the reins lightly and clucking at his dapple-gray source of locomotion.

Whid and his horse clippety-clopped down the unpaved St. John's Road toward the cemetery, covering a spur on one leg of the route that took him around the entire town of Ahoskie twice a week in the warm seasons.

He coaxed his steed to a stop and peered toward the porch of the nearest house, studying the big square card hanging on a nail on the porch post next to the front steps.

In large block letters on each of the four edges of the card were numbers ~ 25 ~ 50 ~ 75 ~ 100.

Here the top numbers read "50."

Whid placed the reins over the dash in front of his knees, climbed down and walked to the rear of the wagon, which was still about half-full of the gigantic 300-pound blocks that he had loaded earlier at the Ahoskie Ice and Coal Co., down by the railroad tracks.

He tied on a belt-high leather apron, grabbed his tongs and slid a full 300-pound block closer to the doorway. He used his pick and a practiced eye to score the block two times from top to bottom, marking off three 100-pound sections.

Tic, tic, tic, tic, tic, tic ~ it sounded like a busy woodpecker as he worked his pick over the top and down the side, following one of the scores. Suddenly there was a separation, and he flipped and scored the smaller piece, dividing the "100" into two "50s." In an instant, the task was done.

Whid tossed a leather towel over his left shoulder, closed his tongs over the "50" and with a slight turn and deft hoist had it on his back and was on his way to the icebox on the back porch.

"Ice man!" yelled one of the three tossing a ball around the back yard, and they reached the rear step of the wagon before Whid returned to stash his tongs and leather.

He flashed a wide smile at three grimy faces, walked up front and climbed back onto his spring-seat. He paused a moment to make sure the three were well-situated on the back step and had firm hand-holds before he clucked at his horse.

Three times he stopped at houses on the right side of the road before he reached the cemetery, and three times the three younguns stood aside while he scored and tic-tic-ticked for those deliveries.

At each stop, the pile of ice-chips on the wooden floor of the wagon grew larger ~ to shrink again with each new forward lurch of the wagon, as the younguns stood on the rear step, holding on with one hand and stuffing ice into their mouths with the other.

There were no houses with ice-cards on the return ride from the cemetery toward town, and by the time they were back at the original stop, the pile of ice-chips on the wagon floor had practically disappeared.

Three younguns jumped down and ran around the side to wave at the grinning Whid.

"Thank you, Mr. Newsome," they said.

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ROYAL T. ON GUARD

"Elmo," asked Royal T., "you remember back when all this terror stuff started, and we all were kinda worried and wondering what we could do?"

"I do, Royal T.," said Elmo. "I was quite nervous there for a while myself."

"Well," said Royal T., "I was really worried about it a lot, so when the government and the attorney general said that we all had a role to play, and that one of the best things we could do was to stay alert, cast an eye around for suspicious goings-on and keep a sharp lookout for any suspicious-looking folks, I really took it to heart and decided to do my full part."

"And ...... ?" prompted Elmo.

"Well," said Royal T., "I've been sort of overwhelmed.

"I looked around real hard, and never before in my life did I realize just how many suspicious-looking people we've got around this place.

~

"...... Including you ...... come to think of it."

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This Week's Mailbox

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I remember the draft (No. 41), but was much too young to know all the details, so this was a very enlightening story. I do have a letter from my uncle sent to my father during (WWII, noting a) change in his status because he was married with four children and working at a defense plant ...... As you know, I am not from (the Roanoke-Chowan), but because of the time we have spent on the Chowan River at Arrowhead and (with) my son-in-law's family in Elizabeth City and Bertie County, I feel a close relationship to the area. It is one of the few areas left that has retained its ties to the old days and is still a sleepy, quiet place to enjoy. ~ Norma, West Melbourne, Florida.

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As I was closing down my computer, Letter #41 popped up. I believe it is an important one! What an insight it provides from another perspective of the politics of the draft. My husband was one of those who joined the Navy to avoid the mud and dirt of ground fighting (in WWII). He ended up in the South Pacific ...... I was happy to see all the verses of the Apple Tree song. Have sung it many a time. Thanks for doing what you are doing. ~ Aggie Green, Michigan.

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...... It's just great that you've done all of this! I always look forward to The Poor Town News. ~ Ginny Smith, Richmond VA

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