Stories, told to by our Daddy, were numerous. The one that sticks to my memory the most is the one he told about a man who was charged with murder. Our Daddy was born on December 5,1884, in Lexington County South Carolina. He was raised so far south in Lexington County it was very close to the Orangeburg County line. The area was known as Dixiana. In 1910, almost everybody worked for the land owners, either in the fields or in their houses. Very few people had land of their own. Very few people had a way to make a living without working for the land owning folk. Most people, Blacks and Whites, worked all day on their main job, and then spent their evenings trying to do something else to make money to help feed their families.

This one old Black man, who had worked in the fields all day, also sold lighted in the evenings and until late into the night. Lighted is an oily rich wood used to start fires in stoves and fire places because it is highly flammable. This wood was also called kindling. One would only have to use a small amount of the kindling to get either coal or wood burning in a stove or fire place. For this old man to be able to sell it, he had to first collect it. To collect lighted wood, he had to go into the woods and find what they called a "fat stump." A fat stump would be tough to cut and heavy to carry. So, the man would usually use one afternoon to collect the fat wood and then he would be able to deliver and sell on other days. This old man had been doing this for so long, he had many established regular customers. He could deliver to them anytime he had wood to sell. Some would pay him when he delivered, and some would pay him later. Sometimes, the family was not at home, but he would just leave the wood by the family's door and go back another time to get paid. Everything was done like business, but in a very trusting environment.

One day, one of his long time customers, a rich large plantation owner, came home from his down town business. He told police that he found his wife dead in his house. The plantation owner was so well liked, respected, and politically powerful in the local and larger community, the police accepted his words as facts when they examined the murder site. Then the police determined that the killer was most likely the same person who left the load of lighted wood by the doorway. The plantation owner quickly gave the police the name and description of the old farm laborer man who was still out delivering lighted wood to his other customers. One of his later customers told him that the police were looking for him . . . "they say you killed that lady up on the hill."

Immediately, the old farm labor man stopped delivering his wood and went to his nearby church. Churches were always open back then because people went to church day and night at will. As he got to the church, he noticed that the pastor's mule was tied up by the Chinaberry tree. As he entered the church, instead of the pastor greeting him, the pastor went out the back door and left on his mule. The farm labor man knew then that his pastor had probably heard of his troubles and he was afraid to associate himself with a man who had "killed the wife of a powerful community leader." Mob justice back then meant that mob of White men would lynch the Black wanted man and anyone else who was thought to be helping him.The farm labor man understood the Pastor's fears as he walked slowly down the center isle of the church but he felt all alone and abandoned by his pastor. As he walked, he talked out loud about how God was "putting him to a powerful test that he did not understand." He kept saying out loud to God, "I didn't do it . . . I didn't do it . . . but, of course, God, you know that I didn't do it. God! I did not do it. Help me, God! Please! God! Help me."

Lighted was, at that time, almost as valuable as actual money itself. Some people actually paid bills with lighted like the Romans thousands of years ago when they barted with goods before they had their first coinage. One could buy things from stores with lighted like it was money. So, in spite of the farm laborer's troubles, he did not want to abandon his valuable remaining undelivered wood. He went back outside and got his wood to leave in the church. He left the wood by the big black stove so the church folk could see it for use. After he did this, he went out of the same back door the pastor left from. However, unlike the pastor, the farm laborer turned towards the thickest part of the woods. The woods were so thick in that area because it was actually a dried riverbed. In the rainy seasons, the area would flood, then when it dried out the trees thrived thickly there because of the underground moisture. Everyone knew of the thick area in the woods. The thickets were made of thorny short scrubby trees, but it also had some few tall towering trees among the thickets.

There were no animal or human paths to follow. Every step he made, into the thickets, had to be made by breaking a new path. Thinking of how easy it will be for the police and bloodhound dogs to find him by smell, the man decided to climb into a tree. He wanted to move from tree to tree without leaving his scent on the ground. As he got about so high in the first tree, he stopped to think more about why he was running and hiding when he had not done anything wrong. He sat in the tree saying to himself, and sometimes out loud, "I did not do anything wrong!" Yet, his fears got him started to traversing from tree to tree into the thickets. As he paused again to rest and think some more, he spoke out loud again. "I am trying to think of what God would have for a God-fearing man to do in this position in this day and time?"

As he thought more quietly, the silence of the woods started to appeal to him. He started to notice his surroundings more. Just then, he noticed that a large buck deer was moving toward him and stamping his feet. He knew that a deer only stamps his feet like that when he is aware of something or someone. A deer will stamp his feet as if to ascertain what something is or if it is a danger to him. Clearly, he noticed, the deer was not looking at him as much as it was looking into the direction in which he entered the woods. Having nothing better to do, the farm laborer man just sat and watched the buck deer. The woods were silent except for this deer stamping his feet and snorting occasionally. Soon, the silence was broken by the sounds of talking men and the squeaking sound of the leather saddles on horses moving sides to sides.

As the laborer man surveyed the area from his vantage point atop his perch in the tree, he realized that the woods were too thick for him to run. He thought, even if he could run, he could not out run the men on horses. The sound of the men and horses came closer to him and, then he noticed, the buck was now directly under him like a trained show horse might prepare for a trick rider. The stories that the police told that night, when they came out of the woods, were different every time they told it. One story was that there was nobody in the woods. The next story was that they saw one of the biggest buck deer that they had ever seen. The last story that spread most often was told by the police chief and others. This story was that they "saw this wanted farm laborer man moving through the woods riding one of the biggest deer bucks you have ever seen." The Chief of Sheriff's said, "that buck had big wide antlers that were laced with ripped underbrush. As that buck was running, his enlarged nostrils were snorting steam off the snot, saliva, and slime around his wild face. Oh man," he continued by saying, "that ole field hand man from down by Dixiana was hanging onto that buck and riding him like one of the Kentucky Derby's finest Jockeys!" As the Sheriff pulled at his belt drifting below his belly, he said, "I have never seen or heard of anything like this before in my life."

In the next few days, as warrants were being issued and posters were being put out for the laborer. The poster said, "Wanted, Dead or Alive." People were very concerned for what had happened to this hard working, usually honest and passive farm laborer man. Then the story was starting to also spread that the plantation owner's daughter had told some folk that "my daddy killed my mommy." Both stories, the wanted poster story, and what the child had said spread throughout the countryside. The churches, schools, and country store gossip was filled with these two stories. The field workers and town meetings were consumed with these rumors. Everyone wondered out loud, "if this plantation owner was powerful enough to make this field hand die for what he did to his own wife?" As the story of the man who killed his wife was spreading, so did the story of the man who had escaped the posse by riding a wild buck deer. The police finally asked the plantation owner about the story told by his daughter. No one will ever know, if it was the pressure from the public or his daughter, but something made the plantation owner confess to killing his wife. The farm laborer man's name was instantly cleared, but no one knew where he was hiding. Everyone assumed that all southern Black fugitives, especially of this pleading not guilty type, would usually run to the north to a place like New York City or Chicago.

The next Sunday morning, after services, as the people from the laborer's church were standing around outside the church laughing and talking loudly, the farm laborer man came out of the woods behind the church with a huge load of lighted wood on his back. Every mouth fell silent, but some were also opened in a gasp as they saw him struggling with his load of lighted. Eventually, more than eighty gasping folk were silently watching the laborer coming towards them as if they were witnessing a dead man walking. Not knowing what else to do, the people started to sing a gospel song like at a funeral or as if witnesses to a miracle. As they cried and sang, the man kept walking toward them with his heavy load of lighted on his back. He never stopped walking until he was centrally amongst them. Then he said to the ones who could hear him over the singing, "are you people going to pay me for my wood I left here so I can get out of town?" No one answered him, so he said to another person, "or, are you folk going to get the police on me?" Some of the crying and singing church goers began to fall at his feet and look up to him as if he were a saint. Then one of the people at his feet said, "the police don't want you anymore." Without a question and as if he knew his innocence would set him free, he just looked gratefully at the lady who said, "the police don't want you anymore." Then he just started to cry himself as he tried to join in the singing.

The labor man cried and tried to sing so hard that he could not continue to stand. He cried, and cried as he slumped down to the ground besides his pile of lighted. Almost like when a baseball pitcher, pitches a perfect game, these parishioners commence to huddle on the ground besides the man. Although these people were just coming out of morning worship services, they never left the church that day until well-into the night. As other people heard of what was happening at the church, more and more people came. Some folk brought food, lemonade, cakes, pies, and only a few who came even bothered to dress for church. Some folk even brought musical instruments which they played and sang in rejoicing all day. This was an-all-day, come as you are, spontaneous worship service for the entire community. As my Daddy paused after telling this story, he said, "this goes to show you that no matter how serious a situation seems to man, there is a greater power that knows all. No matter how powerful, or how rich a man can become, all things are controlled by a greater power. Rightfulness and truthfulness will always win out over lies and deceitfulness. You should always believe and never, ever give up!

The End.

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