Lost Souls Recovered by Eric Walker

Author:Eric Walker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: historical fiction;slavery;African American;Black;Civil War;family saga;cultural heritage
Publisher: Light Messages Publishing
Published: 2022-09-14T00:00:00+00:00

23 — Summer, 1893

John had settled in Mount Hope but had yet to find Cousin Riley. He had asked around but came up empty. From time to time, he’d think about his mother and the Billingslys, but with his work as a young farmer, thoughts of them appeared less frequently.

He’d kept busy, though, working. He’d started off as a farmhand picking and planting cotton, tobacco, and produce. After over a year’s time, he had saved enough money to buy a parcel of farmland and a small house. Operating his farm as a business proved difficult as his prices were low, and he was competing with white farmers who knew the area and whose families had farmed the area for generations.

After getting hold of a pamphlet that promoted the interests of colored farmers, he asked if he could join the group and ended up working for the Lawrence County Colored Farmers Alliance. Its mission was to advocate for better prices and market conditions through the collective actions of individual farmers. The farmer would buy into the Alliance and in return, it would publish a pamphlet letting them know the best prices and places to sell.

In time, John became a spokesman for the Alliance, speaking at meeting halls, talking with farmers, and attending exhibitions and fairs to learn about things such as soil fecundity. He was determined to give the colored farmers of Lawrence County the best advice the Alliance could offer.

One day, after talking to a farmer who had questions about corn prices, he boarded his wonky hansom and looked at the names of the farmers he wanted to talk to within the next hour. About ten minutes into his ride, he pulled the reins and the horse stopped. He looked to the right and saw a vast stretch of land that was filled with soybean and cotton. He spied a man he didn’t recognize and as he got closer, he heard the man singing “Steal Away, Jesus.”

The song immediately reminded him of his mother, who’d sung it all the time. The lyrics were coming from a tall, hulking man in his forties with apple seed-brown skin, massive arms and legs, and large feet that gave him the ability to do the work of a mule by plowing his field from sunup to sundown.

The singer held a hoe in his large hands. He turned around and stood looking at John. An oversized straw hat sat atop the man’s large head to block the sun from his eyes.

John walked closer to the towering singer. “Excuse me,” John said. “What’s the name of the song?”

“Steal Away, Jesus,” the big man answered in a tenor voice that didn’t match his girth.

“Yes, I thought so,” John said. “It’s a wonderful song.”

When John asked the towering man if he had an interest in joining the Alliance, he replied that he didn’t have a farm and that the land he was working belonged to Mr. Ellis.

“I work his land. He give me a share of the crops. Sometime when he nice, he pay me something.

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