Nathaniel Garland

Wow.  We had neighbors around and stuff, and Mother raised us to be like this.  As you came down the driveway, it’s one, it’s two, it’s three families, and then there was a family they built down behind us.  If the lady up there was sick, you went by and knocked on her door and said, “Hi, I’m so and so.  Is there anything I can do?”  At that time, we had wells and springs.  We’d get a bucket of water or whatever, and my mother would always send a can of juice.  And as I get older, I think about it.  At the time, I said, “This is stupid, taking a can of juice up to this lady.”  And it was her idea of being neighborly and showing that, “Hey, we could help.”  And one day, when I came home, it was the first time I had any trouble with any of my neighbors.  I had a little red wagon; my mother had saved and bought me one. And the neighborhood kid, he had that wagon over there with a hatchet chopping holes in it because they were poorer than we were.  We were poor, but we weren’t aware.  And when I got close to him, he threw the hatchet back, so I went home and I got the can of kerosene, the one I had just borrowed from the neighbors to start a fire. I threw it on him, and I chased him around because that was the one thing I was about as a kid.  If you hurt me, I was going to get you.  I just didn’t do well with it.  I had a brother, my older brother, and we haven’t seen him for over 20 years.  We don’t know if he’s alive or dead, but we would fight all the time like siblings.  And the last fight we had, we were in the yard, and he was winning.  And I hit him with my best shots; I thought I was pretty stout. And he knocked me down that last time I got up, and I took a rock, and I threw that rock.  Boy, the aim was right on it.  Caught him on the head, down he went, and Mother came out crying. And she wore me out.  Hey, the switch was begging for mercy.