When I was ten, Dad turned me over to Jaybird, the man who became my boyhood best friend and mentor, and told him to teach me the value of hard work.
Because the old black man was a master teacher, he found ways to combine what he knew every boy needs — opportunities to have fun — while learning skills that would serve him throughout life. But on one occasion, the combination of fun and teaching had calamitous results — for Queenie and me.
Often Jaybird let me sit on his knees and steer the flatbed truck he used to haul garbage. It was great fun, but one day when I asked to drive, he said, “Junior, Boss is in a powerful hurry, tryin’ to git dis crop out. You can’t drive today.”
He was right. Excited about gathering one of the best crops ever from his Mississippi Delta cotton farm, Dad was running in ten different directions at once, and he needed Jaybird’s help.
Dejected, I stood behind the truck poking my finger through holes in the bumper. One was a little tight, but I shoved my finger through anyway, frowning and glaring at Jaybird.
“Wait — my finger is stuck,” I yelled when the loud old truck began moving. Jaybird didn’t hear me, and I panicked as he pulled up on the blacktop road.
At first, I trotted along behind, yelling louder and louder, but soon I couldn’t keep up, and held on with one hand while trying to free the other. “Stop, Jaybird, stop!” I screamed, as he shifted to a higher gear.
Willie was driving the cotton picker, and seeing the calamity unfolding, abandoned his machine, galloped across the field, waving and shouting.
Jaybird saw him and stopped. I hung limp and crying, smelling the odor of burnt rubber from my tennis shoes’ toes.
“What in God’s name is going on here?” Dad roared as he skidded to a stop in his pickup. Sizing up the situation, he roared again, “Willie, go tell Miss Lena to send me some soapy water so I can pull his finger out.”
Mama was feeding Queenie, Dad’s birddog, in heat at the time. He intended to mate her with a prize-winning male birddog, confident her pups would bring top dollars.
“Miss Lena, Boss said send some soapy water to git Junior untangled from dat truck,” Willie shouted.
Horrified, Mama scrambled toward the house … leaving Queenie’s gate open.
“Junior, you brought this whole farm to a halt,” Dad snarled as he coaxed my aching finger out of the hole. “Jaybird, take him home and tell Lena to soak his hand in Epsom salts.”
When we arrived, Jaybird stomped the brakes and groaned, “Oh, no!” There was Queenie, now the common law bride of a mangy cur.
Jaybird looked at Queenie, and realizing that Boss would throw a conniption fit when Mama told him about his dog’s sinful act, shook his head woefully, and said, “Boy, I sho’ would hate to be in yo’ shoes.”
Jimmy Reed is an Oxford, Mississippi resident, Ole Miss and Delta State University alumnus, Vietnam Era Army Veteran, former Mississippi Delta cotton farmer and ginner, author, and retired college teacher.
This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s latest book, entitled The Jaybird Tales.
Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).
