In a classroom discussion following a tour of William Faulkner’s home, I asked my college freshmen how the great writer felt about mankind’s capacity for endurance.
“Simple,” a student replied. “He summed it up in one line from his Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech: ‘I believe man will not merely endure, he will prevail.’”
Another great thinker, my mentor Jaybird, defined for me man’s capacity for endurance by living it, day by day.
Few tasks test endurance more than chopping cotton. Stretched across the Mississippi Delta’s flatness, the rows seem endless, and when one is finished, countless rows are waiting. It’s a matter of putting one foot in front of the other, enduring sweat, dust, monotony, and the pitiless gaze of an unrelenting sun, inching ever so slowly toward the horizon.
For my tenth birthday, Dad gave me a hoe and sent me to the field with Jaybird. I didn’t even know what endurance meant, and certainly didn’t have enough of it to withstand chopping.
With patience but not pity, Jaybird would help me catch up when I lagged behind.
“Might as well git used to hard work, boy. It’ll be the biggest part of yo’ life … and if you face it like a man, the best part.” Then, he’d resume his labors, quietly singing a favorite ditty: “We have come a long way togeth-o, but we got a long way to go, though.”
One day, as we chopped side by side, Jaybird was limping. Using one of his expressions, I asked, “Got a hitch in your git-along?”
“Naw, just a pebble in my shoe.” When I asked why he didn’t remove it, he said he would when we got to the end of the row.
“If I had a rock in my shoe, I’d dump it right now,” I quipped.
Chuckling, he said, “Then you wouldn’t have anything to look forward to.” Years passed before I understood what he meant.
Because he was a man of unfaltering Christian faith, Jaybird viewed all of life as a process leading to something to look forward to. From that premise, he developed the ability to make the most onerous tasks endurable, even the drudgery of chopping cotton.
When we reached the end of the rows, he dipped a cool drink from the water keg and drank his fill. Then he sat on the keg, removed the pebble, and tossed it to me.
“Lawdy, dat sho’ feels better,” he sighed. “Let’s git to work. We got a ways to go ’fore sundown.”
So many of Jaybird’s teachings are imprinted in my mind, especially his lesson about enduring and prevailing.
Often, when I dread what lies ahead, I visualize something to look forward to. For reassurance, I reach for the old cigarette case I took from Jaybird’s shirt pocket on the day he collapsed and died of a heart attack.
Inside it, what he tossed to me that day so many years ago provides all the reassurance I need: the pebble in his shoe.
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)).
