The Land(60)

J. T. Hollenbeck smiled again. “I’ll keep that in mind, Paul Logan.” Then J. T. Hollenbeck told me how to get to the Granger house, but when I left him, I kept to the trail toward Vicksburg. I had no interest in seeing another piece of land right now. I had seen the land I wanted, and it was that land that stayed on my mind.





Caroline

When I got to Vicksburg, I went straightaway to find Luke Sawyer’s store. When I found it, I told Luke Sawyer that Miz Hattie Crenshaw out of Laurel had suggested I look him up. I told him that I was a wood craftsman and that I was looking for a place to start up my work again. I told him that I could make just about anything when it came to wood furniture; then I handed him the yellowed sheet of paper Miz Crenshaw had written on my behalf when I’d left her place. The fact that I was a man of color was in that letter. Luke Sawyer looked solemnly at the letter, then glanced over his spectacles at me. “How you know Miz Hattie?” he finally said.

“I worked for her a few years back.”

“Doing woodworking?”

“Some.”

“You learned woodworking at her place, then?”

“No, sir. I apprenticed with a man in Georgia, but I finished up with a man outside Laurel.”

“You got tools?”

“Just what I can carry with me. Not all I need.”

“So how you expect to make furniture if you don’t have all the necessary tools?”

“Well, Miz Crenshaw said you used to have a cabinetmaker working out of your store, so you’d most likely have access to the tools I’d need. What you don’t have, maybe I could make.”

“You’d want to buy the tools from me then?”

“What I’d like to do,” I said quite frankly, checking his eyes, “is go into business with you. You supply the major tools and I’ll make the furniture.”

Luke Sawyer studied me. “And how do I know you can do what you say you can?”

“You got something you want made?”

Luke Sawyer gazed at me in silence before pulling out a notebook from below his counter. Then he turned and motioned for me to follow him. He led me outside to a shed that was set back a ways on the west side of his store. He unlocked the door and showed me in. There were some tools hanging on the wall, a fireplace was in the corner, and a lathe sat in the middle of the floor. Planks of lumber were leaning against the wall and dust was settled around the room. “It’s been a good while since I had anybody working in here,” said Luke Sawyer as he coughed from the dust. Then waving the dust away, he opened his notebook and thumped his forefinger on a page showing a picture of a night table. “Can you make that?”

I studied the picture, then glanced around the room at Luke Sawyer’s tools. “Long as these tools of yours are good, I can make it.”

“Well, I know a lady who mightily wants an oak night table like this and a chifforobe to match. I’m not going to risk my wood on a chifforobe just yet, but if you can make a night table to satisfy her, then I’ll consider a proposition with you and I’ll pay you for the table. You turn out a poor piece and mess up my wood or my tools, I’ll put you to work chopping wood or anything else needs doing ’til I figure you’ve paid me in full for them. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” I said. “But I’ll tell you right now, Mister Sawyer, there’ll be no need for me to chop wood.”

“How long you figure it to take you?”

I looked again at the picture. “I can start today, finish in about a week, maybe less. After that, I’ll have to put a finish on. If I use linseed oil, it could take several weeks for a nice finish. Just a couple of days if I use shellac.”

“Shellac’ll do,” said Luke Sawyer. “You got a place to stay?”

“Not yet.”

“Then you stay the night here, if you want. There’s the fireplace over there in the corner you get cold, and some firewood out back. Just don’t burn my place down.”

“It’ll be here in the morning,” I said.

Luke Sawyer grunted and left me to my work.

It had been late afternoon when I arrived at Luke Sawyer’s store. I cleared away the dust, then settled down to making the night table. I worked the evening and into the night, slept a few hours, then woke before the dawn and started on the work again. It had been some time since I had set my hands to finished wood, but the touch of it, the smell of it, was the same as it had always been, and it was satisfying to me. I worked the morning long without any food or drink, except for some water from Luke Sawyer’s pump out back. About noontime I stood up from my workbench and went outside.