A Tale From An Old Photograph
by Walter Agnew Moore II
13 February 2002

My mother pulls the portraits out from under Mama B's old bed. "Careful, careful, that decoration on the frame is brittle." Gold leaf on sculpted plaster on the frames, chipped here and there. Oval glass over the two pictures. One is a boy about 2 years old. "That was Daddy's brother who died when he was young, his name was William too." The other is a big distinguished-looking-in-a-nineteenth-century-furry-way gentleman. He looks like he is about to laugh at something ridiculous. "That's Grandaddy Poole, your great-grandfather."

He is in another photo, this one is a wedding picture from the late 1890s. Again that wicked half-laugh. His wife is next to him in another rocking chair, and their son is standing tall behind them in a suit and a bowler hat, his new wife in her wedding dress. The Poole girls, one of them my great-grandmother, are wrapped in cloaks against the winter chill, and their eyes make them look like cossacks. There are children in the photo too, a boy in his early teens, an infant, a boy about 4, and a girl slightly older with a doll. There is a little black boy in the background to the right, looking as if he crept into the arrangement. The house is a large farm house on a slight rise, big front porch, pine trees.

It is south Alabama, somewhere in Lowndes County.

"Look at Grandmama Poole," I say, "She looks so tired. She probably wasn't even very old."

My mother says, "She was tough."

In 1861 big Grandaddy Poole is a skinny young man. Probably all adam's apple and elbows. He takes his horse, and he rides down the hill towards Montgomery. He may have on his regular jacket, or he may be dressed in some sort of grey uniform. The Confederate Army in the West (and Alabama was in the West then) isn't known for its attention to spit and polish. Anyway, life as a cavaly scout will rip any uniform to shreds quick enough.

Grandmama Poole is left standing by a field with an old black man. "We need to plant something here." "Yes, but how?"

Out of nowhere, a pony runs by, kicking up dust. "Catch it!" They run like crazy to get the little pony. They calm it down. The little pony gets hitched to the plow. Mrs. Poole and the old man take turns plowing.

Then here's how the story goes next. Times are hard, but she still has some food for her children. One day men ride up. In the story I heard, they are wearing blue, but who knows, they could have been Confederates easy enough. Both sides looted. But in the story I heard, they are Yankees. It doesn't matter. There are a lot of them, and they bust into the out-buildings, grabbing chickens, corn, whatever there was to eat. Some do the actual stealing while others watch.

And here's what they see. She had to have kicked the door open when she came out on the porch, because both hands are full: a wide-eyed baby on her left hip, and a cocked shotgun cradled in her right arm.

"You're not getting my food."

"What do you mean, lady?"

"You're not getting my food."

"And how do you propose to stop us? If you don't put down that gun, we'll just shoot you."

"Shoot me then. I promise you I'll take three or four of you down with me first."

They stare at her. Then they leave. Without the food.

Now where do you find a woman like that?

When he comes stumbling back up the hill, the war is over and the horse he rode out on is long gone. They get two mules from somewhere, and they wear them both out every day, plowing in the hot dusty sun.