Bittersweet Water

One of the coldest experiences I ever had in my life, came because of this river and our family mule. It happened during my days at the sawmill. Now to work at a sawmill, you had to be reliable because each man had his job, and they all had to be there for the mill to operate. This mill was located about three miles from our house, and to get there I had to cross the river. Most times it wasn’t a problem, but during the winter months that water got pretty cold, so my brother Earl and I had worked out a system to get me across that water without having to wade it. He and I would ride the mule down to the river, then Earl would get off, and I’d ride the mule on across. Once we reached the other side, I’d climb off and send the mule back over to Earl. He would climb on and ride back to the house. That winter of 1923 was one of the coldest I remember. The weather turned bitter cold in early January. The temperature never got above freezing for about 10 days in a row. I had a man tell me it was the coldest winter in Georgia history. This particular morning, we had left home as usual, but when we got to the river, we found sheets of ice floating along on the water. The ground had frozen solid up to the river’s edge, and that mule sensed how cold the water was. I led him down the bank toward the water, but as we came down the bank, his hind feet slipped out from under him and down he went. He sat down on his hind legs, and when he did, I slipped off and fell to the water’s edge. That mule took off for home and left Earl and me standing there by the river. Sawmillers worked as a team, and to hold on to your job a man working at the sawmill had to be reliable. I knew I had to get across the river somehow, so I decided the best thing to do was to take off my shoes to wade through that river. As I stood there watching the water bounce along over the rocks, I figured I could cross without too much trouble, so after pulling off my shoes and socks and rolling up my britches legs, I waded out into the edge of the water. The minute my feet hit the water, they went numb. It was so cold that day, I could feel the sheets of ice floating underneath the water, and as I waded out a little farther, all I could think about was how numb my feet and legs felt. I’d gotten about fifteen feet from the bank when I spotted this rock sticking up out of the water about midway of the river. It was about four or five feet long, and I figured I could make four steps or so on that rock before getting back into the water. I reached the rock all right and stepped up on it with my left foot then came up out of the water and set my right foot down. Before it ever touched that rock good, I knew I was in trouble. My left foot had frozen to the rock, and before I could move, so had my right one. I said to myself, “Well Ervin you can’t just stand here,” so I gritted my teeth and pulled my left foot up off the rock then my right one and proceeded across the rock back into the water. My feet kind of tingled a little bit when they hit the water again, but I went on and waded to the other bank. By the time I had reached it, my feet were absolutely throbbing like sore teeth, and I was crying like a baby. When I finally got out and sat down, all I could do was rub my feet and cry out in pain. Earl had seen what was happening. He’d seen the four bloody foot prints I’d left on the rock and began yelling at me, “Ervin, get your socks and shoes on, get your socks and shoes on!”