"Oscar, Don't Cry."

The story of Oscar Smith (black) and Glenn Nix (white) growing up on a sharecroppers farm in the fifties. As an older man, Glenn returns to the farm and remembers the tragic story.

Glenn Nix Picture taken at Pollan's Mill farm

Excerpt from "Oscar, Don't Cry" by Glenn Nix.

The old place didn't look quite the way I remembered so to make sure I was at the right spot I stopped the car and walked over to the fence for a better look.

To the left I could see the remnants of rusty mule-drawn farm equipment barely visible in a field of high weeds: Two row cultivators, Kelly plows, Buzzard-wing sweeps, turning plows, middle- busters, seed planters and other familiar implements. And across the tongue of an old cultivator lay two sets of mule harness with trace-chains still attached.

I climbed the fence for a better look.

In the collar-hames were scratched the initials of the animals that wore them: GP, Big Red and PM.

I picked them up, brushed several spiders from one collar then walked back to the car and placed them in the trunk. How many times had I harnessed those mules with this same equipment?

I climbed back into my car and continued down the lane until the old sawmill came into view.

My heart was pounding.

Part of me wanted to turn around and go back and part of me wanted to stop and look around. I had mixed emotions about everything. It was as though I wanted to cry and laugh at the same time.

I guess there are no words to express the feelings running through my mind at the time, so I passed what remained of the old sawmill and continued on down the lane until I reached the cotton gin.

Then a sudden rush of fear came over me. Our old home place was just a few hundred yards behind that gin. This whole area as far as the eye could see, was owned by Mr. Grafton Pollan; and our family was just one of six families who sharecropped his land.

		Glenn Nix

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