Harvey Jackson FIELDS

                   SHORT STORY (written by Ila Sosebee Lark)
HARVEY JACKSON FIELDS
Harvey Jackson Fields, son of  John A. Fields, married Roxie Ella Sosebee, daughter of Thomas Andrew Sosebee, a neighbor of his grandfather, Jessie  Fields.
Family legend has it that Roxie Ella was really more attracted to another man, Reese, by name, and later on to Harvey's brother, Early, but her parents favored Harvey, and dutiful daughter that she was, Roxie Ella was influenced by their wishes.They were married in Young Harris, Georgia, a neighboring town, on January 27, 1901.
Preparations were made to give the young couple the best wedding that Thomas Andrew Sosebee and his wife could afford, Thomas Andrew, taking great pains to make his daughter's wedding shoes and his wife weaving yards and yards of fabric from which to make her dress.
But Harvey and Ella spent their first night as husband and wife in the Sosebee home, in fact, living there a number of months, until Harvey could provide a log cabin for them to move into.
As was the custom, the logs were cut out of the mountain-side and a log rolling was held, at which the neighbor men pitched in to raise the walls of the cabin. The women had prepared  a sumptuous meal, which was injoyed at noon, and before long a brand new, fresh smelling mountain cabin, of about sixteen by twenty feet, had been erected and was ready for the young couple to move into. The cabin, however, was on the other side of the mountain.
Most of their furniture was hand made, to start. The bed was set into a corner, with the back attached to the wall. Ella covered it with quilts that she, her sister Josie and their mother had pieced and quilted by hand. There was a blanket, dyed brown with black walnut hulls, that had been woven on their loom.
The rest of their furniture, little as it was, was loaded into the bed of a covered wagon, and the couple tearfully left for their new life.
By now, Ella knew she was pregnant.
For a while, the couple didn't realize that a panther was watching them from the cover of the undergrowth. It followed them the rest of the way to their cabin and made it's presence known that night as it walked around their cabin screaming it's blood curdling scream.
Ella was terrified. Mountain lore had it, that panthers could sense if a woman was pregnant, and were it's first target, if she could be gotten alone.
Harvey stood for a long time that night at the window, his muzzle loading gun primed and ready.
With daylight, all was peaceful. That is, until night fell again. Then the same scene was repeated.
Harvey knew that his wife was in danger. He saw to it that she didn't have to leave the cabin at all, that day, unless he was standing by with the gun. He finally came to a decision. That night, he would assist his wife into the loft and he would leave the door open. When the panther came into the cabin, as he felt it surely would, he would be ready. Of course he wondered what would happen if he missed, but accurate shot that he was, he knew he had to take the chance.
He hadn't taken one thing into consideration, however. Panthers are said to be afraid of fire. When the door was opened and the panther saw the fire in the fireplace, it retreated into the forest and never returned.
A few weeks later, Harvey and Ella brought their first of ten children - daughter Melitta Mae - into the world.
The Blue Ridge Mountains were still wild. After all, it hadn't been long since the Cherokee Indians had been displaced and driven west. Actually, a few had remained hidden in the mountains.
Once, when Harvey was walking through the woods to work in a saw mill, which he did occasionally, he met an Indian. The Indian couldn't speak a work of English, neither could Harvey speak any Cherokee. They communicated by sign language as best they could.
At some point, the Cherokee offered Harvey a chew of his home-grown tobacco. Harvey was afraid to take it, yet was fearful that he would create an awkward situation and offend the Indian if he didn't.
So he accepted the chew, thinking he would hold it in his mouth until the Indian was gone and then spit it out.
This he did, but later said that that was the best tasting tobacco he had ever put into his mouth.
Life had to be hard for the mountain pioneers in those early days of our country. It was rise before dawn and work until dusk, just to survive.
Nearly everything was made by hand and what you couldn't make, you usually did without.
Most people didn't even realize the difference. Life was what you made it and you learned to accept. After all, those early mothers and fathers didn't know any other way.
But if you sometimes got a little enjoyment out of what you had to do to exist, well, that just made the inevitable easier to deal with.
Men liked hunting and fishing. There were occasional get-togethers in the neighborhood. The women had their quilting bees and candy pullings. These things helped to break the monotony of day to day life. They did serve their purpose too. They all contributed to their livelihood in one way or another, as well.
After he had arisen early each morning, and did his chores, Harvey ate the nourishing breakfast Ella had prepared for him, lit a pine torch and began making his way through the still dark forest, to the saw mill.
His pay was small but money went farther then. Ella's great-grandmother and her children had bought land from the Indians at one cent an acre, just three generations ago, after all.
Harvey accepted his lot and did the best he could, under the circumstances.
One particular morning, as he was walking through the woods, he thought he heard someone calling.
He was pleased to think he would have company while walking through those forbidding dark trees, that day, so he answered.
The voice called again and Harvey answered again.
Then, suddenly, he got the fright of his life There, in front of him, slightly off to the side, was a panther, hissing and snarling at him
Harvey was terrified.
Just as the beast made for him, Harvey waved the pine torch in it's face. That made the animal keep it's distance.
But the flame of the torch was weak. The only way to keep it flaming was to shake it vigorously. By doing this, the panther was kept at bay.  But what if he shakes it too hard and the fire is blown out?
Then Harvey remembered a fallen log that was up ahead and a large pile of leaves that he hoped wasn't too wet with dew, beside the log. He made for that with all the speed that a rush of adrenalin afforded him. But when he was on one end of the log, there was the panther at the other
There is that pile of leaves Thank goodness they are dry
With one more shake of his pine torch and quickly applying the flame to the leaves, the fire caught.
With this, the panther faded into the still dark mountainside.
As you can imagine, Harvey stayed by his fire until daylight.
This story was told to the Fields children as they sat and shivered around the fireplace that evening. And when they went to their beds, many of them pulled the quilt up just a little higher as they lay in the darkness listening for the scream that they expected to hear at any minute.
After Mae was born, Ella gave birth to six more children in Union County, Georgia. Then the family moved to Brookton, Georgia. Brookton is located in Hall County. There their last son, Clarence, was born and Mae, the light of their life, died of typhoid.
Here, also, the family lost all their belongings to a tornado.
The next move took them to White County where their last two daughters were born.
The Harvey Fields family had become share-croppers. The only land he ever owned was his share of the Fields home-place where he had been born. This consisted of about 970 acres in the Boggs Creek area . Today it is part of the Chestatee National Forest.
Harvey Fields died in October, 1945 at the home of his daughter, Ruby, in Lula, Georgia.  By now Ella was becoming an invalid, slowly worsening until she passed away in 1954. They are buried at Mount Sinai Baptist Church in Lumpkin County, Georgia.