If any of your kinfolks were ever sharecroppers, you'll learn something from this post. In DEVIL MAKE A THIRD, 18 year-old Buck decided on his first morning in Aven that he wasn't going to take a "tool job." He wanted nothing to do with a life in town where he made a living using tools similar to the ones he grew up using on the farm. By getting his first job at Green's General Merchandise, Buck learned a new game that used some other tools: the store's ledger sheet that tallied credit purchases and the crop lien mortgages that gave the farmers their credit in Green's store.  The crop lien mortgages and other documents in this album are not from Houston County but they are from Alabama and are similar to the legal forms that Buck Bannon used to make his fortune.

 

from page 53 of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD: 

"Look," he said, "pore farmers have got to be furnished and somebody's got to furnish them."

She sniffed. "We never needed no furnishin'."

"I know," Buck said, impatiently. "You'd rather starve, but there's a lot of  'em wouldn't. See here, the man that does the makes mor'n the farmer. You know that. Rent him his land, sell him his tools, seeds, guano, anything he wants. He'll owe you and he won't like you. He'll cuss you, but you'll have to take it. He may kick you, but take it. Then, by God, if makes a crop, take it."

His mother closed her eyes and Buck could see her face stiffen. She tried to rock, but it wasn't a rocking chair. "That ain't our way," she said, shortly.

Buck laughed, bitterly, and it was ugly even to his ears.

"Them that furnishes live a long time," he said. "The land don't break them."