Deal With The Devil
Georgia folktale about a clever blacksmith who, with the help of an old witch woman, helps fool the Devil as death is approaching.
Now I know what my Pap used to say: “You take care what you wish for, ’cause you just may get it.” And that happened to the old blacksmith here-a-bouts in Stone Mountain, Georgia – a man named Lon.
My story also got in it the old witch woman of Stone Mountain. Not too many people know about her, but she lived here. Down the end of Poplar Springs Road where the old city swimming pool used to be (but it was way back before then), she made salves and poultices to help the sick and weary get better. Why she could birth a baby or lay out the dead, didn’t matter to her.
Well, one day she comes into old’ Lon’s blacksmith’s shop looking to have her big old boiling’ put fixed. Seems a leg had broken off.
Now, lemma tell you – Lon was no pillar of society. He drank, gambled, and some say they heard him swear on the Sabbath. But he did have a mighty respect for the old witch woman. He knew she could kilt him dead if she wanted to. He fixed that pot in jack time and would take no pay for it. So the old lady said she would grant him three wishes whenever he wanted, and he knew she was telling the truth. Right then she started her chant: “This old woman has taken nothing for free. I’ll grant you wishes, I’ll grant you three.”
Lon knew he better makes up his mind a-’cause she wouldn’t leave ’til he did make his wishes. So he started to think really hard about his first wish. Well, seems Lon didn’t like to lend out his tools. And some folks had come to his shop and in their messing’ around had lost some of his tools – and a working man’s tools of his trade are his life. So for his first wish, he asked the old woman to make it son's any time anybody touched one of his tools, it’d stick to ’me like glue. Still he could come ’round and take it out their hand. That way he’d know who was messing’ with his tools and he could fix-’me good.
The old woman said. “It is done. Now what be ye second wish?”
Now you got to know that Lon just loved to take him a jug and sit on the front porch of his house and drink ’til the sun went down. But somebody’s always a-moving his chair, and he’s always having’ to pull it back up on the porch. So he wanted it fixed that if's somebody sat in his chair they would be trapped there ’til he could see who it was. With a nod, the old woman said it was done.
Now for his third wish, Lon did some real thinking. He was like the rest of us – make a penny, spend a dime. Son's he was always out of money and always a-needing’ more. He asked the old woman to fix up his change purse so that’d when he put in money it wouldn’t come out ’til he said so. In other words, make him think before he spent it. And that wish was granted the same as the rest.
With that, the old lady has seen her debt paid to the blacksmith, and she up and left. Lon was glad to see she was gone and he was still standing’ upright like a man and hadn’t been turned into a pig or something. But he soon forgot about his wishes, what with all his drinking, and cussing’, and what little work he’d been doing’.
Then one day right in the middle of the hottest day on record, this man walked into Lon’s shop wearing all black clothes and a big old heavy wool coat. Lon thought that feller was a fool for being’ so fully dressed on such a hot day – ’til he looked right in that man’s eyes. They were yeller like a dog’s eye, and they shortly shined like a cat’s eye. And it was right then and there he knew he was looking’ Into the eyes of Beelzebub, the prince of darkness, the Devil his self, and he was a standing’ right there in Lon’s blacksmith shed.
The Devil talked to Lon in a voice that sounded like rumbling Thunder: “Lon,” he said, “you know why I am here. It is time to go, and your soul is mine.” Now old’ Lon knotweed where he was headed, and he didn’t like it non-to-well. Why, going with the Devil would put him – well, you know. Lon looked at the Devil and asked if he could finish up on the job he was a-doing’ – plod head needed sharpening’. The Devil agreed and Lon asked the Devil to hand him that 8-pound sledgehammer to finish up the work.
When the Devil grabbed a hold of that hammer, his hand locked tight around the handle and he couldn’t set it down. And the Devil went to cussing’ and spitting’ and shaking’ and jumping’, for he couldn’t take nothing from this world back to his world ‘captain’ a mortal soul. To put it plainly like, the Devil was stuck, and both he and Lon knower it.
With a grin on his face, Lon told the Devil he was ready to make a deal. Now you got to know dealing’ with the Devil is mighty scary, but old’ Lon knower he would win this ‘un. It was a simple deal: “Mr Devil, I’ll get that hammer out your hand if y’all leave me to be here on Earth and game 10 more years of living’.”
The Devil knew when he had been skinned, and by a mortal as dumb as Lon no less, so he agreed. Lon took back his hammer, and with puff a smoke and smell that was none too kind, the Devil was gone.
Well, now I want guns to know that 10 years to the day, the Devil stood back into Lon’s shop like he owned the place, slapped his hand down on a barrel head, and told Lon, “Son, it's time to be going’ and none of your foolishness. Stop what you are doing and come with me.”
Lon knower he had no choice, so he quietly laid down his tools and followed the Devil out of his shop. But he stopped at the door and said, “Mr Devil, I am going make a mighty long journey and I know I going’ to run into people I know down there. I was wondering’ if's I could stop by my house and wash up before we go?”
Well, the Devil put his mind to it and thought and then said, surely it would be all right for Lon to stop by his place, for it was on the way anyhow. It was a short walk to Lon’s house, and when they got there Lon started to wash up and told the Devil to have a seat right there in his old rocking’ chair. Rest a bit for that long journey. Well, no sooner had the Devil sat down that he knew he was in trouble. He was jammed, stuck tight to that chair. Couldn’t move. And the Devil went to cussing’ and spitting’ and shaken’ and jumping’, for he knows that one more time, he had been taken by a mortal. In time, another deal was made. And the Devil was allowed out in the Chair, and he give Lon another 10 years. And with a puff of smoke and a smell that was none too nice, the Devil was gone.
The next 10 years of Lon’s life went by really fast. Like it was but a minute and the next thing old’ Lon knew was that the Devil was in his shop and in his face foaming at the mouth telling Lon it was time to go. “No more tricks Lon, no more jobs to finish or stops to freshen up – nothing. Now pack up and let’s go right now.” And with that, the Devil took Lon by the arm, and out the door, they went.
They had been on their journey when Lon noted he was thirsty and the Devil agreed he was too. Lon said he knew a place where he could get a “cold drank,” but he turned his pockets out to show the Devil he was broke and flatter than Hassle’s bustle. But Lon had a plan. He look at the Devil and said, “Sir, I know how powerful yak’ are and I know you can be anything you need to be to steal a man’s mortal soul. And I got an idea.” Lon explained to the Devil that if's he was to change into two thin dimes, Lon could go in and buy ’me each a “cold drank.” As soon as he left the place with the drinks the Devil could change into a butterfly or moth and fly outta that change drawer in the store and come outside to where Lon would be awaiting. Then they’d have their “cold drinks” and be on their way.
Now the Devil liked this Idea. He could show off his powers, skin a mortal out some of his due, and still take a soul to the underworld. So with a blink, he changed into two thin dimes, and into Lon’s change purse, he went. And as soon as he was in there he knew, one more time, Lon had tricked him, and for a third time. Now if that isn't pumpkin. Well, the old Devil went to cousin’ and spitting’ and shaken’ and jumping’, but they were no way he was goanna get out of Lon’s change purse, lesson Lon wanted him out. And Lon wasn’t about to take that chance. Lon figured if's the Devil ever was to get loose he would bring down the wrath on ol’ Lon. So the Devil was forever to stay in that change purse.
Well, concha know that Lon was sooner or later bound to die of natural Causes. Many folks around here said it was drinking’. So Lon presents himself to the gates of Heaven and Saint Peter won’t even talk to him. For he had the Devil in his pocket. So then he presents himself to the gates of Hell, and the harpies can’t let him in. For this is the man who snookered the Devil three times in a row, and they’d need special permission from the boss and he wasn’t nowhere to be found. So ol’ Lon is to this day stuck summers ‘tween Heaven and – you know – down there.
But they’re folks says that you kin see Lon to this day. You know how on a summer's night you see lightning but don’t hear no thunder? They call it “heat lightning.” Well, some say that’s just of’ Lon Twix Heaven and wherever with the Devil in his pocket just a’ cousin’ and spitting’ and shaking’ and jumping’ for to get out of that change purse.
Now I don’t rightly know, but I tell yak one thing: That’s my story and I sticking’ to it.
– THE END –
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