Let the Circle Be Unbroken (16 page)

With examinations less than a week away, students soon overflowed the sitting area, but Mama, unperturbed, opened up other rooms and, dividing the students into groups, moved from one room to another reviewing lessons, answering questions, and assigning review exercises. Students worked long and hard without a grumble, and since the boys and I had to study anyway, we sat right there with everybody else. But as soon as Mama dismissed the sessions, we shot out back to find Papa and Mr. Morrison. Crossing the backyard, we ran through the garden gate and along the path that separated the cotton field from the garden, through the orchard with its apple, pear, peach, and fig trees, and into the open pasture. At the pasture’s edge, just beyond the orchard, was the old one-room tenant shack where Mr. Morrison slept and just beyond that the bull’s pen. Papa and Mr. Morrison were standing there as we ran up.

“Don’t get too near that fence,” Papa warned us.

Mr. Morrison waved languidly toward three-year-old
Dynamite, who was staring sourly out at us. “How much you s’pose he weighing now?”

“Oh, I’d say somewhere ’round a thousand pounds. His daddy’s a good couple of thousand—you’ve seen him. Henry Harrison’s twelve-year-old.”

“Yeah, I seen him all right. That’s a mean bull he got and this one’s comin’ up just like him.”

Papa grinned and nodded toward Dynamite. “I don’t much care how mean they get, long as they’re good stock and do the job.”

Mr. Morrison agreed. “You sell him now, you ain’t gonna get near ’bout what he’s worth.”

I looked around sharply. “Papa, you ain’t thinking ’bout selling Dynamite?”

Papa pulled one of my braids. “Gotta sell something, honey.”

There was no argument I could make to that.

“You can hang on to him,” Mr. Morrison continued, “he’d more’n pay for himself. What with him bein’ able to breed now, you could develop yourself a right fine stock.”

Papa stared thoughtfully at the bull, but did not reply.

Mr. Morrison glanced at Papa’s somber face and added, “Course, you know all that. . . .”

“Stacey! Stacey! Y-your papa bbbb-back there?”

Stacey waved at Dubé standing in the middle of the backyard. “Yeah, he here!” But Dubé, instead of coming to join us, disappeared, going back toward the drive.

“What he want?” I wondered.

“Beats me,” Stacey admitted, then stiffened as Dubé reappeared with two men. One of the men was white. “Papa, there’s a white man coming.”

Both Papa and Mr. Morrison turned at the warning and
waited, their eyes on the men coming through the garden.

“M-M-Mr. Logan,” said Dubé as they came into the pasture, “th-th-these here gentlemen say they wanna s-s-see ya. I s-s-seen ’em outside and thought I’d b-b-bring ’em on b-back.”

“Name’s Morris Wheeler,” the white man said, extending his hand to Papa. “This fella with me is John Moses.”

John Moses also shook Papa’s hand, then Mr. Morrison’s.

“L.T. Morrison’s the name,” said Mr. Morrison.

Mr. Wheeler smiled. “Figured you had to be. Heard ’bout you already.” He too shook Mr. Morrison’s hand, then looked again at Papa. “Ya don’t mind, I’ll get right to why we come. Y’all heard of the Farm Workers’ Union?”

Papa studied Morris Wheeler before he answered. “Heard some talk.”

“Well, I’m one of the organizers of it. Come down from Arkansas way. Was a county extension agent when this Agricultural Adjustment Administration—AAA—came into being and I tell you, I just didn’t take to what was happening. Tenants and sharecroppers getting thrown off their land. Money supposed to be coming to them getting put in the pockets of the plantation owners. John Moses here, he was a sharecropper. Lost what little he had ’cause he didn’t get that government money like he was s’pose to. His landlord didn’t think he owed it to him. Ain’t had no place to go. Wife got the pneumonia ’long with his two younguns living out in the open. All of ’em died. That’s what come of this Agricultural Adjustment business.”

John Moses, his eyes blank, nodded in affirmation.

“Where I was, folks was having a sorrowful time and blaming me for it too,” continued Mr. Wheeler. “Got roughed up a couple times, but I couldn’t blame nobody. It’s
hard on folks seeing their cotton plowed up when it’s just ready for picking, then not even getting a red cent for it.”

Mr. Wheeler waited a moment before going on. “Now don’t get me wrong. Something had to be done to try and get prices back up. I just don’t figure the government’s going about it the best way. One day I just got tired of seeing people going sick and hungry. Got tired of seeing a few poor souls who got up the courage to ask their landlords ’bout their money getting put off their farms ’cause of it.

“That’s when me and a couple of other folks decided to do something and form the Farm Workers’ Union. Got it together last summer and we planning to take it all across the South. There’s other unions like ours and most figure to get tenants and sharecroppers to join together and demand some changes about these government payments. Make other conditions better too.” He glanced around at Dubé standing next to John Moses. “Didn’t you say you was a day laborer, boy?”

“Yes, suh.”

“How much you get a day?”

“F-four bits.”

“Fifty cents. Sunup to sundown,” remarked Mr. Wheeler with a disgusted shake of his head. “What’s top wage ’round here?”

“Ssss-seventy-five cents.”

Mr. Wheeler turned back to Papa. “Now you and me both know that’s a crying shame. The union wants to get them wages raised.” He met Papa’s eyes. “And we gonna need your help.”

Papa studied him, a question in his eyes. “From what you been saying, this union’s for tenants and sharecroppers.”

Mr. Wheeler nodded. “Day laborers too.”

“Well, I’m just wondering why you come to see me then. Figure if you know who I am, you know, too, my family owns this land.”

Mr. Wheeler looked over at John Moses and the two exchanged a knowing smile. “That’s a fact. But to tell the truth, we come ’cause since we’ve been down in here, your name’s come up several times. . . . We heard ’bout the boycott.”

I caught the swift glance of Stacey’s eyes, and looked again at Mr. Wheeler.

“Heard you and your wife got it organized against the Wallace store ’cause the Wallaces was supposed to have set a couple of colored fellas on fire down ’round Smellings Creek. Heard too more’n two dozen families joined in with you, and you and Morrison here hauled goods from Vicksburg to keep ’em going. Seems you managed to keep it going a good three months ’fore the landlords broke it.”

Papa’s eyes were steady on Mr. Wheeler; he said nothing.

Again Mr. Wheeler smiled. “Now I know you’re wondering why I brought that up. Well, simply put, because I was very impressed by what I heard. You got folks who was scared to death of what could happen to them to try and change things around here. You got ’em to join together and stand up for something. I figure you did it once, most likely you could do it again.”

“Folks join anything,” Papa said, “it’s ’cause they make up their own minds to do it.”

“That’s a fact. But when they see somebody they respect supporting a thing, then it’s easier for them to join themselves. It’s a risk they’d be taking—like the boycott—but you support this union and I suspect there’ll be a lot of folks thinking more ’bout joining.”

“This union you got,” said Mr. Morrison, “it jus’ for the colored?”

Mr. Wheeler hesitated. “No . . . colored and white.”

Papa and Mr. Morrison looked at each other. From their faces it was obvious that any support Mr. Wheeler might have been gaining lessened with this information. Mr. Wheeler realized what the look meant and spoke hurriedly. “It’s colored and white ’cause that’s the only way this thing can work. If we go one without the other, we just ain’t gonna be strong enough. Now I ain’t saying I’m for social changes across the board—I’m just being honest with y’all now, telling y’all the same thing I’d tell a white farmer—but we gonna win this thing, we gonna have to join together. There just ain’t no way around it, and folks are just gonna have to make up their minds to what’s more important: their racial feelings or keeping a roof over their heads. That’s just what it comes down to. One can’t do it without the other.”

Dynamite snorted loudly and Papa took the time to look out at him. When he turned again to Mr. Wheeler, he said, “What you say makes sense. But I always like to think a thing through ’fore I decide.”

Mr. Wheeler seemed pleased. “Heard you was that kind of man and I’m glad to see you are. I ain’t rushing no decision from you. Jus’ keep in mind too that as a mixed union we’ve been able to bring a lot of what’s been going on locally to the attention of folks in Washington, like the things some of these local and county AAA committees been pulling. Ya know they the ones make a lot of the decisions concerning the way the program’s carried out—how many acres can be planted and so on. And you know who’s sitting on your committees here? Granger, Montier, Walker—the big landholders. Not a colored farmer, not a sharecropper or a small
landholder among ’em. And believe me, they’re making this thing work for ’em too.”

Mr. Wheeler waited a moment as if expecting Papa to say something. Papa didn’t.

“People out of Washington been investigating complaints about these landlords and how they been misusing the AAA. As a union, we can put the pressure on and keep it on.”

John Moses finally opened his mouth and spoke. “I done been in colored unions befo’. Always got broke up. White folks be’s in this one, it ain’t gonna be so easy to go breakin’ us up, ’cause some of them same ones be in our mixed union be’s the ones bustin’ up the colored union.”

Mr. Wheeler nodded, confirming his statement.

“We gonna be meeting with folks the next few weeks through here. Planning on meeting in groups of ten at different places till we cover everybody. Don’t want where we meeting and what we doing to reach the wrong set of ears. . . . One other thing.” He paused, hesitant. “We’d be interested in using your barn for one of the meetings.”

Papa only stared at him, and he hurriedly amended, “I know, I know. I’m a white man and you don’t know nothing ’bout me, and I understand that. But I’m an honest man. What I believe in I fight for tooth and nail, and a man go ’long with me in something, I wouldn’t never turn my back on him. Now that’s the truth of it.”

“Well, like the other thing,” said Papa, “I’ll have to think on it and discuss it with my family.”

“Fair enough. By the way, these first meetings won’t be mixed. We figure it’s better to keep them separate till folks decide just what they wanna do.” He put out his hand to Papa and Mr. Morrison once more. “Well, I won’t keep y’all from your work no longer. Just hope y’all’ll think ’bout
joining us.” He turned then and headed back toward the house with John Moses following. “Don’t bother to walk back front with us. We’ll see ourselves out.”

“No bother. We was headed back that way,” Papa said. He motioned toward Lady and Jack grazing near the forest on the southern side of the pasture. “Stacey, y’all go bring them in. I wanna take a look at their shoeing.”

“Hey, Dubé, you wanna go with us?” Stacey said as the men walked away.

Dubé shook his head. “N-n-no . . .” His eyes were on the union men. “Th-th-think I’m g-g-gonna catch up with them union men. G-g-got me ssss-some questions.” Then, waving good-bye, he ran after them.

The boys and I watched him a moment, then crossed the pasture. “Bet I can get there ’fore y’all,” challenged Little Man and took off. Christopher-John and I followed, racing across the pasture, but Stacey, too old for such things on this particular day, chose to walk.

“I’m gonna ride Lady!” Little Man proclaimed when we reached the animals.

“Not me! I’m gonna ride Jack,” declared Christopher-John, who for some strange reason always preferred the sturdy plod of the ornery mule to the sleek swiftness of Lady.

“Wait a minute, Christopher-John,” Stacey said, knowing that Jack had a mind of his own and that after only a short while of munching the drying grass, would not feel too pleased about having an eight-year-old boy riding his back. Stacey helped Christopher-John on, then turned to help me. But I didn’t need his help. In the past few months I had mastered the art of leaping onto Lady without a saddle, a stunt none of the grown-ups had seen me perform and one
which Stacey had warned me about. Now I executed it with such ease that he only frowned as Little Man looked on with admiration.

“Soon’s I get me another inch, I’m gonna be able to do that too,” he said.

“An inch!” I declared, insulted. “Boy, you gonna need a whole lotta inches ’fore you can do anything like that. Come on.”

Since Little Man objected to being lifted onto the horse, Stacey cupped his hand for Little Man’s foot and Little Man climbed on behind me. Stacey climbed onto Jack in front of Christopher-John, and the four of us raced the wind across the wide pasture laughing and yelling. As always, Jack, once he recognized that Stacey was master, joined in the spirit of the race and tried to outdistance us. But he was no match for Lady. Lady was the granddaughter of a Thoroughbred. Lady was magic.

At the edge of the pasture we slowed Lady and Jack to a walk. Stacey, Little Man, and I jumped down to lead the animals along the path, but Christopher-John raised up on Jack and squinted across the unplanted cotton field toward the road. “Look there,” he said. Coming toward the house was a yellow car trimmed in black. “Ain’t never seen no yellow car before.” We watched the car until we lost sight of it as it disappeared on the other side of the house.

“Come on,” said Stacey. Christopher-John jumped down from Jack’s back and we all continued along the path to the backyard. Crossing the yard to the barn, we looked again toward the road. The yellow car had slowed, as if the driver was looking at the house. For a moment we all stared at the car, then Christopher-John dropped Jack’s reins and ran down the drive.

“Uncle Hammer!” he cried. “Uncle Hammer, that’s you, ain’t it?”

The car picked up speed and turned into the driveway. When it stopped, a tall, well-dressed man wearing a three-piece suit and felt hat, and looking very much like Papa, got out.