Let the Circle Be Unbroken (29 page)

When we reached the house, Russell Thomas was there sitting on the back porch with Mama and Big Ma. It was a surprise to see him, and the boys and I brightened noticeably. “How long you gonna be with us this time?” Stacey asked, pumping his hand.

“Got myself a whole week.” Russell stepped back to look Stacey over. “Man, how you get to be tall as me?”

Stacey laughed. “I jus’ keep growing.”

“Miz Mary, you don’t watch out, you gonna soon have yourself a full-grown man ’round here.”

“Sometimes I feel I already have one. By the way, Russell, I don’t think you’ve met my niece, Suzella.”

“No, ma’am, ain’t met her but I gotta admit, done heard ’bout her.” He extended his hand. “Russell Thomas. Miz Lee Annie’s grandson.”

“She’s spoken of you. I’m sure she’s pleased that you’re home,” Suzella said graciously. Then, excusing herself, she went into the house.

Russell stared after her. “Well, like everybody say, she’s mighty pretty all right.” He sat back down. “Kinda short on her words though.”

“That’s her way,” said Big Ma.

“Humph!” I grumped, but no one but Christopher-John, who shot a disapproving glance my way, heard.

“Mama, we run into Dubé,” said Stacey, “and he told us Mr. Wheeler come back and said how come all this plowing up been going on.”

“He did? What’d he say?”

Stacey repeated what Dubé had told us.

“Well, I declare.”

A discussion of the plow-ups followed as Russell asked about what had been happening in the community. In the midst of the conversation, Big Ma turned to Stacey and told him to get the watermelon that was cooling in the well. I went with him and together we tugged at the heaviest of the three ropes hanging from the scaffolding and brought up the melon, a large, round, dark-green one, the kind Big Ma preferred above any other. Later, when all of us but Suzella, who had decided to keep herself in the house, were finishing up our second slices of watermelon, Dubé arrived. Immediately,
he started in about the union, his voice rising in angry indignation as he quoted Mr. Wheeler about the reasons for the plow-ups, then about the conditions of sharecroppers and day laborers across the South.

“I understand you been doin’ quite a bit of work with them union leaders,” Russell said.

“W-work with ’em when I-I can. Th-th-this here union c-could mean a whole lot, w-we stand together.”

“And at this here meeting folks gonna be deciding what to do ’bout the plow-ups and the checks, I take it.”

Dubé nodded. “Th-th-that’s right. Mr. Wheeler, he s-s-say too the union g-g-gonna demand buck s-seventy-five a day for field wages too. That there, it’ll help f-f-folks like me a whole lot. Mr. Wheeler, he s-s-say we stick together, everybody be living a whole lot b-better. He say—”

Russell smiled at Dubé. “You kinda think a lot of this Mr. Wheeler, don’t ya?”

Dubé looked a little shamefaced and lowered his head. “I-I guess I-I does.” Then quickly he looked Russell in the eye. “But I-I-I ain’t T-Tomming none.”

“Wasn’t thinking that.”

Dubé looked relieved, for he, like most of the boys and young men in the community, admired Russell and wanted his approval. “J-jus’ that what he s-s-say make sense and he be d-doing somethin’ ’bout it.”

“From what I been hearing, it makes sense to me too. What else ya know ’bout it?”

Obviously pleased by Russell’s interest, Dubé talked a good half hour more about the union and Morris Wheeler, John Moses, and other union leaders; about how the union was started and what its goals were; about the importance of the union and his role in it, his excitement growing as he talked and his stuttering lessening. “R-Russell, you j-jus’
oughta meet Mr. Wheeler and them your own s-s-self and talk to ’em. Th-th-they’s good folks and they can ’splain everything b-better’n me.” His eyes brightened. “F-fact to business, why don’t ya c-come on with me now? I-I-I be going there soon’s I-I make these last few stops.”

Russell thought a moment. “Where they live?”

“O-over by Mr. J-J-John Bass’s place.”

“I understand they stay there together—colored and the white union men.”

“Y-Y-Y-Yeah, they do.”

Again Russell was thoughtful. Finally, he said, “Tell ya what. Can’t go today, and tomorrow I gotta make a run into Strawberry with Cousin Page. What ’bout late tomorrow afternoon sometime? You think you might be going that way?”

“G-g-go if ya wanna.”

“All right then, why don’t you stop by Mama Lee’s on the way over ’round four. Should be back from town then.”

After Russell and Dubé left, I walked out to the pasture to figure out what I should do about Suzella; then, deciding to talk to Stacey about her, I came back and crossed the yard to the barn where he was working. “I wanna talk to you,” I said as soon as I cleared the door. “You know what that Suzella done today?”

Stacey turned to look at me. “This here’s ’bout Suzella I don’t wanna hear it.”

“Whaddaya mean ya don’t wanna hear it?” I demanded, just about sick of him too. “You don’t even know what she done!”

“And I don’t wanna know. All you do is complain ’bout that girl.”

“But she—”

Mr. Morrison came up the drive in the wagon loaded with
hay and Stacey went to meet him. Little Man and Christopher-John sat upon the stacks, and as Mr. Morrison turned the wagon around to back into the barn, they yelled directions to him. “Ya all right now, Mr. Morrison! Jus’ a bit farther now!”

When the wagon came to a halt and Jack had been unhitched, Stacey hopped up on the stacks to push them into position for unloading. I hopped up as well, and once the stacks at the edge of the wagon had been taken off, I struggled to pull a stack out by myself.

As he worked, Mr. Morrison spoke about other hay crops he had gathered through the years, some in Mississippi, some in states like Kansas, Missouri, and Texas. He had traveled a lot, and it seemed to me, who had gotten no farther than Strawberry, that he had been just about everywhere.

“Mr. Morrison, you wouldn’t ever think ’bout leaving us, wouldja?” Stacey asked, pulling a bale close to the wagon’s edge.

I looked up from my struggle, wanting to hear his answer.

“Don’t ’spect I would,” he said. “Y’all’s my family now.”

Assured that he wasn’t going anywhere, I went back to tugging at the bale. Mr. Morrison saw me and let out a bemused laugh. “You figure you got enough muscle on you, girl, to be doing that?”

“Ah, Mr. Morrison, I got plenty of muscle.”

Mr. Morrison grunted. “Well, I ’spect it wouldn’t hurt none if them muscles of yours had a little bit of help now, do you?” He glanced over to Christopher-John and Little Man and told them to help me.

Christopher-John and Little Man stepped in beside me, and Little Man said, “Move, gal. Let some real muscles in.”

Mr. Morrison stopped and looked back at him. “What’s that you said?”

Little Man looked up, his face showing his surprise. “Sir?”

“You used the word ‘gal.’ Ain’t that right?”

“Y-yes, sir.”

“You ever hear your papa or your Uncle Hammer or anybody in this house talking to womenfolks with that word?”

“No, sir.”

“Then don’t you use it. It’s common. White folks use that word to talk down to colored women, and too many colored folks done gone and picked it up. White folks don’t respect our female folks, so that give us all the more reason to respect ’em and don’t be speaking to ’em the way the white folks do. That make sense to ya?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Then get on back to work.”

Once the bales were stacked, I tried to continue my talk with Stacey, but he abruptly cut me off, refusing to listen. “I done told you once, Cassie, I don’t have time to hear ’bout it,” he said and walked off.

“You just wait!” I cried after him. “You just wait till you need somebody to talk to! Need to talk to me!”

That little outburst did not even make him miss a step, and both discouraged and angry, I went across to the yard where Mama was taking down the wash. I grabbed one of Stacey’s shirts and slapped at it furiously before folding it.

“Now what’s the matter with you?” Mama asked from the next row.

“Ah, that Stacey, he just make me so mad. I told that boy I wanted to talk to him, but he say he didn’t have the time.”

“Here, help me with this sheet.” I stepped back and took down one end of the sheet as Mama took down the other, and we folded it in half. “You know, Stacey has a bit of a
problem of his own and I don’t think things are going that well for him.”

“What kinda problem he got?”

Mama shook the sheet to straighten it. “Liking someone that’s special to him and having trouble with it.”

“You mean Jacey? Ah, that ain’t nothin’.”

“When you care for someone, it’s something.”

“Well, I’m sorry ’bout all that,” I said, though I couldn’t dredge up too much sympathy about it, “but he didn’t have to be so mean to me just ’cause he’s feeling bad.”

“He probably didn’t intend to be.”

We finished the sheet and started another. “Mama, Stacey and me, we used to be such good friends. Now he don’t even hardly say ‘boo’ to me.”

Mama smiled. “Ah, don’t you worry,” she said. “Stacey’s at an age where he’s looking for room. He’s changing and he’s looking for his life to change too, and he really doesn’t have much patience with folks he’s been around all his life. But that’ll all pass. I remember when your Cousin Bud went through the same thing and I was one upset little girl, because I just loved Bud so and we’d always been close. I just didn’t understand why he had to change, and if we both eventually had to change, why it couldn’t be at the same time.” She laughed. “It didn’t make any sense to me that just because there were three years between us it should make any difference. But it all worked out all right. We went through a few years there when we were always at odds with each other, but when we both got a bit older we became friends again . . . closer than ever. It’ll be the same with you and Stacey.”

“You really think so, Mama?”

“Most certainly do.”

Assured of the prospects for improved relations with Stacey
looming in the future, my thoughts turned once more to Suzella. I asked Mama if she thought Suzella was pretty.

“Very,” she said.

“Well, I don’t see how come everybody get so excited ’bout the way she look. Jacey and Clarice jus’ as pretty.”

Mama agreed. “Yes, they are.”

“Well, how come everybody make such a fuss ’bout Suzella then?”

“Well . . . Suzella’s pretty in a different way. When I was in school in Jackson, there was an Italian family lived near the school and there were three daughters in the family. Very pretty. Suzella reminds me of them. She’s got an Italian look about her. Also, you have to remember that some people are taken with her just because she does look white.”

“Why?”

“It makes her special.”

“But why?”

“Oh, it goes back a long way. We’ve been taught so long to think we’re less than anybody else, many of us have grown to believe it, in some ways if not others. And a lot of us figure the lighter we are, the better we are . . . like white people.”

“But it ain’t so.”

“No, it’s not. But that’s how some people figure.”

“Well, she may look to suit some folks, but Big Ma always says pretty is as pretty does.”

“Now just why do you bring that up?”

“’Cause if you ask me, Suzella don’t always do so pretty, and besides, she makes me so doggone mad—”

“I’ve told you I want you to be nice to her.”

“I been being nice as I can be, but when she was standing up there today talking to Stuart—”

“Stuart?” Mama stopped folding the sheet and looked sharply at me. “Not Stuart Walker?”

“Yes’m.”

“What were you doing talking with Stuart Walker?” she demanded.

“Wasn’t me. It was Suzella. I told her to come on.”

“What were they talking about?”

I knew it was not out of idle curiosity that Mama was asking. I also knew she should be told, though I wondered if I wanted her to know mainly so that Suzella could fall from her grace as she had from Christopher-John’s and Little Man’s.

“Well?”

I decided to ponder the ethics of the situation later and told her. Mama was silent when I finished, the expression on her face not quite readable. She helped me finish the sheets, then went into the house. I gave her a moment and followed, trailing her through the house to my bedroom. “I understand you ran into Stuart Walker today,” Mama was saying as I came in.

Suzella was sitting in a cushioned chair by the front window with an open book on her lap. She looked up hesitantly. “Yes . . . I did.”

“I understand, also, you led those boys to believe you’re white.”

Suzella bowed her head, allowing her hair to fall, half covering her face.

“Is that so?”

“I didn’t tell them I was white.”

“You didn’t tell them you were colored either.”

Suzella looked up, her face defiant. “Why should I? I’ve got as much white blood as colored.”

Mama eyed her sharply. “Get this through your head, Suzella. If you’ve got
any
colored in you, that makes you colored.”

“My mother says I’m not. She says I’m not colored.”

“That’s her problem,” Mama snapped. “My problem is seeing to it that you recognize what you are, at least as long as you’re down here.”

“Stuart didn’t question what color I am—”

“He didn’t think to question it. But let me tell you something. Once he finds out—and he will—he won’t be so polite anymore. And one other thing. He’s not going to like being fooled that way.”

“I didn’t fool him!”

“I’m not going to stand here and argue with you about it. But I am going to tell you this: You leave these white boys around here alone and don’t you let them think you’re white when you’re not.”

“Aunt Mary, I’d like to get to know Stuart—he seems nice.” Mama folded her arms and looked at the floor; even from where I stood I could feel her rising anger. “I made up my mind a long time ago that I won’t marry a colored man . . . I won’t live like my mother.”

Mama kept looking at the floor for a long time. When she did look up again, it was evident she had not managed to suppress her anger. “If your Uncle David were here, he’d probably pack you up and send you back to New York right now. Me, I’m going to give you a choice: You can do what I say and stay, or if you don’t like being with us—”