Let the Circle Be Unbroken (4 page)

As we marched back toward the church with Papa behind us, our stomachs churning into acid pits of nausea, Son-Boy’s sister Lou Ella Hicks headed our way.

“Mr. Logan, you seen Joe?” she asked. “I let him hold Doris Anne a while back and I ain’t seen him nowheres.”

“He must be near here,” Papa said.

“I done looked in the church. They ain’t there. I thought maybe he walked on down to the school with her.”

The big iron church bell clanged loudly. It was time for church to begin. Papa looked up toward the belfry and, instinctively, so did Lou Ella. She let out a faint gasp and Papa touched her arm. Riding the rope that pulled the bell
was Doris Anne, giggling with unbridled delight. No one else could be seen.

“Don’t call her,” Papa cautioned. “She might let go.”

He left us then, running toward the far side of the church to the side entrance which led up to the belfry. Mr. Page Ellis saw him and asked Lou Ella what was wrong, then dashed off after him, followed by Lou Ella and us.

By the time we all reached the side door, Papa was standing on the ladder that led through a small hole to the belfry. Above him on the landing was Wordell Lees holding Doris Anne. A slightly built, handsome, brown-sugar boy of fifteen with haunting sandy-colored eyes that were now fixed on Papa, Wordell was considered peculiar by just about everyone. He seldom spoke, though it was said he could speak, and he never smiled, though he was supposed to be able to do that too.

“Boy, what you doin’ with that baby up there!” Mr. Ellis cried up to him. “You ain’t got the brains of a two-year-old! Don’t you know that child could fall?”

Papa seemed about to speak, but then his eyes caught the slight shake of Wordell’s head. Wordell stared at Papa for a long, long moment, then looked at Mr. Ellis. Doris Anne was secure in his arms, but he made no move to come down.

“Give me the baby, son,” Papa said softly.

Wordell hesitated, his eyes searching Papa’s; then, seemingly reassured, he handed over Doris Anne. Papa came down the ladder and gave the child to her mother.

“Get on down here,” hollered Mr. Ellis. Slowly, Wordell descended, his feet bare, revealing the absence of a little toe on each foot. Before he reached bottom, Mr. Ellis jerked him off the ladder. “Boy, you done lost what little mind you got?” he asked. “I oughta whip you right here and now ’bout taking that child up there.”

Wordell’s gaze settled on Mr. Ellis; there was no change in the blank expression on his face.

“Open your mouth, boy, and talk! What you doin’ with that baby up there?” Mr. Ellis demanded, angered even more by Wordell’s silence.

Papa put a restraining hand on Mr. Ellis’s shoulder. “Let the boy go on into church, Page. No harm’s done.”

Mr. Ellis relaxed his grip on Wordell and immediately Wordell escaped him, slipping down the steps and through the crowd which had gathered. He ran off toward the woods.

“You don’t understand how that boy is, David,” Mr. Ellis said. “He ain’t like most younguns—he ain’t right in the head. You gotta teach him hard ’bout right and wrong. He jus’ don’t know no better.”

“He wasn’t gonna hurt the baby,” Papa said. “I think he just went up there to get her down.”

“You tellin’ me she got up there by herself then?”

“No. . . .” Papa hesitated. “No, I ain’t saying that. Only I wouldn’t be hard on the boy. I got a feeling he was just trying to help.”

Mr. Ellis only looked at Papa, then came on down the steps. Everyone turned and went around to the front of the church. When we reached the church door, I looked back out to the woods where Wordell had fled. Suddenly from nowhere Joe appeared and ran into the woods also. I glanced up at Papa, wondering if he’d seen. Then a thought occurred to me: Where had Joe been all that time when Doris Anne had been up in the belfry? He was the one who was supposed to ring the bell. Before I could ask Papa about it, he ushered me inside the church, where we were greeted by the congregation’s singing of “Look Out, Sinner! Judgment Day’s A-Comin’!” which reminded me of my own impending punishment and that I had more than Joe to worry about.

Clarence Hopkins brought the news. He dashed across the school lawn just minutes before the afternoon bell was to ring, crying out to Stacey, who was standing with Little Willie Wiggins, Moe Turner, and several other eighth-grade boys beside the tree which shaded the well. He caused such a ruckus with his yelling that all the students still lingering outside were alerted that something important was up. Immediately Son-Boy, Maynard, and I left the steps of the middle-grades building to join the growing circle as Little Man and Christopher-John came running from the far corner of the toolshed, where they had been throwing horseshoes.
By the time we had pushed our way into the group, Clarence was already into his story. He had gone home for lunch and had gotten the news from his mother, who had gotten it from Mr. Silas Lanier, who had just come back from Strawberry: T.J. Avery was to go on trial next month.

“You sure?” questioned Stacey. “They gonna really let him have a trial?”

“That’s . . . what . . . Mr. Lanier . . . said,” Clarence replied between gasps to recover his breath. He had run all the way from home. “He said it’s all over town. That’s all the white folks talkin’ ’bout.” Clarence breathed in deeply before he continued. “They say there ain’t no need of no trial, but Mr. Jamison, he been worryin’ all this time to get one . . . and he sho’ ’nough got it—”

“My daddy said a trial ain’t gonna do no good,” remarked Moe, a quiet, gentle boy who usually had little to say in a crowd, but whose opinion was always respected.

“Maybe not,” agreed Little Willie, “but leastways he got one. That’s better’n nothin’, I ’spect.”

Stacey frowned. “Don’t know ’bout that. They ain’t gonna believe what T.J.’s gotta say no way so what’s the use of a trial?” His words were bitter and no one attempted to answer him as silence settled over the group. Then Stacey asked if anyone had seen T.J.

“Nobody I know ’bout,” said Clarence, “’ceptin’ maybe his folks and Mr. Jamison.” He was silent a moment, then added, “I’d sure like to go to that trial.”

At first no one commented, then Little Willie scratched his head. “You s’pose they gon’ let colored folks in?”

Clarence looked surprised. “I don’t see why not! We got a right—”

“What day is it?” Stacey asked, brusquely ignoring Clarence’s summation of what rights he thought we had.

“The tenth,” answered Clarence, unruffled. “December tenth.”

Moe turned to Stacey. “You gonna try to go? You go, I’ll go.”

I looked at Stacey, curious as to what he would say, but he didn’t answer. The afternoon bell began to ring and he left the circle. The rest of us watched him go; then we were forced by the bell to disperse. Christopher-John in the third grade and Little Man in the second slowly wandered off to the primary-grades building. Son-Boy, Maynard, and I crossed in silence to the middle-grades building, where we went into our fifth-grade classroom and wordlessly slipped into our seats. Class began and I opened my book, with T.J. Avery on my mind.

*   *   *

On a dry day the walk home took about an hour. On wet days, what with the slipperiness of the mud road and having to scramble onto the forest bank to avoid any passing vehicle, the journey took some fifteen minutes longer. Today the weather was fine and we arrived at the second crossroads in good time. With the long shadowing arms of the Granger forest trees stretching over us, we walked the last half mile toward home. Finally, towering alone and beaconlike, the old oak which marked the boundary of our four hundred acres came into view. On the right side of the road the forest continued. On the left it ended, leaving in its stead the massive oak and the open richness of red Mississippi farmland.

Beyond the oak lay the east pasture, and beyond it the cotton field, left dead-looking by the August fire which had started there and swept across the rows of green and purple stalks, taking fine puffs of cotton ready for picking and bolls of flowered richness still blooming. The fire had destroyed a quarter of the year’s crop and damaged much of the rest with
its smoke and heat. The pasture, which before the fire had boasted a soft greenness, was scorched brown, and the oak had been singed by the heat of the fire, a fire Papa himself had started to stop the lynching of T.J. But no one except the family and Mr. Wade Jamison knew Papa had set the fire; it was too dangerous for anyone else to know.

The fire had not extended beyond the pasture. Men who had come to hang T.J. had ended up fighting the fire instead, in order to stop its encroachment eastward to the Granger forest. None of Mr. Harlan Granger’s 6,000 acres had been touched.

The cotton field ran to within a hundred feet of the house and was bordered with a barbwire fence which continued to the back of the house and the garden gate. Past the fields was the lawn, long and sloping upward to the house. On its western edge a dusty driveway cut from the road to the barn. Beyond the lawn and the drive lay the west fields where hay, corn, soybeans, and sugarcane were planted each spring. The fire hadn’t burned them, but it wouldn’t have mattered as much if it had. Mostly, the hay and the soybeans and the sugarcane were not cash crops; it was the cotton we depended upon for our income. Perhaps too much.

Going up the drive, we followed the path of giant rocks leading to the back porch and entered the house through the kitchen. There we found Big Ma at her usual place by the cast-iron stove stirring a pot smelling strongly of collard greens. One look at her and it was evident where Papa had gotten his looks. Tall and strongly built, her coloring was the same pecan-brown and she carried no fat. She turned as we came in, with a smile that started vanishing when she saw our faces. The years had taught her to discern whenever something was wrong, and before we could say anything she demanded to know what was the matter. When Stacey told
her, she shook her head muttering, “Lord, Lord,” and absently continued to stir the collards.

Stacey watched her a moment, then went through the curtained doorway which separated the closetlike kitchen from the dining room, and into the room he shared with Christopher-John and Little Man to the right of it. Christopher-John and Little Man followed him, but I stayed behind to ask Big Ma about Mama, Papa, and Mr. Morrison. Once I had found out where they were, I left as well, going through the dining room and Mama and Papa’s room to the room Big Ma and I shared. There I finally shed the school dress and slipped into the comfort of well-worn pants. My first impulse was to toss the dress on a chair, but knowing the fussing that was sure to come, I was about to hang it up when I heard a wagon turning into the drive, and deciding on first things first, tossed it anyway and ran outside.

The wagon rolled to a stop and Mr. L.T. Morrison stepped down. An awesome figure, Mr. Morrison was over seven feet tall with skin that was black, hair that was gray, and bulging muscles of an ironlike hardness despite his sixty-three years. He smiled down at me in his gentle way and spoke in a voice that rolled low and deep.

“Hello, Mr. Morrison,” I said quietly.

He walked to the back of the wagon where a hay loader was sitting and lifted it out, a task that should have taken two men. I followed him as he took the hay loader into the barn, then out again and helped him clear the rest of the wagon. After a while he looked down at me curiously. “You mighty quiet there, Cassie.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Anything the matter?”

I looked up at him. “T.J. got himself a trial . . . next month.”

He appeared just a bit surprised, then softly touched my head with his giant hand. “That’s better’n nothin’, Cassie.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, continuing the unloading. But he and I both knew it wasn’t much better.

When the boys came out, they spoke to Mr. Morrison, who watched us all with worried eyes; then the four of us crossed the road to the forest. Hearing the thudding echo of an axe beating out a dull rhythm, we followed the trail that wound through pines and oaks and sweet gums to a vast clearing where standing trees gave way to those that had fallen more than a year ago when lumbermen had come and chopped them down.

Mama stood alone near the pond chopping one of the fallen trees for firewood. A tall, thin woman with fragile beauty in a strong-jawed face, she hardly looked to have the strength needed to swing the axe in such a hefty fashion, but her looks were deceiving. She had been born in the Delta, a sharecropper’s daughter, and she knew hard work. At nineteen she had come to Spokane County to teach; a year later she had married Papa. Since then she had worked as hard as he to keep the farm going, and when Papa had gone to work on the railroad in Louisiana, Mama had not only run the farm but had continued to teach as well. That is, she had taught until Harlan Granger had decided it was too dangerous to have her teaching and she had been fired, supposedly for destroying school property. But everyone knew what the real reason was: Mama had organized a boycott against the Wallaces, white brothers who ran the store on the Granger plantation, and Harlan Granger hadn’t liked that, not one little bit. And when Harlan Granger didn’t like something he always did something about it.

She stopped chopping as we entered the clearing and smiled at us. Sinking the axe into a log, she took off the
raw leather gloves she wore and the scarf which revealed long hair neatly pulled into a chignon at the nape of her neck. “How was school?” she asked.

“All right,” said Stacey, looking around. “Where’s Papa?”

Mama wiped the back of her hand across her forehead and went over to the water pail. “He’s down farther.”

“Mama, y’all hear?”

“Hear what, honey?” She uncovered the pail and dipped out some water with a ladle.

“’Bout T.J.” Mama looked at Stacey, the ladle at her lips. “Come next month, he gonna get a trial.”

Mama lowered the ladle without drinking. “Where’d you hear that?”

“At school. Clarence found out when he gone home for dinner. Mr. Lanier was there and he’d just come back from Strawberry. Said that’s all folks talking ’bout.”