“No . . . David, I know you’re doing what you think’s best, but I can’t help how I feel. I just can’t help it.” Her eyes lingered on Papa a moment longer, then she turned and walked along the giant stepping stones leading to the drive.
Stacey turned abruptly and left through the dining room. Big Ma, who had been mixing bread dough at the dining room table, brought the dough into the kitchen and plopped it into a waiting bowl. She covered the bowl with a damp towel, wiped her hands, and went out to the porch.
“Son,” she said, touching Papa’s arm. “Son, now you know I ain’t never come messin’ in nothin’ ’tween you and Mary and I ain’t wantin’ to do it now. But you knows I loves Mary much as I do you, and me bein’ a woman, I understands how she feels. You been leaving her a lot these here last few years to bring them children up by herself and take care of this place. I know you ain’t wantin’ to do it and Mary, she knows it too, but she got a right to ’spect you to be here.”
“Now, Mama,” Papa said, his voice sounding tired, “don’t you start in on me too.”
“I ain’t gonna start in on ya! All I’m sayin’ is you gotta understand how she feel, and maybe you can try and make it up to her some way, like comin’ home more times than you done before. That’d make her feel better. Sho’ would me. And you jus’ ’member how special she is—”
Christopher-John dropped a spoon on the floor and Big Ma looked over her shoulder. Realizing that we were listening to every word, she took Papa’s arm and walked with him out into the yard to the old bench under the walnut tree. As they crossed the yard, Christopher-John said, “You s’pose Papa gonna ever be able to stay?”
I shrugged. “Maybe . . . someday.”
Christopher-John took a plate from the rinsewater and slowly dried it.
“Cassie . . . know what?”
I looked at him.
“I don’t think I can wait that long. . . .”
* * *
Saturday was a lonely day. The boys and I stuck close to Papa and Uncle Hammer for most of the morning, but in the afternoon when Papa and Mr. Morrison and the boys went down to see about Dynamite, I stayed behind sitting on the back porch steps, staring out across the pasture, wondering if the time would ever come when Papa would not have to go away.
“Now what you doing sitting out here all by yourself?”
I looked around. Uncle Hammer was standing in the kitchen doorway.
“I—I was just thinking.”
He closed the door and crossed the porch to the water pail hanging on a rafter nail. Filling the dipper with water, he drank slowly, then walked over to where I was sitting and leaned against the post.
“I imagine you most likely thinking ’bout your papa leaving—that right?”
“Yes, sir.”
He didn’t say anything else for several minutes, and I figured that he was lost in his own thoughts, forgetting I was even there. I wanted to move to another place, for I felt uncomfortable with Uncle Hammer standing there. But I couldn’t just get up and walk away without saying something, and since I couldn’t think of anything to say, I just sat there.
“You know,” he said finally, making me start at the sound of his voice, “I recall one time when my papa went off for a spell—not as long as your papa has to go off for—but it was long enough. He was doing some lumbering up near the Natchez Trace, and David and me, we was fit to be tied, we missed him so. Him and our oldest brother, your Uncle Mitchell, was up there trying to get money together to get themselves a horse and pay on this place. Couldn’t wait for them to get back here.”
He smiled at the remembrance, then stood and waved toward the horseshoe stake out in the yard. “How ’bout a game of horseshoes with me?”
I looked at him, then went to get the horseshoes from where they were hooked over a spike at the other end of the porch.
“You know, I used to be right good at this,” he said, walking to the pitching line. “Your papa and me, we was two of the best shots at Great Faith when we was boys.”
We tossed a round and Uncle Hammer won. I started the second round with a shot that nicely zinged around the stake and stayed put. Uncle Hammer held his shoe, but didn’t throw it. “Ya know, Cassie, you ain’t had much to say to me this time since I been here.”
He was sure right about that. I glanced up at Uncle Hammer and, finding his eyes on me, immediately looked away again. I had made it a point not to say much to him. In fact, I had stayed out of his way as much as possible, for I wasn’t about to put myself in the path of his anger again. One thing I wasn’t was stupid.
“Your papa told me he thought you was kinda upset with me. That right?”
I kept my eyes riveted on the horseshoe I had successfully thrown and didn’t answer.
“Cassie?”
I was afraid Uncle Hammer would hear my heart beating. I looked up at him.
“Look here, sugar, don’t you know you got no need to ever be scared of me?” He paused, gazing softly down at me. Again, I looked away.
“I know I ain’t the easiest person to get along with. Maybe sometimes I speak too rough to y’all. But don’t you know I wouldn’t never do nothin’ to hurt you, and I wouldn’t never tell you nothin’ I didn’t think was right? You know that, don’t you?”
He waited patiently, expecting me to answer.
“Y-yes, sir.”
Uncle Hammer glanced at his horseshoe and tossed it. It landed squarely on top of mine. He wasn’t looking at me when he spoke again. “Ain’t got no children of my own. Probably never will have. But even if I did, I couldn’t love ’em no more than I love you, Christopher-John, Little Man, and Stacey. Y’all ever need me, y’all know there ain’t nothing in this world I wouldn’t do for y’all that I thought was right. Nothin’. Y’all . . . y’all like my own children to me. . . .”
Neither of us looked at the other; our eyes were on the stake. I wanted to throw my arms around Uncle Hammer and hug him, but that wasn’t the way it was between Uncle Hammer and me. I hugged him when he arrived and hugged him when he left. Hugging him at any other time would have been awkward, even now. Instead, I threw another horseshoe and Uncle Hammer threw his. He said no more about what had happened between us or about his feelings, but he didn’t need to. He had said enough.
* * *
After dinner Papa and Uncle Hammer prepared to go. Big Ma, who had spent a good part of the morning frying chicken and sweet potato turnovers for them to take, took the lunch boxes to the car and placed them gently on the backseat. By the time she came out, the boys and I were already standing with Uncle Hammer and Mr. Morrison near the barn, the coming loneliness already hanging over us. A few minutes later Papa and Mama came out and the good-byes began. Once Uncle Hammer had shaken Mr. Morrison’s hand and hugged the rest of us, he neatly folded his suit jacket across the middle of the front seat and got in the car. Papa, having hugged us all, kissed Mama one last time and followed, but before he closed the door, Little Man, with huge tears swelling in his eyes, tugged at his arm. “P-Papa, do you gotta go?”
Every year the question was the same; every year Papa had to explain once again.
Papa looked softly at Little Man, then, cupping his thin face in his large, rough hands, said: “Now, son, I’m afraid I do or how else we gonna pay these taxes and keep this land? You know I ain’t wanting to leave, don’t you?” Little Man nodded. “We all got a job to do. My job is to go see ’bout getting back on the railroad and try to get us some cash money. Your job is to grow strong and help your mama and Big Ma and Mr. Morrison here while I’m gone. Now I’m gonna be counting on you to do that . . . you think you can?”
With a sniffle which he tried to conceal, Little Man said he could, then Papa held him close, smiled sadly at the rest of us, and with a wave closed the door.
“Y’all take care of y’allselves now,” Big Ma called as the Ford pulled away. “And drive careful!”
Before the car had turned into the road, Little Man fled up the drive
to the barn to hide his tears. Mama started to go after him, but Mr. Morrison stopped her. “Let me, Miz Logan,” he said. As Mr. Morrison went up the drive, Big Ma followed, the spring suddenly gone out of her steps with both her sons gone. But Mama, Stacey, Christopher-John, and I remained by the road watching the car until we could see it no longer. As the swirls of red dust settled back to the earth, we crossed the lawn and headed for the house, still hearing the hum of the Ford’s motor, faint, distant, too far away. Papa and Uncle Hammer were really gone now. It would be too long before they came again.
* * *
“I thinks I wants to vote,” announced Mrs. Lee Annie one rainy afternoon in mid-April as she sat with Big Ma and me in front of the fire finishing a patchwork quilt started in winter.
Big Ma looked sharply across at her old friend. “Say what?”
“You heard me. Said I was gon’ vote.”
Big Ma’s fingers moved deftly over the patch that had once been a part of Little Man’s trousers to make sure it hadn’t puckered. “Lord-a-mercy, Lee Annie, you gone foolish in yo’ old age?”
“Naw . . . I just wants to vote. Done made up my mind.”
“But Miz Lee Annie, you said you didn’t wanna vote,” I reminded her as I took this opportunity to put aside the quilting which had been forced upon me by Big Ma as one of those things young ladies needed to learn. “You said you just wanted to read that constitution.”
“Well, that’s the truth all right, sugar. But I jus’ been thinking. Now’s I’m learning the law, why shouldn’t I jus’ go on down and vote jus’ like them white folks—”
“You done gone foolish—” Big Ma said again.
“Probably knows it better than a lot of them,” Mrs. Lee Annie continued, unperturbed. “My papa voted. Said it was a right fine feeling. He voted and he didn’t know no law at all ’ceptin’ that he was a free man and a free man could vote. And here I jus’ been readin’ the constitution, and I ain’t votin’ at all—”
“You been readin’ too much, that’s what you been doin’,” Big Ma retorted.
“Well, I’m gon’ do it, Caroline. Gon’ vote . . . sho’ is. Where that Mary? Ow, you, Mary! Where you at?”
Mama came in from the kitchen and Mrs. Lee Annie told her what she had told us. Mama glanced from Mrs. Lee Annie to Big Ma.
“Don’t look at me,” Big Ma said. “I done told her she was crazy. ’round here talkin’ ’bout she free and she gon’ vote . . . like she got somebody to vote for.”
Mama came back to the circle and took her seat, but she didn’t pick up the quilt. Instead, she put her hand on Mrs. Lee Annie’s arm. “Now, Mrs. Lee Annie,” she said, “why you want to do this thing? You know these people aren’t going to let you vote.”
“I knows what I gotta do to take that test,” Mrs. Lee Annie contended stubbornly, pounding her knee through the heavy quilt for emphasis. “I gots to have my poll taxes paid—and they gonna be, Russell give me the money—and I gotta tell the registrar what them there words in the constitution mean—and I gonna be able to do that—then I can vote.”
“Mrs. Lee Annie, how many colored folks you know vote?”
“Ne’er a one. But part of that’s ’cause these ole white folks think ain’t no colored folks gon’ come down to their ole voting places to vote. Well, this here ole aunty gon’ strut right down there and show them I knows the law. Ole Lee Annie Lees gon’ vote jus’ like her daddy done.”
“Now, Mrs. Lee Annie—”
“Lee Annie Lees, that’s ’bout the silliest thing I done heard of!” exclaimed Big Ma in exasperation. “Now jus’ who you think you gon’ vote for if they lets you vote? Bilbo?”
“Humph!” grumped Mrs. Lee Annie.
“Mrs. Lee Annie,” Mama said, “now have you thought about what could happen if you try to register? First of all, they most likely won’t even let you, and even if they do, they won’t pass you on the test, but they’ll remember you tried to vote and they won’t think too kindly of you for it either.”
“That ain’t what I’m living for, for these crackers to think kindly of me!”
Mama smiled and nodded. “But more than that, have you thought of what Harlan Granger might say?”
Mrs. Lee Annie looked surprised. “Harlan Granger? What he got to do with it?”
Mama took Mrs. Lee Annie’s hand. “You’re living on his land and he expects certain things—”
“And I gives ’em to him, too! Works my land and puts in my crop ’longside Page and Leora every year.”
“Yes, ma’am, I know that, but—”
“And he knows it too!”
“Yes, ma’am. But Harlan Granger doesn’t expect you to go off trying to vote, and he’s not going to like it. Not one little bit.”
For the first time Mrs. Lee Annie was silent.
“He’s not going to care,” Mama continued, “about your papa or your dreams. All he’s going to care about is that one of ‘his’ colored people is trying to do something he figures is white folks’ business, and believe me, Mrs. Lee Annie—I know that man—when he doesn’t like something, that means there’s going to be trouble . . . for you. . . . Things could happen.”
Mrs. Lee Annie was thoughtful, one hand fingering the quilt, the other still held by Mama. She remained unspeaking for so long that Mama finally said, “Mrs. Lee Annie?”
Mrs. Lee Annie looked back at Mama. “Mary, child, all my life whenever I wanted to do something and the white folks didn’t like it, I didn’t do it. All my life, it been that way. But now I’s sixty-four years old and I figure I’s deserving of doing something I wants to do, white folks like it or not. And this old body wants to vote and like I done said, I gots my mind made up. I’s gon’ vote too.”
Mama patted her hand. “Promise me you’ll think about what I said.”
“I’ll think ’bout it all right, but it ain’t gonna change my mind none. What I really wants though is for you to help me. You and Cassie. What Cassie and me ain’t learned, you can teach us. Will you do that for me, sugar?”
“Mrs. Lee Annie—”
“I said I’d think ’bout it, ain’t I? But I still wants your help.”
Mama puckered her lips and sighed. “You think about what I said and you think hard now—”
“And you gonna help me?”
“It’s against my better judgment . . .”
“But ya will?”
Mama shook her head, allowing a frustrated laugh. “I suppose.”
“Good!” said Mrs. Lee Annie, smiling brightly and picking up her quilting.
Mrs. Lee Annie did not change her mind. The most devoted of students, she listened intently to Mama’s explanations of the constitution and laboriously attempted to commit them to memory. There were nearly 300 sections of the constitution and Mrs. Lee Annie wanted to know each and every one of them. Already she could quote many of them word for word, but it was the understanding she needed and was determined to have. Her enthusiasm for learning was, in fact, so strong that it proved contagious, affecting Big Ma, Mr. Tom Bee, and even me.
“Ain’t gon’ vote, but I guess it ain’t gonna hurt me none to know some of that stuff,” Big Ma had decided as she sat with Mrs. Lee Annie, Mama, and me around the dining room table. “Now, Mary, child, what you say that business ’bout them courts bein’ open to everybody was?”
Mr. Tom Bee, who was often at Mrs. Lee Annie’s when Mama and I went there, was more indirect about his interest. He sat through a number of the sessions seemingly uninterested, whittling on a piece of wood as Mama explained the sections and Mrs. Lee Annie attempted to understand. None of us thought he had paid any attention to anything that was going on until one afternoon when Mrs. Lee Annie was trying, with difficulty, to explain to Mama what “jurisdiction” meant, and he suddenly exclaimed: “Naw, naw, Lee Annie! Don’t ya ’member? What you talkin’ ’bout is a jury. Jurisdiction tells ya’ who got the power in a thing.”
We all looked at him in amazement.
??
?You sure you won’t join us over here, Brother Bee?” Mama invited.
“Ah, no, ma’am, Miz Logan. I’s fine right where I is.”
But despite his feigned lack of interest, Mama and I both noted that more and more often he was at Mrs. Lee Annie’s when we arrived, and on several occasions even accompanied Mrs. Lee Annie down to our house for the lessons held there.
“That Tom Bee, don’t he bother you none sittin’ off to hisself whittling when you be teaching?” asked a vexed Big Ma after one of the sessions. “He do me. Pretending he ain’t payin’ no ’tention, but always ready to correct a body if she ain’t said the right answer.”
Mama smiled, aware that Mr. Tom Bee’s correcting Big Ma three times during the afternoon had not exactly sat well with her. “Not at all. I love it.”
As for me, under Mama’s instruction I suddenly found the dry words of the constitution beginning to take meaning. Mama explained that a number of the laws were quite good and in theory quite fair. The problem, however, was in the application, and that if the judges and the courts really saw everyone as equal instead of as black or white, life could have been a lot pleasanter. Mama said that maybe one day equal rights would be for everyone, but as far as she could see, that day was still a ways off. I personally hoped that it wasn’t as far off as she made it sound. I figured that before I died, I’d like to enjoy a little of that liberty and justice the constitution kept talking about myself. And I didn’t intend to be sixty-four when I did either.
* * *
By the first week in May the young shoots of cotton were up and we had gone through the backbreaking chore of chopping and our first weeding. More than anything I hated weeding. It was sweaty, tiring work which was unending, for no sooner had we pulled the weeds from the last row of all three fields than we found more had worked their way into the first rows. Each morning before the color of the land had changed from predawn gray to the emerald brilliance of spring, we had already eaten breakfast and were finishing the last of the morning chores. By the time the sun itself peeped over the horizon, we were in the fields bending and pulling.