Stacey looked down at his faded cotton jacket. Everyone else did too. The jacket was too small for him, that was obvious, and compared to Little Man’s and Christopher-John’s and mine, it was admittedly in sadder shape. Yet we were all surprised that Uncle Hammer would ask about it, for he knew as well as anyone that Mama had to buy our clothes in shifts, which meant that we each had to wait our turn for new clothes. Stacey looked up at Mama, then back at Uncle Hammer. “Y-yessir,” he answered.
Uncle Hammer stared at him, then waving his hand ordered, “Take it off.” Before Stacey could question why, Uncle Hammer disappeared into the boys’ room.
Again Stacey looked at Mama. “You’d better do like he says,” she said.
Uncle Hammer returned with a long box, store wrapped in shiny red Christmas paper and a fancy green ribbon. He handed the package to Stacey. “It was supposed to be your Christmas present, but I think I’d better give it to you now. It’s cold out there.”
Gingerly, Stacey took the box and opened it.
“A coat!” cried Little Man joyously, clapping his hands.
“Wool,” Mama said reverently. “Go ahead, Stacey. Try it on.”
Stacey eagerly slipped on the coat; it was much too big for him, but Mama said that she could take up the sleeves and that he would grow into it in another year. Stacey beamed down at the coat, then up at Uncle Hammer. A year ago he would have shot into Uncle Hammer’s arms and hugged his thanks, but now at the manly age of twelve he held out his hand, and Uncle Hammer shook it.
“Come on, we’d better go,” said Mama.
The morning was gray as we stepped outside, but the rain had stopped. We followed the path of bedded rocks that led to the barn, careful not to slip into the mud, and got into the Packard, shining clean and bright from the washing Uncle Hammer and Mr. Morrison had given it after breakfast. Inside the Packard, the world was a wine-colored luxury. The boys and I, in the back, ran our hands over the rich felt seats, tenderly fingered the fancy door handles and window knobs, and peered down amazed at the plush carpet peeping out on either side of the rubber mats. Mr. Morrison, who was not a churchgoing man, waved good-bye from the barn and we sped away.
As we drove onto the school grounds and parked, the people milling in front of the church turned, staring at the Packard. Then Uncle Hammer stepped from the car and someone cried, “Well, I’ll be doggone! It’s our Hammer! Hammer Logan!” And in a body, the crowd engulfed us.
T.J. ran up with Moe Turner and Little Willie Wiggins to admire the car. “It’s Uncle Hammer’s,” said Stacey proudly. But before the boys could sufficiently admire the car, Mama and Big Ma shooed us toward the church for the service. It was then that T.J. noticed Stacey’s new coat.
“Uncle Hammer gave it to him,” I said. “Ain’t it something?”
T.J. ran his long fingers over the lapels, and shrugged. “It’s all right, I guess, if you like that sort of thing.”
“All right!” I cried, indignant at his casual reaction to the coat. “Boy, that’s the finest coat you ever did lay eyes on and you know it!”
T.J. sighed. “Like I said, it’s all right…if you like lookin’ like a fat preacher.” Then he and Little Willie and Moe laughed, and went on ahead.
Stacey looked down at the coat with its long sleeves and wide shoulders. His smile faded. “He don’t know what he’s talking ’bout,” I said. “He’s just jealous, that’s all.”
“I know it,” snapped Stacey sourly.
As we slid into the pew in front of T.J., T.J. whispered, “Here comes the preacher,” then leaned forward and said snidely, “How do you do, Reverend Logan?”
Stacey turned on T.J., but I poked him hard. “Mama’s looking,” I whispered, and he turned back around.
After church, as T.J. and the others looked longingly at the car, Mama said, “Stacey, maybe T.J. wants to ride.”
Before Stacey could reply, I spoke up hurriedly. “No, ma’am, Mama, he got something else he gotta do.” Then under my breath so that I would not be guilty of a lie, I added, “He gotta walk home like he always do.”
“That’ll teach him,” whispered Little Man.
“Yeah,” agreed Christopher-John, but Stacey sulked by the window and said nothing.
* * *
The sun was out now and Uncle Hammer suggested that we take a real ride before going home. He drove us the full twenty-two miles up to Strawberry by way of the Jackson Road, one of two roads leading to the town. But Mama and Big Ma objected so much to going through Strawberry that he turned the big car around and headed back toward home, taking the old Soldiers Road. Supposedly, Rebel soldiers had once marched up the road and across Soldiers Bridge to keep the town from falling into the hands of the Yankee Army, but I had my doubts about that. After all, who in his right mind would want to capture Strawberry…or defend it either for that matter?
The road was hilly and curving, and as we sped over it scattered road stones hit sharply against the car’s underbelly and the dust swelled up in rolls of billowing clouds behind us. Little Man, Christopher-John, and I shrieked with delight each time the car climbed a hill and dropped suddenly downward, fluttering our stomachs. Eventually, the road intersected with the Jefferson Davis School Road. Uncle Hammer stopped the car at the intersection and, leaning his right arm heavily over the steering wheel, motioned languidly at the Wallace store. “Got me a good mind to burn that place out,” he said.
“Hammer, hush that kind of talk!” ordered Big Ma, her eyes growing wide.
“Me and John Henry and David grew up together. And John Henry and me even fought in their war together. What good was it? A black man’s life ain’t worth the life of a cowfly down here.”
“I know that, son, but that kinda talk get you hung and you know it.”
Mama touched Uncle Hammer’s arm. “There might be another way, Hammer…like I told you. Now don’t go do something foolish. Wait for David—talk to him.”
Uncle Hammer looked glassy-eyed at the store, then sighed and eased the Packard across the road toward Soldiers Bridge. We were taking the long way home.
Soldiers Bridge was built before the Civil War. It was spindly and wooden, and each time I had to cross it I held my breath until I was safely on the other side. Only one vehicle could cross at a time, and whoever was on the bridge first was supposed to have the right of way, although it didn’t always work that way. More than once when I had been in the wagon with Mama or Big Ma, we had had to back off the bridge when a white family started across after we were already on it.
As the bridge came into view the other side of the river was clearly visible, and it was obvious to everyone that an old Model-T truck, overflowing with redheaded children, had reached the bridge first and was about to cross, but suddenly Uncle Hammer gassed the Packard and sped onto the creaking structure. The driver of the truck stopped, and for no more than a second hesitated on the bridge, then without a single honk of protest backed off so that we could pass.
“Hammer!” Big Ma cried. “They think you’re Mr. Granger.”
“Well, now, won’t they be surprised when we reach the other side,” said Uncle Hammer.
As we came off the bridge, we could see the Wallaces, all three of them—Dewberry, Thurston, and Kaleb—touch their hats respectfully, then immediately freeze as they saw who we were. Uncle Hammer, straight-faced and totally calm, touched the brim of his own hat in polite response and without a backward glance sped away, leaving the Wallaces gaping silently after us.
Stacey, Christopher-John, Little Man, and I laughed, but Mama’s cold glance made us stop. “You shouldn’t have done that, Hammer,” she said quietly.
“The opportunity, dear sister, was too much to resist.”
“But one day we’ll have to pay for it. Believe me,” she said, “one day we’ll pay.”
7
“Stacey, go bring me your coat,” Mama said a few days later as we gathered around the fire after supper. “I’ve got time to take up the sleeves now.”
“Uh-oh!” exclaimed Christopher-John, then immediately opened his reader as Mama looked down at him.
Little Man cupped his hand and whispered to me, “Boy, now he’s gonna get it!”
“Uh…th-that’s all right, Mama,” stuttered Stacey. “The c-coat’s all right like it is.”
Mama opened her sewing box. “It’s not all right. Now go get it for me.”
Stacey stood up and started slowly toward his room. Little Man, Christopher-John, and I watched him closely, wondering what he was going to do. He actually went into the room, but was gone only a moment before he reappeared and nervously clutched the back of his chair. “I ain’t got the coat, Mama,” he said.
“Not got the coat!” cried Big Ma. Uncle Hammer looked up sharply from his paper, but remained silent.
“Stacey,” Mama said irritably, “bring me that coat, boy.”
“But, Mama, I really ain’t got it! I gave it to T.J.”
“T.J.!” Mama exclaimed.
“Yes, ma’am, Mama,” Stacey answered, then went on hurriedly as Mama’s eyes glittered with rising anger. “The coat was too big for me and…and T.J. said it made me look like…like a preacher…and he said since it fit him just right, he’d…he’d take it off my hands till I grow into it, then thataway all the guys would stop laughing at me and calling me preacher.” He paused, waiting for someone to speak; but the only sound was a heavy breathing and the crackle of burning hickory. Then, seeming more afraid of the silence than putting his neck further into the noose, he added, “But I didn’t give it to him for good, Mama—just lent it to him till I get big enough for it and then…”
Stacey’s voice faded into an inaudible whisper as Mama slowly put the sewing box on the table behind her. I thought she was headed for the wide leather strap hanging in the kitchen, but she did not rise. In quiet anger she glared at Stacey and admonished, “In this house we do not give away what loved ones give to us. Now go bring me that coat.”
Backing away from her anger, Stacey turned to leave, but Uncle Hammer stopped him. “No,” he said, “leave the coat where it is.”
Mama turned bewildered toward Uncle Hammer. “Hammer, what’re you saying? That’s the best coat Stacey’s ever had and probably ever will have as long as he lives in this house. David and I can’t afford a coat like that.”
Uncle Hammer leaned back in his chair, his eyes cold on Stacey. “Seems to me if Stacey’s not smart enough to hold on to a good coat, he don’t deserve it. As far as I’m concerned, T.J. can just keep that coat permanently. At least he knows a good thing when he sees it.”
“Hammer,” Big Ma said, “let the boy go get the coat. That T.J. probably done told him all sorts—”
“Well, ain’t Stacey got a brain? What the devil should he care what T.J. thinks or T.J. says? Who is this T.J. anyway? Does he put clothes on Stacey’s back or food in front of him?” Uncle Hammer stood and walked over to Stacey as Little Man, Christopher-John, and I followed him fearfully with our eyes. “I suppose if T.J. told you it was summertime out there and you should run buck naked down the road because everybody else was doing it, you’d do that too, huh?”
“N-no sir,” Stacey replied, looking at the floor.
“Now you hear me good on this—look at me when I talk to you, boy!” Immediately Stacey raised his head and looked at Uncle Hammer. “If you ain’t got the brains of a flea to see that this T.J. fellow made a fool of you, then you’ll never get anywhere in this world. It’s tough out there, boy, and as long as there are people, there’s gonna be somebody trying to take what you got and trying to drag you down. It’s up to you whether you let them or not. Now it seems to me you wanted that coat when I gave it to you, ain’t that right?”
Stacey managed a shaky “Yessir.”
“And anybody with any sense would know it’s a good thing, ain’t that right?”
This time Stacey could only nod.
“Then if you want something and it’s a good thing and you got it in the right way, you better hang on to it and don’t let nobody talk you out of it. You care what a lot of useless people say ’bout you you’ll never get anywhere, ’cause there’s a lotta folks don’t want you to make it. You understand what I’m telling you?”
“Y-yessir, Uncle Hammer,” Stacey stammered. Uncle Hammer turned then and went back to his paper without having laid a hand on Stacey, but Stacey shook visibly from the encounter.
Christopher-John, Little Man, and I exchanged apprehensive glances. I don’t know what they were thinking, but I for one was deciding right then and there not to do anything to rub Uncle Hammer the wrong way; I had no intention of ever facing a tongue-lashing like that. Papa’s bottom-warming whippings were quite enough for me, thank you.
The last days of school before Christmas seemed interminable. Each night I fell asleep with the hope that the morning would bring Papa, and each morning when he wasn’t there I trudged to school consoling myself that he would be home when I returned. But the days passed, prickly cold and windy, and he did not come.
Added to the misery of the waiting and the cold was Lillian Jean, who managed to flounce past me with a superior smirk twice that week. I had already decided that she had had two flounces too many, but since I hadn’t yet decided how to handle the matter, I postponed doing anything until after I had had a chance to talk with Papa about the whole Strawberry business. I knew perfectly well that he would not tear out of the house after Mr. Simms as Uncle Hammer had done, for he always took time to think through any move he made, but he would certainly advise me on how to handle Lillian Jean.
Then too there was T.J., who, although not really my problem, was so obnoxiously flaunting Stacey’s wool coat during these cold days that I had just about decided to deflate him at the same time I took care of Lillian Jean. Ever since the night Mr. Avery had brought him to the house to return the coat and he had been told by Uncle Hammer and a faltering Stacey that the coat was his, T.J. had been more unbearable than usual. He now praised the coat from the wide tips of its lapels to the very edges of its deep hem. No one had ever had a finer coat; no one had ever looked better in such a coat; no one could ever hope to have such a coat again.
Stacey was restrained from plugging T.J.’s mouth by Uncle Hammer’s principle that a man did not blame others for his own stupidity; he learned from his mistake and became stronger for it. I, however, was not so restrained and as far as I was concerned, if T.J. kept up with this coat business, he could just hit the dirt at the same time as “Miss” Lillian Jean.
* * *
The day before Christmas I awoke to the soft murmuring of quiet voices gathered in the midnight blackness of morning. Big Ma was not beside me, and without a moment’s doubt I knew why she was gone. Jumping from the bed, my feet barely hitting the deerskin rug, I rushed into Mama’s room.
“Oh, Papa!” I cried. “I knew it was you!”
“Ah, there’s my Cassie girl!” Papa laughed, standing to catch me as I leapt into his arms.
By the dawn, the house smelled of Sunday: chicken frying, bacon sizzling, and smoke sausages baking. By evening, it reeked of Christmas. In the kitchen sweet-potato pies, egg-custard pies, and rich butter pound cakes cooled; a gigantic coon which Mr. Morrison, Uncle Hammer, and Stacey had secured in a night’s hunt baked in a sea of onions, garlic, and fat orange-yellow yams; and a choice sugar-cured ham brought from the smokehouse awaited its turn in the oven. In the heart of the house, where we had gathered after supper, freshly cut branches of long-needled pines lay over the fireplace mantle adorned by winding vines of winter holly and bright red Christmas berries. And in the fireplace itself, in a black pan set on a high wire rack, peanuts roasted over the hickory fire as the waning light of day swiftly deepened into a fine velvet night speckled with white forerunners of a coming snow, and the warm sound of husky voices and rising laughter mingled in tales of sorrow and happiness of days past but not forgotten.
“…Them watermelons of old man Ellis’ seemed like they just
naturally tasted better than anybody else’s,” said Papa, “and ole Hammer and me, we used to sneak up there whenever it’d get so hot you couldn’t hardly move and take a couple of them melons on down to the pond and let them get real chilled. Then, talking ’bout eating! We did some kind of good eating.”
“Papa, you was stealing?” asked an astonished Little Man. Although he usually strongly disapproved of being held, he was now reclining comfortably in Papa’s lap.
“Well…” Papa said, “not exactly. What we’d do was exchange one of the melons from our patch for his. Course it was still wrong for us to do it, but at the time it seemed all right—”
“Problem was, though,” laughed Uncle Hammer, “old man Ellis grew them ole fat green round watermelons and ours was long and striped—”
“And Mr. Ellis was always right particular ’bout his melons,” interjected Papa. “He took the longest time to figure out what we was up to, but, Lord, Lord, when he did—”
“—You should’ve seen us run,” Uncle Hammer said, standing. He shot one hand against and past the other. “Ma—an! We was gone! And that ole man was right behind us with a hickory stick hitting us up side the head—”
“Ow—weee! That ole man could run!” cried Papa. “I didn’t know nobody’s legs could move that fast.”
Big Ma chuckled. “And as I recalls, your Papa ’bout wore y’all out when Mr. Ellis told him what y’all’d been up to. Course, you know all them Ellises was natural-born runners. Y’all remember Mr. Ellis’ brother, Tom Lee? Well, one time he…”
Through the evening Papa and Uncle Hammer and Big Ma and Mr. Morrison and Mama lent us their memories, acting out their tales with stageworthy skills, imitating the characters in voice, manner, and action so well that the listeners held their sides with laughter. It was a good warm time. But as the night deepened and the peanuts in the pan grew shallow, the voices grew hushed, and Mr. Morrison said:
“…They come down like ghosts that Christmas of seventy-six. Them was hard times like now and my family was living in a shantytown right outside Shreveport. Reconstruction was just ’bout over then, and them Northern soldiers was tired of being in the South and they didn’t hardly care ’bout no black folks in shantytown. And them Southern whites, they was tired of the Northern soldiers and free Negroes, and they was trying to turn things back ’round to how they used to be. And the colored folks…well, we was just tired. Warn’t hardly no work, and during them years I s’pose it was jus’ ’bout as hard being free as it was being a slave….