Let the Circle Be Unbroken

by Mildred D. Taylor

  “I guess I won’t. I was thinking maybe this Sunday at church I’d—”

  “Ah, confound it!” I leapt up from my bed, having realized too late that giant red ants had gotten there before me.

  “Cassie, what you doing down here?” Stacey demanded to know, as I danced madly about, swatting at the ants.

  “The pond, Cassie,” Moe suggested. “Get in the pond.”

  I took his advice and dashed into the water; it rose cool and soothing to my neck.

  “You all right?” Moe asked sympathetically.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  Stacey, however, showed no concern at all for my discomfort. “Cassie, you follow me down here? Didn’t you ever think maybe me and Moe had something we wanted to talk ’bout in private?”

  “Yeah, something private like Jacey Peters,” I retorted, angered by his uncaring attitude.

  If looks could kill, I would have been finished right there. But Stacey deigned to say nothing further concerning it, choosing instead to change the subject. “Moe, how’s your cotton coming?”

  Moe smiled at me before he answered, showing at least he cared about my misfortune. “It’s looking good,” he said, his voice lifting as it always did whenever he spoke about his cotton. “I think it’s gonna work out for us this time.”

  “You know I hope you’re right, Moe. But don’t get your hopes up too high—you know how things turned out last year and—”

  Moe dismissed the reminder with a wave of his hand. “I know . . . But this year it’ll be different. You’ll see.”

  Stacey looked as if he wanted to say more, but then seemed to reconsider. “I just hope you’re right, Moe.”

  “Stacey! Cassie! Ow, y’all!”

  We looked toward the trail leading back to the house and waited for Christopher-John and Little Man to appear. Twice more they yelled before they actually burst into view.

  “What’s the matter?” Stacey asked.

  “Y’all guess what!” cried Christopher-John.

  “Y’all ain’t never gonna guess!” exclaimed Little Man.

  “Well, what?” I said.

  “It’s Cousin Bud!” Christopher-John blurted out. “He come back.”

  Stacey’s face went cold. “He’s here?”

  “Yeah, he’s here,” Christopher-John answered. “He jus’ come and y’all ain’t never gonna guess—”

  “—he brung Suzella—”

  “—that’s his daughter—”

  “—and Mama, she say that makes her our cousin—”

  “—so y’all come on! Y’all just gotta see her!”

  “Owwwww! She so pretty!”

  With that, they turned and without waiting for us to follow ran as quickly as they could back toward the house.

  “They sure are excited enough,” laughed Moe as I came from the pond. “This cousin of y’all’s must be something.”

  Stacey stood without saying anything and the three of us went back to the house. Expecting to find Cousin Bud and his daughter in Mama and Papa’s room, we entered the house through the side door. The room was empty, but with the door opened to the dining room, we could see Cousin Bud sitting at the table with Big Ma and Mama. Little Man and Christopher-John sat on the side bench, but there was no Suzella.

  “Come on in and speak to your Cousin Bud,” Mama said. “Cassie, how’d you get so wet?”

  “I fell in the pond,” I said as we crossed the room.

  “How y’all doing?” asked Cousin Bud, smiling.

  “Fine,” I said; Stacey didn’t answer.

  Mama cast a stern eye on him. “Stacey.”

  Stacey glanced at her, then back to Cousin Bud. “We’re fine. You gonna be here long?”

  Cousin Bud’s eyes met Stacey’s. I think he must have seen a little of Uncle Hammer there, for he sighed gently and rubbed his chin. “Just a few days. Brung my daughter, Suzella, though. She’s gonna stay awhile.”

  “Where is she?” I asked.

  “She’s in your room changing,” Mama answered. “Why don’t you go on in and meet her?”

  I nodded and left the kitchen eager to see this Suzella. All the boys went with me as far as Mama and Papa’s room, where they settled in chairs around the darkened hearth.

  “Bring her on out here, Cassie,” Moe softly instructed. “I wanna meet her too.”

  “Thought you said you couldn’t stay long,” teased Stacey.

  “Did. But there ain’t no way I’m going ’fore I see your cousin in there.”

  I pushed open the door and went in. Standing on the far side of the room, on the other side of the bed, was a tall slender girl, her head bent downward as she pulled a flared A-line skirt over her hips. Her skin had a creamy cast, but was not as pale as I had thought it would be, and her hair, which hung loose and long, enveloping her face so that I could not see it, was auburn with deep silky waves. She zipped the skirt which clung neatly to her womanly figure, and looked up. Her face had the same square-jawed cut of Mama’s people and, except for the gray eyes and the creamy skin tone, her resemblance to Mama was striking. A smile spread brightly across her face as she saw me, and she said: “You must be Cassie.”

  I nodded.

  “Well, I’m Suzella, but you can call me Su if you want. That’s what my friends at school call me.” I started to say that I thought she didn’t have any friends, but deciding that would be impolite, I said nothing at all. “Daddy told me about you,” she continued.

  “Did?”

  “Um-hmm. He told me about all of you—Stacey, Christopher-John, and Little Man—I already love Christopher-John and Little Man. They’re adorable. Is Stacey here?”

  I motioned toward the door behind me. “He’s out there.”

  “Oh, I really want to meet him too. Daddy says we’re nearly the same age.”

  “He ain’t but fourteen.”

  Suzella picked up one of her dresses from the bed and laid it neatly over a chair. “Well, I’m fifteen, so I guess a year’s not so much.”

  “Uh-huh. You gonna be here long?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Daddy’s going back in a day or so, but he wants me to stay awhile.”

  “He going back to New York?”

  Suzella nodded.

  “Alone? I mean, he’s going to live by himself?”

  Suzella had just reached for another dress from her suitcase. She stopped and looked at me. “No . . . my mother’s there.”

  “She is? But I thought that she . . .” I stopped short, realizing that I was about to say too much.

  Suzella glanced down at her suitcase, then back at me. “Did Daddy tell you he and Mother were separated? I mean they were, but Mother’s home again now. They just had a misunderstanding, that’s all.”

  I stared at her and before I took the time to think, I said, “What’s it like?”

  “What’s what like?”

  “Having a white mama.”

  Now it was she who stared.

  “I mean, I wouldn’t even know how to act ’round her,” I contended, baffled by the very thought of a white person living in the same house, let alone having one as a mother. The whole thing seemed incredible to me. “Don’t you feel kinda funny, her being white and you being colored—”

  The pleasantness of Suzella’s face quickly faded and she said acidly, “I am not colored, Cassie.”

  “Well, I’d jus’ like to know what you think you are then!”

  She breathed in deeply, her cheeks reddening, then turned back to unpacking. “I’m mixed blood.”

  “Same thing.”

  She was silent, her eyes downcast. Taking out another dress, she held it a moment, then looked back to me. “You say Stacey’s out there?” Her voice was soft once more, almost apologetic.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Then I want to meet him. This can wait.”

  Making sure that her sleeveless blouse was fully tucked inside her skirt, she rounded the bed and followed me into the other room. As soon as the door opene
d, Moe and Stacey stood. Little Man and Christopher-John remained seated, but they grinned widely, almost glowing, as they gazed upon Suzella.

  Suzella greeted Stacey with adultlike poise and I could see that the resentment which had been in Stacey’s face upon greeting Cousin Bud was not there as he met his daughter.

  “Yeah, well, it’s real good to meet you,” Stacey said. “How long you gonna be here?”

  “I don’t really know. Maybe the summer.”

  “You ever live in the country before?”

  Suzella laughed lightly. “No. I was born in New York and except for sometimes getting to go with Daddy to Jersey, I’ve never even been in the country.”

  “Well, I hear living in the city is a whole lot different from living in the country. Sometimes I think maybe I’d like to try living in the city—” He stopped abruptly and glanced over at Moe, who had just nudged him. “Oh, you didn’t meet my friend Moe yet, did ya? Well, this here’s Moe Turner. Moe, my cousin, Suzella Rankin.”

  Suzella smiled, displaying even white teeth, and held out her hand to Moe, who took it without speaking. But there was really no need for him to speak; his eyes said it all. I glanced around at each of the boys. From Little Man and Christopher-John to Stacey and Moe, it was evident that each was entranced by Suzella. As for me, I didn’t know if I even liked her.

  * * *

  “What’re you doing, Cassie?”

  I looked around at Suzella. It seemed perfectly obvious to me what I was doing. Sitting on the back porch with one foot in hot water and the other crossed over my leg and a needle plunged in my big toe, what else could I be doing but pulling out jiggers? I wanted to tell her just what I thought about her stupidity, but reminding myself that she was a guest, I kept my remarks to myself. As far as I was concerned, she asked just too many questions anyway, though no one else seemed to think so. They were all too crazy about her.

  Since her arrival, she had managed to endear herself to just about everyone. Christopher-John and Little Man couldn’t do enough for her and Stacey, who never had time for me anymore, always could find time for Suzella. She was forever in the kitchen laughing and talking with Big Ma, eager to do her bidding and claiming to want to learn all her recipes, and she had even taken to calling her “Big Ma,” which didn’t sit too well with me. After all, Big Ma was not her grandmother. She also spent a good deal of time with Mama, and the two of them laughed and talked like good friends instead of an aunt and a great-niece.

  At church she had been met with the same welcome. All the young men of marrying age and boys old enough to be impressed by the female figure turned adoring eyes upon her as soon as she arrived. Moe, dressed in his patched but clean white shirt and string of a tie, had come all the way from Smellings Creek to attend church, a trek he seldom made on a Sunday since there was a perfectly good church only a mile from his home. Joining us, he had stood nervously and silently by as Clarence and Little Willie, among others of Stacey’s friends, had sauntered over in feigned nonchalance. Suzella had been cordial to each one, but granted no special attention to any of them. Instead she had stayed close to Mama and Big Ma, and allowed none of the boys a moment alone with her. Nonetheless, everyone adored her, and by the time Cousin Bud left a few days later, she had not only been accepted by the community but was firmly entrenched in the family circle as well. I, however, was not won over. She was a guest and a cousin, which meant that I had to be nice to her. It didn’t mean I had to like her.

  When I didn’t answer her question, Christopher-John spoke up quickly. “She pulling out jiggers. In summertime you always gotta look out for jiggers ’cause we go barefooted all the time. Every night ’fore we go to bed, Mama say we gotta wash our feet and check ’em real good so’s to see if jiggers done got in ’em. But sometimes ya just don’t see ’em till a day or so later and they get to hurtin’.”

  “And ya don’t get ’em, they can make you so sick, ’cause they get in and they get big,” Little Man added. He turned to Christopher-John. “’Member that time ole Baker Norris got them jiggers in his foot and didn’t get ’em out? That ole foot got this big.” He demonstrated the swelling of Baker Norris’s foot with his hands. “Swolled all up.”

  Suzella grimaced, then came closer to watch me as I expertly plunged the needle farther into the tough outer tissue of my toe to get at the dark mass below. “Does it hurt?” she asked.

  I finished tearing back the skin. “Unh-unh.”

  “Will too you gotta go any deeper,” contradicted Little Man. “Uh-oh, there it is.” He and Christopher-John drew nearer and all watched in curious silence as I gently sank the needle once more into the skin and attempted to slip it beneath the flea. Assured that the needle was in position, I pulled up slowly to extract the jigger, but as sometimes happened, the mass broke in two at the pressure.

  “Ah, shoot!” I cried.

  “I better get Big Ma,” said Christopher-John, getting up.

  “Her and Mama, they’s in the field,” Little Man said.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Suzella.

  “Well, once they break they gets awful hard to get out,” explained Christopher-John. “And they gotta come on out now or they’ll work their way back in. Cassie keep picking at it, she gonna have her foot so sore she won’t be able to walk on it.”

  “I ain’t gonna get it sore,” I retorted, wiping the blood from the needle before plunging it in once more. But the skin did feel tender, and despite willing myself not to I flinched noticeably.

  “Here, let me try,” said Suzella.

  I looked up at her as if she were crazy, then back at my toe. I wasn’t about to let her near my foot. I started to work again, but Suzella softly touched my hand, stopping my attempt. “Cassie, I’m good at this sort of thing. Really. I won’t hurt you.”

  “Yeah, I know you won’t ’cause I’m gonna do it myself.”

  “Please, Cassie. People say I have a gentle touch. If you feel any pain at all then I’ll stop.”

  “Ah, Cassie, let her try,” said Christopher-John.

  I eyed Suzella doubtfully as she smiled and took the needle. She sat down beside me and cradled my foot in her lap, then as I tensed waiting for the pain and kicking myself for the fool that I was to let some girl who didn’t even know what a jigger was put a needle in my foot, she put the tip of the needle against my skin, but not where I had already opened it.

  “Girl, what you doing?” I cried.

  “You’ve already got it sore there, Cassie,” she said without looking up. “It’s better I try to get it from this way.”

  Deftly, she picked open the skin and, probing gently, worked the needle below the black mass. Although at one point I did feel a twinge of pain, I didn’t tell her, for the jigger was deep and there were times when even Big Ma could not extract the creatures without some pain.

  “There it is! You got ’im!” cried Little Man as Suzella brought out part of the mass.

  She smiled, then wordlessly went after the rest. When it too was out, she sat back, a look of satisfaction on her face. “Did it hurt, Cassie?” she asked.

  I took my foot from her lap and inspected it. “Just one time, but that’s okay.”

  “Wait a minute before you walk on it,” she said standing. “I’ve got some alcohol my mother packed. We should put some on your toe so it won’t get infected.”

  “It ain’t gonna get infected,” I said.

  “Well, this way we’ll make sure it won’t.”

  As soon as the kitchen door closed behind her, Christopher-John admonished, “Owww, Cassie, you didn’t even say ‘Thank you.’”

  I looked at him, then back at my foot. “I’ll thank her . . .” I said, “if the alcohol don’t burn.”

  * * *

  In the afternoon, Little Man and Christopher-John entered the house, fishing poles in hand, and announced: “We goin’ fishin’. Suzella, ya wanna come?” Although neither Stacey or I had been invited, we grabbed poles from the barn as well and went alo
ng. This was Suzella’s first trip into the forest, and she seemed enthralled by the pines and the oaks and the sweet gums surrounding us. But as we went deeper into the forest and the trees began to thin, exposing stumps and the fallen trees, she wanted to know what had happened. I told her nothing, since I figured that she had found out quite enough about us’ and our land, but Stacey told her about the lumbermen and how they had destroyed so much of the forest until Mama had sent him to Louisiana to get Papa, who had stopped them. Suzella seemed saddened by the account, and as we walked on, she said nothing further until we came to the pond.

  “This here’s the Caroline,” Christopher-John informed her. “Big Ma say Grandpa called it that after her.”

  “It’s lovely.” Suzella took a long look around and after nodding her approval said, “All right, now what’s the first thing we do about fishing?”

  The boys showed her, doing practically everything from digging the worms out of the soft ground of the bank to baiting the hooks. Had she wanted them to, they would probably have held the pole, and as it was about the only thing they didn’t do was put a fish on the end of it. Sickened by the whole thing, I left my pole where it was and went looking for a sweet gum tree. When I found one with its bark cracked and oozing out its chewy goodness for anyone who cared to take it, I went back to Stacey and asked him for his penknife.

  Already settled on the bank with his fishing pole in hand, he looked up irritably. “What for?”

  “Jus’ wanna borrow it, that’s all!”

  “I said what for?”

  “If you jus’ gotta know, I wanna get me some gum. Now let me have it.”

  Stacey glanced over at Suzella. “You want some gum?”

  “Lord,” I murmured.

  Suzella said she did, and for her Stacey got up and went over to my sweet gum. Curious, Suzella jumped up and followed him with me tagging along behind.

  “What’re you doing?” Suzella asked as Stacey scraped a glob of gum from the tree.

  “You said you wanted some gum. We get it from swee’ gum trees like this here.”

  “But, I thought . . .” She looked at the gum on the knife and laughed. “I’ve never seen natural gum before.”