Let the Circle Be Unbroken

by Mildred D. Taylor

  “Well, you want it or not?” I asked crossly.

  “Of course.” She peeled off the gum and stuck it into her mouth. She grinned at the taste.

  “Like it?” said Stacey.

  “It’s lovely.”

  “Let me have the knife,” I said, putting out my hand to take it.

  But Stacey wouldn’t give it to me. “I’ll get the gum for you.” He hollered to Christopher-John and Little Man to see if they wanted any and the two of them came running.

  “Boy, I don’t see how come you won’t let me use your ole knife. I ain’t gonna hurt it none.”

  Stacey slit off another glob of gum. “Here.”

  “Ah, chew it yourself. One of these days I’m gonna get me my own knife and I won’t have to be askin’ you for yours, you so particular ’bout who using it.” With that, I went back to the pond and took up my pole.

  Later, when each of us had several fish to our credit and Suzella had calmed down after her excitement of actually catching a fish, she started asking questions again, this time about Mr. Morrison. “I was just wondering why he didn’t stop the men from cutting the trees.”

  “Wasn’t here,” said Stacey. “He come a few months after that. Papa brung him.”

  Suzella nodded thoughtfully. “I just can’t get over how big he is. In fact, he’s so big, he frightens me just a little.”

  “He wouldn’t never hurt you none,” reassured Christopher-John gently. “You’re family.”

  “But folks make him mad ’nough though, he sure ’nough can hurt ’em bad all right,” bragged Little Man. “He stronger than anybody. I betcha he the strongest man in the world. We seen him lift a car one time, and last year he broke a man’s back—”

  “Man,” said Stacey quietly. Little Man glanced over at Stacey, knowing he should say no more, and grew quiet.

  Suzella looked from Little Man to Stacey. “What is it?”

  Stacey was silent a moment before he answered. “Nothing. It’s just something we don’t talk ’bout much.”

  “How come?”

  Stacey studied Suzella as if considering whether or not he should tell her. He decided against it. “’Cause we just don’t, that’s all.”

  But I said: “’Cause the man’s back he broke was white.”

  “Cassie!” Stacey cried, reproval etching his face.

  “Well, if she’s family, I don’t see how come she shouldn’t know. White folks are always doing something or other and you know Papa say you can’t much trust none of ’em.”

  “Hush up, Cassie.”

  I turned on Stacey. “What you telling me to hush up for? It’s the truth!”

  Stacey’s eyes met mine and he said harshly, “You know you talking ’bout things ain’t s’pose to be talked about.”

  Christopher-John and Little Man looked at me sympathetically, but they knew what Stacey said was true. I knew it too. There were some things that were not to be discussed with anyone outside of our own family circle; this was one of them.

  I got up. “I’m going back to the house.”

  “I’ll go back with you, Cassie,” said Suzella, jumping up after me.

  I glanced back at her. “You ain’t gotta go ’cause of me.”

  “No, I want to.”

  “Suit yourself,” I said as the boys too got up.

  When we emerged from the forest, Stacey pulled me aside. “You just better be glad Suzella didn’t take offense to what you said. You know good and well you ain’t s’pose to offend company and she’s company, so you just better learn to keep a lid on that mouth of yours ’round here.”

  I didn’t say anything, just cut my eyes at him, but as he walked away, I couldn’t help but resent Suzella. Stacey had been hard enough to live with these past few months. I certainly didn’t need the additional frustration of having him defend Suzella against me. I wanted things to be as they had been, but Suzella was just making things worse, and I looked forward to the day when she was packed and gone.

  Crossing the backyard, I went through the garden to Mr. Morrison’s cabin. Other than me, he seemed to be the only one not affected by Suzella, or at least he didn’t seem to favor her above everybody else, and I wanted to talk to him about her. “Mr. Morrison, you in there?” I called, knocking on the door.

  There was no answer.

  Feeling dejected, I sat on the plank step and looked out at the house. I could see Christopher-John and Little Man playing in the yard and Big Ma making a momentary appearance on the back porch. For several minutes I sat there waiting; then, deciding it was Mama I should talk to, I got up and went back to the house.

  “Where’s Mama?” I asked Big Ma as I entered the kitchen.

  Big Ma turned from her pot of black-eyed peas and glanced at me. “She back in the house there,” she said, then frowned down at the pot and, dipping a spoon into the liquid, tasted it. As I left, she was reaching for the salt.

  Entering Mama’s room, I found no one there, but I heard Mama’s and Suzella’s voices coming from my room. I sighed and went over to the doorway.

  “. . . now just what would I look like with a city lady’s clothes on way out here in the country?” Mama asked Suzella as I entered. Dressed in a pale-blue dress of Suzella’s, Mama was standing in front of the mirror scrutinizing the fit. The dress was wrap-around in style with padded shoulders, and it looked elegant on Mama. Standing side by side, both of them slender and tall, Mama and Suzella looked like sisters.

  “But Aunt Mary, you’re so slender you can wear this simple cut and look absolutely grand. I copied this from a magazine I got at the library.”

  Mama smiled, and after brushing back a strand of her long coarse hair, which had slipped from the chignon knotted against the back of her neck, she put her hands on her hips, threw back her head and struck a model’s pose. “I do look rather good, don’t I?” She laughed.

  Suzella struck a similar pose. “But, of course. We both do. We look so good we could be models for Vogue.”

  “Vogue?” Mama said, still holding her position.

  “That’s a very stylish New York magazine of high fashion. I love looking through it.”

  Mama inspected herself closely in the mirror. “I wouldn’t imagine there are any colored models in that very stylish magazine.”

  Suzella glanced over at her. “No. . . .”

  “They probably think we’re not much interested in any kind of clothes.” Mama walked her model’s walk, then laughing turned and hugged Suzella, who laughed too. As she released Suzella, she saw me. “Cassie, how do you like Suzella’s dress on me?”

  “You look pretty.”

  “I’m trying to get Aunt Mary to let me redo a couple of her dresses in this style. I’ve gotten pretty good at ripping apart old dresses and making new ones from them. Come on, Aunt Mary, let me do it.”

  “Well . . .”

  I turned to go.

  “Cassie, did you want something, honey?”

  “No, ma’am. I was just looking.”

  Going back into the kitchen, I leaned against the cabinet, silently watching Big Ma as she carved strips of bacon from a side of meat.

  “You find your mama?” she asked.

  “Yes’m. . . . Big Ma, how long that Suzella gonna be here?”

  “Oh, I don’t rightly know. Till her papa come get her, I reckon.”

  “I wish he’d come on tomorrow.”

  Big Ma stopped her cutting and stared down at me. “Now how come you wanna say a thing like that?”

  I shrugged. “That Suzella, she jus’ get on my nerves.”

  “Now what she do to ya?”

  “She jus’ always in the way, that’s all. Me and Christopher-John and Little Man and Stacey, we don’t never get to be alone no more.”

  “Seem to me you jus’ got a bad case of the jealous. Jus’ ’cause you ain’t the only girl in this family no more ain’t no reason to go dislikin’ that child.”

  “Well, that ain’t all. She look near white.”
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br />   “Now what she look like ain’t got nothin’ to do with it! Your grandpa was mulatto and looked it and it didn’t make no difference to me. That child ain’t had nothin’ to do with her mama bein’ a white woman and we ain’t got nothin’ to do with it neither.”

  Big Ma resumed her slicing, but kept her eyes sternly fixed on me. “Now I ’spects you to be nice to Suzella. That girl’s your company. What’s more, she’s your blood, so you just best get your head straightened out right now ’bout treating her right, ’cause we ain’t gonna have none of that jealous business in this house. You hear me, girl?”

  “Yes’m,” I murmured and went out onto the porch. For a moment I just stood there, then seeing the speck that was Lady galloping across the pasture, I went to join her. At least Lady was not crazy about Suzella; Suzella was afraid of horses.

  * * *

  The law said: “The marriage of a white person with a Negro or mulatto, or person who shall have one-eighth or more of Negro blood, shall be unlawful and void.”

  I looked up at Mrs. Lee Annie and thumped the page of the constitution I had just read. “Now that one I understand,” I said. “Mama told me ’bout that word ‘void’ meaning something can’t be used.”

  Mrs. Lee Annie laughed delightedly. “Better be one we all understands or we sho’ ’nough would be trouble. Now which one of them articles that one?”

  “Fourteen,” I said. “Section two sixty-three.”

  “Fourteen, section two sixty-three. All right, I gots that. Now how it goes again?”

  When Mrs. Lee Annie and I finished our reading, I crossed the yard and headed down the woodland trail toward the stream where Christopher-John and Little Man had gone with Don Lee. As I approached the stream, music mixed with the quiet of the forest, and drifted southward through the trees. Intrigued by the sound, I left the path in search of its source. Going inward some five hundred feet from the trail, I came to a high perch overlooking the stream. Wordell was haunched there, his harmonica to his lips, his eyes on the stream below. Squirrels which had settled in the pines nearby scurried away and blackbirds which had strutted over the forest ground pecking for their afternoon meal fluttered to escape as I emerged. As they did, Wordell stopped playing and looked at me.

  “Don’t stop,” I said. “I . . . I just heard the music and wanted to get closer. I sure like your music.”

  Wordell stared at me, then, looking back at the stream, slipped the harmonica into his pocket. When he made no move to leave, I hesitated, then haunched beside him. Below us wading in the stream and shrieking with laughter were Christopher-John, Little Man, and Don Lee. Suzella, who had also come along, sat on a log nearby encouraging them in their play. Christopher-John yelled for her to join them, but Suzella refused, saying that her dress would get wet.

  “Well, I got a pin!” cried Don Lee, as captivated as the rest of the boys. “You can pin it. That’s what my sisters do.”

  Suzella, with the dress pulled up and between her long legs and secured by the pin, tossed off her sandals and laughing dashed into the water, where she immediately became “it” in a game of water tag. Before Suzella had come I had always joined in the water play. But now that Suzella was here, I wasn’t even missed.

  “Yeah,” I mumbled, “take over that too.”

  Wordell looked at me and, surprised at myself for having spoken, I glanced over at him, then back to the stream and shrugged. I thought he would look away, but when he didn’t, I turned back to him.

  “Well, that ole Suzella jus’ done ’bout got on my last nerve!” I exploded, tired of trying to keep my feelings to myself. “I guess she nice enough, but ever since she come, things been all different. She jus’ all the time ’round talking to Big Ma and Mama like they her grandmama and mama, and Christopher-John and Little Man, they just wanting her to do everything with them. What’s worse, Stacey, he always call himself so busy—can’t go nowhere with me—but soon’s Suzella asks him to do anything, he’s right there. Big Ma, she say I’m jealous, but that ain’t it. Least that ain’t all of it. I just want things back the way they was before. Before she come. If she was gonna stay a week or two more, it wouldn’t be so bad, but now she talkin’ ’bout stayin’ till September sometime, and that’s jus’ too long. I just want her to get on a train and, get on back home!”

  Wordell’s eyes had not strayed from me as I vented my rage against Suzella. Now he turned and looked again at the stream.

  Feeling somewhat awkward about my outburst and not knowing what Wordell was thinking, I said nothing further as I too watched the play. After several minutes I stood. “I—I gotta go.”

  Wordell did not turn to look at me; his gaze remained on the stream. I started down the trail.

  “Cassie.”

  I stopped and turned. Wordell was looking at me.

  “Ya wrong and ya know it,” he said. Then, standing, he pulled the harmonica from his pocket and put it to his lips again. Turning his back to me, he walked deeper into the forest, leaving his music to trail him. I waited until the music was so faint that I could no longer distinguish between it and the sounds of the forest, then continued down the trail.

  I felt miserable.

  * * *

  “I don’t think she’s so pretty,” said Mary Lou Wellever after Sunday school. “Oh, I know she’s your cousin, Cassie, and she looks all right, but she ain’t looking all that good.”

  Ignoring Mary Lou, who had just come up with Gracey Pearson and Alma Scott as I sat on the steps of the lower-grades class building, I continued searching the yard for Wordell. Although he seldom came into church for Sunday school or the sermon, he was usually around the fringes of the church with Joe. But today I had not seen him and I needed to see him, for I knew that I had said more than I should have about Suzella, and I was afraid Wordell thought less of me because of it. I was unsure what I would say to him once I did see him, or if he would even be interested enough to listen to me, but I had to try.

  “I betcha one thing though.” Gracey giggled. “I betcha you think she’s prettier than Jacey Peters.”

  Mary Lou frowned. “Ah, I don’t think that Jacey’s pretty at all.”

  “I guess you don’t,” laughed Alma. “Seeing that Stacey’s always talking to her. There they go now.”

  Stacey and Jacey were crossing the school yard alone, having just left a group of older boys and girls at the end of the field. Stacey was doing all the talking, but Jacey was nodding, her eyes on him as if greatly interested in what he was saying.

  “Well, I just think he’s so cute,” said Mary Lou, “and I just don’t see what he sees in that ole Jacey.”

  “I betcha he see somethin’ in her you wish he’d see in you,” teased Alma.

  “Ah, hush up!” cried Mary Lou.

  I got up.

  “Where you going, Cassie?” Mary Lou asked.

  I stared at her. All of a sudden her interest in me had risen markedly. I glanced out at Stacey, knowing that he was not yet that hard up. “I ain’t going over to where Stacey is if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  “No, I—”

  I walked away, tired of their chatter. As I crossed the yard, I noticed Jake Willis standing alone by the lower-grades building, his eyes on a circle of young women near the church. I studied the group, knowing even before I looked that Suzella was in it. As much as I disliked Suzella, it bothered me that Jake Willis had taken to her. He was as old as Papa, maybe older, but since Suzella had arrived, he had watched her with the same intensity as the boys and young men. But his look was different. There was something distasteful about it.

  I saw Joe and asked him about Wordell. He told me he hadn’t seen him since before Sunday school. Despondent, I joined Son-Boy and Maynard, who were standing with Little Willie, Moe, Clarence, and two ninth-grade boys, Ron and Don Shorter. “She smiled at me, man!” claimed Don as I walked up. “Jus’ parted them pretty lips, showed them pearlies, and smiled.”

  “Ah, man, she was looking at all of
us,” argued Little Willie. “But did ya hear her? She called me by my name. She know who I am.”

  “Man, she oughta know more’n that!” cried Ron, Don’s twin brother. “If me and Stacey was as tight as you two’re s’pose to be, I’d have his cousin all to myself.”

  I looked around feeling just a bit crushed. Despite myself, I had begun to look at Ron Shorter in a new light lately, and his continued attention to Suzella bothered me, even though I knew he would never even look at me. I was too young.

  “What ’bout you, Moe?” Ron said. “How you doin’?”

  “What?”

  “You and Suzella, man,” Ron repeated, laughing. “How you gettin’ ’long with Suzella?”

  Moe seemed distracted. “Oh . . . fine.”

  “Sure,” said Ron derisively.

  “Ah, face it,” said Clarence. “Suzella ain’t hardly thinkin’ ’bout none of us. She probably got some high-toned boyfriend up in New York.”

  “Well, boyfriend or not, me and Suzella gonna get together,” claimed Little Willie.

  The Shorters laughed. “How?”

  “Well, I tell ya—”

  The bell began to ring, and by the time it had stopped, Little Willie had reconsidered sharing his thought and walked off with Clarence; Don and Ron followed with good-natured teasing. Moe, his head down and his hands in his pockets, went along behind them. I touched his arm. “Anything the matter, Moe?”

  He shook his head.

  “But you so quiet.”

  “Well, it’s jus’ that . . .” He looked out across the yard. “Our cow died last night and Papa’s real broken up ’bout it. Seem like it’s jus’ one thing after another.”

  “Ah, Moe, I’m sorry.”

  He shrugged. “Crop be good, maybe we can get another cow.”

  I knew that was a hopeless dream, but I didn’t say it. “What ’bout till then?”

  He smiled crookedly. “Till then we drink water,” he said and walked on alone.

  “What’s the matter with him?” Son-Boy asked, coming along with Maynard. “He feeling down and out ’bout Suzella like the rest of these fellas?”