Let the Circle Be Unbroken

by Mildred D. Taylor

  I turned on him. “Now how come everything gotta be ’bout Suzella? Jus’ ’cause she’s here don’t mean folks ain’t got other things to be thinking ’bout.”

  “Maybe not,” said Maynard, grinning, “but she what a lotta folks wanna be thinkin’ ’bout.”

  “Well, me for one, I’m jus’ ’bout tired of hearing ’bout her every time I turn around.”

  Son-Boy laughed. “Ah, Cassie, you jus’ jealous ’cause she’s so pretty. Uh-oh! There’s ole Deacon Backwater with that switch of his. We’d better get on inside.”

  After church I stood in front of the mirror, my church dress still on, and harshly examined myself. I was long-legged and growing. The dress, which Uncle Hammer had given me last Christmas, was already too short. But other than height, nothing else seemed to have changed. I turned sideways and stuck out my chest. Flat. There was no hint of a womanly figure anywhere. I sighed, then objectively tried to assess my good points. Though my facial features favored Papa, my skin coloring was a yellowish brown like Mama’s and my body build was slender—at least that was good. My hair was done up in my favorite hairdo, one long braid on the side and another at back center, with each coiled in a small bun and pinned against my head. It had always been an outstanding feature because of its length and thickness, but I had never managed to do anything with it. To get it to look like anything at all, Mama or Big Ma had to comb it; otherwise it was disastrous.

  For several minutes I stood in front of the mirror wondering how long it would be before anybody thought I was pretty like Suzella, or if Ron Shorter ever would. I wondered if boys would ever look at me the way they looked at Suzella, then wondered why I cared. Suddenly, without thinking, I pulled the pins from my fine hairdo, unbraided my hair, and ran the comb through it. Parting it on the side, I tried to get it to hang like Suzella’s, but it bushed out full and thick like a huge black halo around my head.

  “Why don’t you let me comb it for you?”

  I wheeled around. I hadn’t heard Suzella come in. “I can comb it myself,” I told her angrily and turned back to the mirror. With the comb in hand, I attempted to restyle it as it had been.

  Suzella moved across to a chair and sat down to watch me. “You know, Cassie, you’ve got such pretty hair. But if you want it to hang like mine, you’ll have to straighten it—”

  I turned on her. “Who said I wanted it to hang like yours?”

  “Well, I—”

  “You think you such a big deal that everybody’s ’round here tryin’ to look like you or something?”

  “I never said—”

  “I like my hair jus’ fine like it is. Ain’t tryin’ to change it neither . . . like yours or nobody else’s.”

  “I didn’t say you were, Cassie.”

  “Mama says there’s all sorts of ways I can wear my hair when I get a bit older. Says she learned ’em when she was in school in Jackson and says she’s gonna show me.”

  When Suzella didn’t reply to that, I went back to work on my hair. I managed to get a braid in the front and one in the back, but the hair all around the braids was puckered and the part separating the braids crooked. If Suzella had not been in the room and I had not been so angry at her for interfering, or at myself for taking down my hair in the first place, I would have laughed. As it was, I simply coiled the braids in a circle and pinned them down. Having done the best I could, I changed into a school dress and turned to leave.

  “Cassie, why don’t you like me?”

  I stopped and stared at Suzella. I had never expected that she would put the question to me point-blank.

  “I like you all right.”

  “No . . . I don’t think so. Ever since I came there’s been something about me that you don’t care for. Have I done something to you?”

  I looked out the window. “You ain’t done nothin’.”

  “Then is it because . . . is it because, Cassie, my mother’s white?”

  I looked at her, but didn’t say anything.

  “Cassie, you can’t just not like me because my mother’s a white woman. My mother’s simply my mother and my father my father, and I love them both just like you love yours. Don’t blame me for something I can’t help . . . Cassie?”

  “Big Ma said she need me to help her in the kitchen,” I said, opening the door.

  “All right,” Suzella said softly as the door closed between us.

  * * *

  At dinner Stacey told the rest of the family about the Turners’ cow dying. Big Ma frowned at the news and after a moment’s thought turned to Mama. “Mary, it be all right with you, sugar, tomorrow first thing I’m gonna take that four-year-old milker of ours over there. Orris Turner with all them young children be needing that milk and here we gotta be throwin’ it away, folks don’t come get it. Hurts me to my heart.” Mama agreed, and early the next morning before the full heat of the day descended, Big Ma, with the boys and me, started out for Smellings Creek leading the cow, Nadine.

  It was a fine summer’s day. Overhead the sky was the deepest of blues; beneath our feet the road was warm but not burning, and the world was awash with the dazzling brilliance of growing things. Filled with the joy of it, for a while Little Man, Christopher-John, and I ran games of chase along the road, then fell in stride with Big Ma and Stacey. As we walked, Big Ma told us stories of when she and Grandpa had first come to the land, of how things had been then. She told us stories of all her sons: of Uncle Mitchell, who had been killed in the World War; of Uncle Kevin, who had drowned; of Papa and Uncle Hammer. Most of her stories were funny, and we laughed a lot as we passed vast cotton fields where dark figures, as much a part of the earth as the cotton itself, waved a spirited greeting. Several times we stopped to talk with the people in the fields, stretching a two-hour trip into three, and consequently, by the time we reached the Turner farm, the sun was riding high in the eastern sky.

  “Well, looka here!” exclaimed Mr. Turner, wiping his hands on his overalls as he, Moe, and Elroy, Moe’s twelve-year-old brother, came from the fields to greet us. “What brings y’all all the way over here, Miz Caroline?”

  “Come to bring y’all this here cow. Heard y’all lost y’all’s, and you know we got more cows’n we can use the milk from. I figures y’all needin’ a cow, y’all can jus’ take this one off our hands awhile and put her to good use. Jus’ lending her to y’all till y’all get on your feet and can get ya one.”

  Mr. Turner looked gratefully at Big Ma, but shook his head. “I sho’ ’nough ’preciate this, Miz Caroline, but I jus’ can’t go take y’all’s cow knowin’ I can’t pay for her.”

  But Mr. Turner was no match for Big Ma. “Now, Orris Turner, I done come all the way over here to bring this cow and I ain’t takin’ her back.”

  “But Miz Caroline—”

  “Ya got seven younguns here and they needs milk, ’specially them babies there,” Big Ma contended, her eyes resting on the younger children who had gathered ’round. “Christine—that fine woman—would jus’ turn over in her grave she knowed ya was refusin’ milk for them babies. Ya feels ya gotta pay, then send Moe and Elroy over when they get some free time and let ’em chop wood a day or two.”

  Mr. Turner gave in. “Well, we sho’ do thank ya, Miz Caroline. You’s a fine woman.”

  “Ah, go on with ya, Brother Turner,” Big Ma said, turning away embarrassed. “Y’all helping us out to take that cow.” And before Mr. Turner could say anything more, she changed the subject. “See y’all keeping Christine’s flower garden lookin’ right nice.”

  Mr. Turner glanced over at the neat bed of flowers encircling the one-room shack, and tenderness softened the deep lines of his face. “We don’t tend to nothin’ else like we oughta, we makes sure we tends to them flowers. Christine, she was always sho’ proud of ’em. . . .”

  “Yes, she sho’ was. . . .”

  “Well, look here, Miz Caroline, y’all come on in and let me get some coffee for ya.”

  “No thank ya, Brother Turner. We
ain’t come to visit and we ain’t wantin’ to keep ya from your field.” Her eyes surveyed the cotton field, which extended almost to the Turners’ front door. “I tells ya, it’s lookin’ mighty good all right.”

  Mr. Turner nodded. “So far, it’s comin’ ’long right nice. Look to me, it be the best crop we done had in a spell.”

  “I figure the way it’s lookin’ got a whole lot to do with that fertilizer we used this time, don’t you, Papa?” said Moe, his eyes gleaming as he looked out at the cotton. “Hey, Stacey, ain’t I told ya it was looking good?”

  Stacey smiled, pleased for his friend. “Yeah, ya did.”

  “Yeah, it’s gonna be something. Really something!”

  Mr. Turner laughed and motioned proudly toward Moe. “That boy, he got plenty of big plans for this crop here. Wasn’t for him with all his questioning that Mr. Farnsworth ’bout fertilizers and seeds and such and all his hard work, I don’t much ’spect that cotton’d be lookin’ good like it is.”

  “Well, I jus’ hopes y’all can get a good price on it come the sellin’,” said Big Ma. “Hopes we all can.”

  “Yes, ma’am, that’s what we hopin’ too.”

  Big Ma looked up at the sun. “Brother Turner, we’d thank y’all for some nice cold water from your well there, then we gonna hafta be gettin’ on back home ’fore that ole sun yonder gets to burnin’ down too hot.”

  Mr. Turner tried to get Big Ma to sit and rest awhile, but when she refused, he sent Moe into the house for cups and went to the well to draw some fresh water. As Moe came back, a car drove up the road and turned into the yard. Mr. Peck and Deputy Haynes stepped out.

  “Papa, what you think they want?” Moe said, fear leaping into his voice as it did with many of us when white people arrived unexpectedly.

  “Orris!” called Deputy Haynes. “Got business with ya! Come on over!”

  Mr. Turner, still holding the rope to the water bucket, looked out blankly, then nodded and handed the rope to Moe before walking over to the men.

  “Hello there, Orris,” the deputy said. “Ya knows Mr. Peck here. Taking Mr. Farnsworth’s place as county agent?”

  Mr. Turner looked at Mr. Peck and back to the deputy. “Yes, suh.”

  “Well, he come with some news for ya.”

  Once again Mr. Turner looked at Mr. Peck. “Yes, suh?”

  “Well, Orris . . .” Mr. Peck started, then pulled at his ear and looked away from him to the fields. “Ya know in thirty-three we asked farmers to plow up part of their cotton, and then last year and this year we asked farmers to plant less than what they was used to planting . . .” He paused as if waiting for Mr. Turner to say something. When Mr. Turner did not, he glanced back at him. Mr. Turner nodded slowly and Mr. Peck looked back to the fields. “Well . . . uh . . .”

  Without a sound Moe hung the water bucket onto the hook and waited for Mr. Peck’s next words.

  “. . . uh . . . we’re finding that there’s been a miscalculation. The AAA committees made a mistake in figuring the likely production of certain acreage, and based on the figures they turned in to the state board, Mr. Farnsworth allowed too much cotton to be planted. Well, uh, now that the committees discovered their mistake, we’re gonna have to correct it. . . . You understand what I’m saying, Orris?”

  Mr. Turner looked suspiciously at Mr. Peck. “I understands what Mr. Farnsworth told me. Early on this spring he told me how much cotton I s’pose to plant.”

  “Well . . . uh . . . yes, that’s so. But we got a problem here, ya see. These mistakes—”

  “Look here, Mr. Peck,” Deputy Haynes interrupted impatiently, “all these here explanations ain’t necessary. Don’t ya see the nigger don’t understand nothin’ you saying? Let’s jus’ do what we come to do and get on with it.”

  Mr. Peck nodded meekly, glanced at Mr. Turner, then away again, as if he could not face him. Taking out a pad and pencil from his breast pocket, he walked past Mr. Turner and the deputy to the end of the field. There he stopped and looked over the field, then with his head bent to the pad scribbled madly for some time while we waited, wondering what it all meant. Finally, he put the pencil in his pocket and stood for several moments staring at the pad. Then, as if he did not want to come back, he walked slowly up the field in measured steps. He stopped and pointed down the row.

  “Now . . . uh . . . Orris . . . ya gonna have to plow up everything from the road to—”

  “Noooooo!” cried Moe, his voice rending the morning like the crack of summer thunder. He dashed from the well and grabbed frantically at Mr. Peck. “Ya can’t make us plow it up! That’s our cotton out there! We done worked hard and ya can’t jus’ go make us plow it up! No way ya can!”

  Mr. Turner rushed over and pulled Moe away from Mr. Peck before Deputy Haynes could get him. “It’s all right!” Mr. Peck cried to the deputy as he turned to take Moe from Mr. Turner. “It’s all right, Mr. Haynes.”

  The deputy looked at Mr. Peck and after a long, tense moment stood aside.

  “Papa, we can’t let ’em do it! We done put too much into it!”

  “Hush, boy!”

  “Maybe you gonna let ’em, but I ain’t!” Moe jerked from his father’s grasp and headed for the house. “I’ll stop ’em!”

  Mr. Turner caught Moe again and this time he hit him, so hard that Moe fell backward onto the ground.

  I let out a gasp; Big Ma told me to keep quiet.

  Mr. Turner helped Moe up and held onto him. Mr. Peck, a sorrowful look in his eyes, wiped the perspiration from his face. “I know how y’all feel and I don’t like this no more’n y’all do. But it’s gotta be done. Ain’t nothin’ ’gainst y’all. This here’s happening to colored and white alike, and plenty of other folks gonna come under the same hardship. I’m the first one recognize all the work you folks done put in your crop. It’s a mighty fine-looking crop. But we gonna hafta correct the figures.” He sighed hard and looked at Moe. “I don’t fault you, boy. I’d hate to lose this crop my own self.” He stared out at the field in silence, then stuck the stick he carried into the soil. “I jus’ hope y’all can understand this in time, Orris.”

  Mr. Turner didn’t say anything.

  Mr. Peck sighed once more and turned to face Mr. Turner, but it took him so long to speak, I wondered what he was waiting for. “You gonna have to do it now, Orris. I gotta see you plow it up.”

  Mr. Turner stared blankly at the agent.

  “Get a move on ya, Orris,” Deputy Haynes ordered impatiently.

  As if in a stupor, Mr. Turner glanced at the deputy, then walked behind the barn and brought back his mule. Asking none of his children to help him, he went into the barn, returned with his plow, and hitched the mule to it. He led the mule to the marked row and, stopping, gazed out at his fields. Taking off his hat, he wiped his head with a red bandana, replaced the hat, and looking straight ahead yelled, “Ged on up, mule!”

  As the plow cut through the earth, uprooting the plants to lie withering in the summer sun, Moe slowly followed his father out across the fields. Midway down the first plowed row he stopped and picked up one of the uprooted plants. For some time he stood unmoving, staring down at it. Then he bent his head to it; his shoulders shook and he cried.

  I felt like crying too.

  9

  Mr. Peck had been right. The Turners weren’t the only ones to have their cotton plowed up. The Shorters and the Laniers lost an acre each, the Averys a quarter, the Ellises and Mrs. Lee Annie a third, as all through the community fields blooming with large cream-colored blossoms and plants hanging heavy with bolls beginning to fill with soft puffs of cotton were being turned back to the earth as they had been two years ago. But our fields were not touched; neither were the Wigginses’. Only plantation fields were being plowed up, including those of white farmers. As the hot days of summer moved into July and the plow-ups continued, dissatisfaction grew more intense and the grumblings louder.

  “Shuckies, man,” said Ron Shorter as a group of us crossed
the school lawn after a morning of Bible classes which were offered each summer, “I thought my papa was gonna bus’ somebody sure when that Mr. Peck and that little Deputy Haynes come tellin’ us we had to plow up that field. Lord have mercy! What they ’spect us to do?”

  “S’pose to get a higher price,” Clarence reminded him. “Guaranteed.”

  “Shoot!” Ron exclaimed. “Ya oughta know as well as me ain’t none of us sharecroppin’ gonna see no money, higher sellin’ price or not. It’s always the same. After the deducts, we got nothin’. I tell y’all, this kinda stuff keep up, me and Don thinkin’ bout goin’ into the CCC or maybe goin’ up to Jackson looking for work, ’cause we don’t much see how we gonna hold out this year we don’t get none of that government money Mr. Granger holding on to.”

  Don nodded, affirming his brother’s statement.

  I sighed, hoping they were both just talking.

  “Well, shoot, man,” said Little Willie, “ain’t hardly no jobs no place ’ceptin’ at that hospital building site, and they ain’t even hiring now. Way I figure, you ain’t got a job, you most likely ain’t gonna get one.”

  “What ’bout the cane fields?”

  Little Willie stared apprehensively at Moe. “The cane fields?”

  “In Louisiana.”

  Stacey studied Moe. “You thinkin’ ’bout going?”

  I looked at Moe, still feeling his pain at the loss of so much of his cotton.

  “No reason much to stay here now. Be better I could get me work where I can get me some money.”

  As we reached the road, Dubé Cross came running up and the subject changed from cane fields to union. “Y-y-y’all hear ’bout the m-meeting? Wh-wh-white and colored. F-f-first time. Night after n-next.”

  “Night!” exclaimed Little Willie. “Man, ain’t nobody in they right mind ’round here gonna be meeting with no white folks at night!”

  “S-s-seven o’clock. Still be light. Over at M-Mr. Tate S-Sutton’s.”

  “What’s it gonna be ’bout?” questioned Stacey. “The plow-ups?”

  “A-A-Ain’t y’all heard?” he cried. “M-Mr. Wheeler back from W-W-Washington and say he know’d how c-c-come all this plowin’ up b-been goin’ on. W-W-Wasn’t ordered by Washington. Them folks on the AAA committees—M-Mr. Granger and Mr. Montier and th-th-them—th-they’s the ones at f-f-fault. SSS-Seems they figured a way to plant more cotton than they was s’pose to, and Mr. F-F-Farnsworth, he gone along with it, th-that’s what Mr. Wheeler f-figure. Th-Them ole landlords come tellin’ Mr. Peck th-they jus’ done made a mistake. Shoot! Th-They made a mistake all r-right. Th-they was plantin’ a whole bbb-buncha acres they wasn’t s’pose to be plantin’ and bbbb-buyin’ up other folk’s bale tags too so’s th-they wouldn’t hafta pay that fifty percent t-t-tax.”