Let the Circle Be Unbroken

by Mildred D. Taylor

  “We’d been working nearly ten weeks and they tell us that! Ten weeks! But we knew there wasn’t nothin’ we could do about it.” His voice went low. “Nothin’.” He paused and I saw both hurt and anger in his eyes. “Told the others what they’d said and some of ’em wouldn’t believe us, said the boss was just joking us. But there was two other boys, name of Ben and Jimmie B., believed us, and ’long with Charlie and Moe and me they decided they was gonna get outa there that same day.

  “That night when we were ready to slip out, Charlie, he said he had something to tend to first and for us to go on and he’d catch up. Well, we did, we went on. Ben and Jimmie B., they weren’t sick, and they helped Moe and me along and come nighttime we stopped. Charlie, like he said he would, he caught up with us and told us why he had took so long. Told us he gone back to the office looking for money and found it. Said it was money owed us and he was gonna divide it with us. ’Minded me of T.J., Charlie did. . . .

  “Jimmie B., Moe, and me, we didn’t want no part of it. But Ben, he went ’long with Charlie ’bout the money. So we told ’em we didn’t want them traveling with us. They got caught with that money, we didn’t want nothing to do with it. When we left outa there, Charlie and Ben headed on west and we went north. Got rides some of the way with colored farmers, but mostly, we stayed to the woods, ’fraid to come out on the road. Made pretty good time. But then just west of Shokesville, Moe and me, we both give out and Jimmie B., he went looking for some colored folks to help us, maybe put us up a few days.”

  As Stacey had talked, his voice had become so low that I had to lean forward to hear him. Now his words were a mere whisper. “They shot Jimmie B. . . . We heard them. Some white men out hunting seen Jimmie B. and when Jimmie B. got scared and ran, they shot him . . . killed him, ’cause he ran.” He cleared his throat and spoke up. “Moe and me, we didn’t know what to do, but we knew we couldn’t run. We was too sick to run. We hid . . . but they got us and took us up to the jail.”

  Stacey fixed his eyes on the fire and stared blankly into it. A long time passed and he didn’t speak. Moe said nothing. We waited.

  “Heard they’d ’spected us of stealing that money.” Stacey’s words were drawn, paced, quiet. “Heard they’d caught Charlie and Ben. Then heard they was gonna send us back. For three weeks, we heard all that. Then the deputy this morning, he come and didn’t say a word, just grabbed me up and I thought for sure, thought . . .” Smiling weakly, he shook his head and sniffed back his tears. “Lord . . . who’d’ve ever thought,” he said, “who’d’ve thought . . .” Then, unable to say anything more, he broke down and cried.

  * * *

  When breakfast was over, we waved good-bye to Mrs. Mattie Jones and started home. Stacey sat in back between Mama and me, Moe up front with Papa and Uncle Hammer. They were still weak and despite their attempts to keep awake, they kept drifting off to sleep. Papa, Mama, and Uncle Hammer managed to stay awake, talking softly, watching over us, but I too drifted off, awakening several times with a start to gaze once again at Stacey, not quite believing yet that he was really there beside me. Then I would nudge him just a bit so that he would move in some way and, once I knew that he was all right, would go off to sleep again.

  Past midnight we reached Strawberry, and following Soldiers Road to Smellings Creek, we took Moe home and witnessed the Turners’ joyful reunion before swinging east again. Stacey, wide awake now, leaned forward to peer out into the darkness that cloaked the woods and the fields that were so familiar to him. We sped over the bridge once more, past the Wallace store, and Jefferson Davis, down to the first crossroads, past the Simmses’ place to the second crossroads, then west toward home. The old oak, veiled in gray by the moonlight, became visible, then the meadow and the field, and finally the house, dark, asleep like the land, and as much a part of it as the trees, black against the midnight sky on the other side of the road.

  As we pulled into the drive, the dogs started barking. Almost immediately a dim light appeared in the house, and from across the garden a round light came moving slowly toward us. The side door swung open and Christopher-John and Little Man were standing there in their nightgowns with Big Ma behind them, a kerosene lamp in her hand which she held out into the night.

  “David . . . Mary . . . Hammer, that y’all?” she called.

  Papa turned and smiled at Stacey. “You answer her, son.”

  Stacey grinned and, unexpectedly, squeezed my hand. “Look at ’em, Cassie,” he said. “Look at ole Man and Christopher-John.”

  “David, y’all bring that boy?”

  For a moment Stacey was too choked to answer. Then he cleared his throat and followed Mama out of the car. “Yes, ma’am, Big Ma. They sure did.”

  Stunned, the three of them did not move from the doorway. The light in the garden went out. Then, all together, Big Ma, Christopher-John and Little Man let out a tremendous whoop and came tearing down the steps. Mr. Morrison came running across the yard. “Lord, the boy done come home!” he cried. “He done come home!”

  “Yes, sir,” Stacey said, limping to meet them. “I done come home . . . and it’s the very best place to be.”

  I agreed.