The Land

by Mildred D. Taylor

  I didn’t say anything.

  “We being neighbors, I figured these things needed to get said. I’m wishing you luck. You need my help on anything, you let me know.”

  I thanked Charles Jamison for his offer, but I didn’t figure to ask his help on anything. I liked him and I liked his son, but I didn’t intend to be beholden to any white man. Not again.

  Wade Jamison stayed working for another week on the forty, and when the Grangers came again for their timber, he was there. He watched as the logs were rolled into the creek, then went back to hacking off branches. I watched as Filmore Granger’s boy, Harlan, followed him, and I heard Harlan say, “Thought the Jamisons were supposed to be quality folks.”

  “What you mean by that?” asked Wade, stopping his work.

  “Quality, and here you doin’ a nigger’s bidding.”

  Wade Jamison took his time and said to Harlan, “My granddaddy logged trees, even while the Indians were here. Nothing’s wrong in logging and nothing’s wrong in taking orders from a man who knows logging.”

  “But you here working for these niggers on Granger land!”

  “Thought this was suppose to be Logan land after these trees are cut,” challenged Wade. “Now, I’m working for myself, and even if I weren’t, I don’t see nothing wrong with what I’m doing.”

  “Then you a fool,” said Harlan.

  The boy Wade stared at the boy Harlan. “Not if I don’t think so,” he said, and turned again to his chopping. As agreed, when the last logs were headed down the creek, Wade Jamison left. I admired the boy and hated to see him go, but my thinking was much the same as Mitchell’s. A white boy on the place could only lead to trouble.

  With the demands of the Grangers lessened now, Mitchell again turned his attention to his upcoming marriage. He and Nathan readied the cabin for Caroline’s arrival. They cleaned and swept it, and Mitchell bought some pane for me to make a window so that Caroline could have the sunshine inside. Nathan and I moved our few things to the shed, and when all that was done, Mitchell, Nathan, and I hitched two of the mules to the wagon and headed for Vicksburg. I had arranged for Tom Bee to watch out for the animals and to keep chopping, so I had no worries about the place. It was my first journey off the forty in more than three months.

  Mitchell married Caroline on a hot day in August at Mount Elam Baptist Church, and I stood up as his witness. Mitchell was nervous and Caroline was beautiful. She wore an ivory dress, and her hair hung long, graced with baby’s breath from her mother’s flower garden. As she and Mitchell exchanged their vows, I couldn’t keep my eyes off her, and despite my loyalty to my friend, I had to fight a heaviness in my heart at seeing Caroline marry someone else, even if it was Mitchell.

  After the ceremony, all the people from the church followed the flower-covered wagon carrying Caroline and Mitchell to the Perry farm, where Caroline’s family had laid out a tremendous table of hams and fried chicken and roasts, vegetables and breads of all kinds, pies, cakes, and puddings. It was a true feast, and Miz Rachel Perry herself brought me a plate of food. As I stood enjoying her good cooking, Caroline came over and gently touched my arm. “Mister Paul-Edward Logan,” she said, “I understand me comin’ to the forty is gonna put you outa your house.”

  “No such thing,” I said. “And, please, no more calling me ‘Mister’ Paul-Edward, all right? Paul-Edward will do just fine. Even Nathan calls me Paul. After all, we’re like family in a way now.”

  She smiled. “I know Mitchell says y’all like brothers.”

  “That’s a fact.”

  “Still, I feel like I’m puttin’ you outa your house.”

  “Well, don’t feel that way. It won’t be a problem, really. It’ll only be for a short spell, just ’til we get your house built.”

  “But I hate to think of all y’all havin’ to sleep in the shed.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ve slept in a whole lot worse places.”

  “Ain’t that the truth!” said Mitchell, coming up behind Caroline and slipping his arms around her. “Like Paul said, don’t worry ’bout it. We’ll get you a house built soon enough.” He kissed her cheek, and Caroline glanced back at him with a smile. They looked good together.

  That next morning after the wedding, Nathan and I headed back to the forty. We left the wagon and one of the mules with Mitchell so that he could bring Caroline and her things. Nathan rode the other mule. I rode Thunder. I had decided it was time to have the palomino with me. After all, I was paying board money to Luke Sawyer I figured I could now save. Besides that, although Thunder was allowed to graze in Luke Sawyer’s pasture and was getting decent feed, he wasn’t getting the exercise he needed. No one but I, so far, could ride him. There were enough trees now cut on the forty so that there was open land and plenty of grass. I figured to graze Thunder on that grass and to race him too, at least on the forty. It felt good to be riding him again.

  Mitchell stayed a week with Caroline at the Perry farm and that was fine with me. We were on schedule with the trees, and I was figuring by this time next year we’d own the forty outright and have ourselves a crop. When Mitchell came back, I knew we’d have to work hard to make up these few days missed if we were going to stay on schedule, but I figured a wedding was worth it. Most folks only got married once, and what was before Caroline and Mitchell was a lifetime. They might as well start it right.

  The Promise

  Caroline’s arrival changed many a thing. It wasn’t just that she now occupied the cabin with Mitchell, but more it was her presence that was felt all across the forty. One week after Mitchell brought her from her parents’ farm, Caroline had a new and much larger garden planted, and it was a garden for which she had broken ground herself. She asked no help from any of us. Right away she had taken over all the household chores too, and that in itself made a big difference, for it freed Mitchell, Nathan, and me for more chopping time. The most welcomed change, though, was in our meals. After Caroline’s arrival, there was no longer just grits with a cup of hot chicory for our breakfast, but also eggs, crusty biscuits and sausages, gravy and preserves, and fresh milk. It was that way from then on, for Caroline had brought with her a store of her mama’s preserves and canning, as well as her daddy’s meats from their smokehouse. She had also brought a rooster and two laying hens, two piglets, and a milking cow. They were all presents from her family to her and Mitchell. Dinner and suppertime were no less than the breakfast, with vegetables and corn bread, preserved beef or venison, and a pudding or a cobbler of some kind. Whatever Caroline cooked was a feast; she was as good a cook as her mother, and no matter how busy Mitchell, Nathan, and I were, Caroline insisted we come eat her good food. “How y’all ’spect t’ keep your strength, y’all don’t eat. Lots of trees up there still, and I ’spect y’all can cut a few more y’all got good fueling in ya!”

  I found Caroline was a precious kind of young woman. She was strong-willed and outspoken. She was loyal. But she also had a temper, and she proved that more than once. I’d already seen her slam her knuckles into her friend’s jaw at Mount Elam. Soon after she was on the forty, she let that hand go again across another young woman’s face. The young woman, I soon found out, had made the mistake of speaking ill of Mitchell, and she’d made that mistake to Caroline’s face. The woman’s name was Minnie Scott, and it just so happened that I was coming from chopping when I witnessed Caroline’s confrontation with her. This time I didn’t hear what was said. I just saw Caroline suddenly haul off and slam Minnie Scott with the flat of her hand. When I got into hearing distance, Caroline was ordering the woman off the forty. Minnie glanced up at me, turned, and hurried away without a word. Caroline, hands on her hips, watched her go, then picked up her hoe. That’s when she saw me. She glanced back over her shoulder at the retreating Minnie, and looked at me again. “’Spect you seen that, huh?”

  “I did,” I said.

  “’Spect you must be thinkin’ all I do is go round hittin’ on folks.”

  I shru
gged. “Not my business.” I started to walk on.

  “She done said things . . . things ’bout Mitchell.” I stopped and gave her my attention. “I don’t ’low nobody t’ be sayin’ things ’gainst folks I care ’bout, they be true or not.”

  “You figure what she said was true?”

  Caroline’s jaw hardened. “Woman was talkin’ ’bout Mitchell’s wild ways ’fore we got married. Said she heard it from Mister Tom Bee.” I nodded, and Caroline softened. “I know Mitchell been with women ’fore me, but he ain’t with nobody but me now, and that’s the truth.”

  Again I nodded.

  “That Minnie, she talked one time too many outa turn when she said he was out tommin’ round on me, ’cause I know different, and even if I ain’t, I ain’t gonna have her runnin’ up here t’ me with her tongue.”

  “Well, I guess you won’t have to worry about that again.”

  Caroline smiled. “I always done had me a temper. Took after my mama, and she always gettin’ after me ’bout it. I gotta ask the Lord t’ help me ’bout that.” She looked a bit contrite.

  I smiled as well. “That might be a good idea. I just hope you don’t ever get mad at me.”

  “Jus’ stay on my good side,” she warned with a grin, “and you got nothin’ t’ worry ’bout.”

  I laughed and Caroline went back to her hoeing.

  Despite having a temper when crossed, Caroline was good for Mitchell. I could see that. She kept him in check, and with her will for work she sometimes seemed to press him to do a little more than he was willing. More than once I heard her after him about one thing or another concerning the forty, and the thing she most worried him about was planting a crop. “What I wanna know,” she said one dawn as we finished our breakfast, “is when we gonna get this land plowed and planted. Good day for it today.”

  “Well, right now,” said Mitchell, “you ain’t noticed, we kinda busy choppin’ trees.”

  “I know that!” said Caroline. “But I thought you and Paul-Edward said you was goin’ t’ do some plantin’ on them acres you done already cleared. We could pull up some of them stumps and have ourselves a nice little field.”

  “We’re figurin’ on that,” said Mitchell. “But we talkin’ ’bout next spring. Right now I’m figurin’ we got more tree clearin’ t’ do ’fore we can get to the plantin’.”

  “Wait too long,” said the all-knowing, farm-wise Caroline, “we gonna be too late to plant anything.”

  “Well, woman, what you gonna plant? It’s here late summer already.”

  Caroline was ready with an answer. “Can get us in some collards and spinach and cabbage. Maybe some sugar peas too. I got seed from home. Can get them harvested ’fore real cold weather set in and I can take ’em t’ the market in Strawberry t’ sell.”

  “Won’t have time for plantin’ or harvestin’,” objected Mitchell. “We got trees to cut.”

  “Could be, Mitchell,” I interjected, “maybe we can do both.”

  Mitchell turned to me. “How you mean?”

  “Maybe we can split the work. You and I, we can still be cutting the trees, and Caroline can work the fields and Nathan can help her out sometimes. Maybe we can even get Tom Bee back to work with us a couple of days a week.”

  Mitchell questioned me on that. “You ready to let go more hard money for another hand?”

  “Did it once before,” I said. “Maybe it’s time I did again.”

  “Ready to let go for a plow too?”

  I nodded. “I’ve already set aside for that. Could be we’ll make a little money from the vegetables. In any case, it won’t hurt to break the ground early. It’ll make it easier for spring planting.”

  “Good then,” said Caroline. “We can get started.”

  Mitchell gazed quizzically at her. “Can you handle a plow?”

  Caroline laughed. “Sugar, seem like I been plowin’ and hoein’ since I could walk, so I ain’t hardly ’fraid of no plow.”

  Mitchell too laughed as he looked at her. “Baby, you ain’t hardly ’fraid of nothin’!”

  Caroline got her fields. I’ve got to admit, though, she and Nathan didn’t do all the plowing. They didn’t do all the stump-pulling either. Mitchell and I took turns helping with that. But she and Nathan did all the planting, and when the vegetables began to grow, they took care of the weeding too. Yet with all that and the household chores Caroline had taken upon herself, she still found time to help in hacking off branches and burning the brush.

  I hired back Tom Bee for a few days each week during that late summer and early fall as we settled into what would become our life on the forty. Things looked good for us, and I gave no worry to getting the rest of the trees felled. We worked hard as always, chopping the trees and now even pulling up more of the stumps, but with more than twenty acres cleared and part of it ready for plowing, I knew that by the next fall, the acreage would be ours. We took time for a bit more leisure.

  Caroline, who believed in keeping the Sabbath, refused to work on that day, outside of making sure the animals were fed and we were too. There was no colored church building close by, but folks met down by the Creek Rosa Lee for church services about twice a month, and Caroline always went to join in. Sometimes she even got Mitchell to go with her and saw to it that Nathan did as well. But I never did. On those days I took the time to do my woodworking or write to Cassie. My not going to church, however, didn’t keep a little bit of church from coming to me. Caroline brought it to the forty when several of her new acquaintances, young women about her age, came to join Caroline in Bible reading on the Sundays when there was no service at the Rosa Lee. One of the young women was a Miss Etta Greene. She was pretty, kind of quiet, and seemed to take a liking to me, and with Caroline’s urgings, I saw her home several times from those meetings, and even upon occasion went to call on her. Mitchell teased me that it looked like it wouldn’t be long before I too would be hitched. “Yeah,” he said, “Miss Etta got wedding plans for you, boy!”

  Nathan laughed and I smiled as we sat around the night fire at the end of the day when the brush had been burned. Caroline, sitting close to Mitchell, pushed him gently in reproach. “Now, you stop that, Mitchell! What’s between Etta and Paul-Edward is they business.”

  Mitchell turned and stared at her. “They business? Who been puttin’ ’em t’gether?”

  “All I done was introduce ’em t’ one ’nother. They becomin’ friends was they idea.”

  “Um-hum,” murmured Mitchell with a grin. “Paul, ya might’s well start plannin’ on it now. Caroline ain’t gonna be satisfied ’til she got another woman on this place.”

  Caroline cut her eyes at Mitchell, and I said, “Well, I’m afraid that’s going to be a while yet. I’ve got some more things I want to get done before I go commit to marrying somebody.”

  “So you saying Miss Etta ain’t the one, huh?” questioned Mitchell.

  “Well, she’s nice enough,” I hedged.

  “But she ain’t the one! ’Cause if she was the one, you couldn’t hardly wait t’ get hitched, plans or no plans. Jus’ look at me. Here I was thinkin’ I’d go t’ my grave single and free, and here comes Miz Caroline into my life and changes all that right quick.” Mitchell turned to her. “Gone and changed that forever.”

  Caroline smiled at Mitchell and slipped her arm around his.

  “Thing that gets me, though, Paul,” Mitchell said, turning back to me, “is you was the one talkin’ marriage long ’fore me. I was the one declarin’ I wasn’t never gonna marry, but you was sayin’ it was time you got yo’self a family. Now, here I am married for life and here ya puttin’ it off.”

  “You leave him be,” ordered Caroline. “He ain’t ready t’ get married, then don’t be pushin’ him ’bout it.”

  “But he the one—”

  “Leave him be!”

  “Thank you, Caroline,” I said.

  “You welcome,” she said.

  “Well, ain’t this somethin’!” cried Mitchel
l. “You two done joined up against me! My wife and my friend!”

  Caroline, Nathan, and I laughed. So did Mitchell.

  “What I’d like t’ know,” said Caroline, nudging closer to Mitchell, “is how the two of y’all come t’ be such good friends in the first place.”

  “Didn’t he tell you?” I asked.

  Caroline made a guttural sound feigning exasperation with her new husband. “This man, he don’t tell me nothin’!”

  “Now, woman, you know that ain’t true,” denied Mitchell. “Thing is, this here wife of mine just after me all the time t’ tell her everythin’ from the moment I was born, and I keep tellin’ her I ain’t keepin’ track of things like her.”

  “Gotta keep track, I keep tellin’ you,” said Caroline in a business kind of way before she smiled her love at Mitchell. “How we gonna pass things on t’ our children, we don’t keep track? I wanna know everything.”

  “That’s sure the truth,” grumbled Mitchell.

  Caroline playfully slapped at his shoulder, then looked back at me. “So, how’d it come ’bout? You and Mitchell ’comin’ friends?”

  I waved any response off to Mitchell. “So, what did you tell her?”

  Mitchell shrugged. “Told her I was born on yo’ daddy’s land.”

  “That’s all? You tell her about who my daddy was?”

  “What else I need to tell? Caroline’s a smart woman. One look at you and she done figured out who your daddy was.”

  “Well, Paul-Edward, he already done told me that,” interjected Caroline. “But what I’m wantin’ t’ know is how y’all came t’ be so close. Mitchell ain’t said, so, Paul-Edward, you tell me.”

  Caroline’s eyes pierced mine across the fire. I glanced at Mitchell, and he shrugged as if resigned to his bride’s demands. I smiled. “He beat me into a friendship with him.”

  “What!” exclaimed Caroline.

  I grinned. “Well, see the way it was, when we were boys, Mitchell there was always beating up on me—”