Let the Circle Be Unbroken

by Mildred D. Taylor

  Both Stacey and I looked to Papa, who was calmly placing his empty pipe between his lips.

  “It was more’n a bit of trouble—” volunteered Mrs. Ellis.

  “—and it ain’t hardly over yet,” added Mr. Tom Bee.

  “Joe Avery’s boy, T.J., went and got hisself into trouble,” Mr. Ellis explained. “Messin’ ’round with two of them no-count Simms boys—”

  “Them white boys?” questioned Russell incredulously.

  Mr. Page Ellis nodded. “The three of them upped and robbed Mr. Jim Lee Barnett’s store in Strawberry—”

  “You ’member that place, don’tcha, son?” asked Mrs. Ellis.

  “Sure do. That ole redneck owns it too.”

  I began to fidget, not wanting to hear.

  “Well, he got killed,” said Mrs. Ellis.

  “Ya don’t say!”

  “They said the Avery boy and two other colored boys done it,” continued Mr. Ellis. “Wouldn’t believe it was them Simmses. And then them men come out over to the Averys and would’ve done lynched the boy, that fire hadn’t’ve come up on Brother Logan’s place—”

  “The hand of God,” interjected Mrs. Lee Annie, shaking her head. “The mighty hand of God.”

  “Burnt a good quarter of your crop too, didn’t it, David?”

  Papa pulled on the pipe, his eyes meeting Mr. Ellis’s, and nodded without expression.

  Russell digested all that had been said in the silence that followed. “Well,” he said finally, looking around. “What come of the boy?”

  Mrs. Lee Annie nodded in the direction of Strawberry. “He still in jail down there in town.”

  “Don’t know what they doin’,” observed Mr. Tom Bee with a shake of his head. “I seen the time they woulda done took care of him long ’fore now.”

  “You ’spect they gonna give him a trial?” Russell asked.

  Mr. Ellis shrugged. “They ain’t gon’ hardly waste no time on no trial for no colored boy. They know what they gon’ do to him anyways.”

  “Well, he do get one, it’ll be ’cause of Mr. Jamison,” put in Mrs. Ellis. “He been tryin’ mighty hard to get him one.”

  Mr. Tom Bee’s displeasure showed on his face. “Don’t see how come he wanna bother. They gonna hang T.J. anyways. Ain’t no doubt ’bout that thing . . . ’cause they sho’ is. . . .”

  His statement was final and undisputed; I longed to go.

  As if Son-Boy had sensed my discomfort, he jumped off the bed and motioned the boys and me to come with him. Relieved, Little Man, Christopher-John, and I followed with Don Lee. Stacey came too, though he lagged behind, and once we were outside on the porch, stood apart from us staring out toward the woods. The rest of us tromped to the end of the porch, where Son-Boy wheeled around and announced: “I got something to show y’all.”

  “Well, what?” Christopher-John, Little Man, and I demanded.

  Son-Boy grinned widely and delved deeply into his worn pants. “Look here, see what Russell brung us.” He pulled a clenched fist from his right pocket and opened it slowly. Don Lee did the same. “Ahhhh!” Christopher-John, Little Man, and I exclaimed in unison.

  In their palms lay ten marbles apiece, each a different color.

  “And that ain’t all,” said Don Lee. “Show ’em the real beauty.”

  Even slower than he had brought forth the other marbles, Son-Boy dug into his other pocket and, with his face plastered in a prideful smile, produced his treasure. And it was a beauty, a penetrating blue swirling through an island of misty emerald green. Son-Boy held it up toward the pale November sun and then brought it close so that each of us could peer through it.

  Little Man and Christopher-John “ahhhed” in appreciation, and even Stacey admitted that it was “nice,” but I was totally fascinated by it. I could feel my eyes growing big as I stared at it, and without thinking, I reached out to take it from Son-Boy so I could inspect it more closely. Son-Boy firmly closed his fist around it.

  “Ain’t nobody touchin’ this baby but me,” he said.

  “And me,” reminded Don Lee.

  Son-Boy made no comment, but I had a feeling that Don Lee wasn’t coming any closer to that marble than any of the rest of us.

  “Ah, shuckies, boy!” I exclaimed. “Ain’t nobody wanting your ole marble. I just wanted to get a good look at it, that’s all. Come on and open your hand.”

  Son-Boy turned deaf ears to my request as he pocketed his treasure, patting it through the thin cloth of his pants to make sure it was secure. Then, as if somewhat remorseful about his selfishness, he again opened his right fist. “Wanna play?” he asked.

  I dug out the marbles I had won from Curtis Henderson a few days ago. Son-Boy frowned disdainfully. “That all you got?”

  “That’s all I need,” I said, confident that after three quick shots, three of his marbles would be mine.

  “I got one too,” proclaimed Little Man, adding a fourth marble to my pile. “I get a shot,” he added.

  “We better get down here,” said Son-Boy, hopping from the porch with its wide spaces between the porch slats.

  Don Lee, Christopher-John, Little Man, and I jumped down too, but Stacey remained on the porch.

  “Ain’t you gonna play?” I asked.

  “Naw. I’m going back inside,” he said, starting back down the porch.

  I stared irritably after him. A year ago he would have been right down here playing too, but now at thirteen he had changed so much that he seldom deigned to play with us at all anymore. Mama said that was because Stacey was becoming a man, that it was natural for him to change, and that I would change too. Maybe that was so, but I didn’t like his changing and I didn’t like the thought of my changing either. Maybe it was the way of life to change, but if I had my way I would put an iron padlock on time so nothing would ever have to change again.

  “Stacey’s taking it bad, ain’t he?” observed Son-Boy, who knew, as everyone else did, how close Stacey had once been to T.J. Avery. For years Stacey had been T.J.’s best and just about only friend. Although a lot of people, including myself, had never been exactly crazy about T.J., Stacey had remained his friend until he had caused Mama to lose her teaching job at Great Faith last spring. But even with all that T.J. had done, Stacey had not deserted him. On the night Jim Lee Barnett was killed, T.J. had turned to Stacey and Stacey had helped him.

  “Ya s’pose they really gonna put ole T.J. to death like folks say?” Son-Boy wondered, absently shaking the marbles in his hand, the impending game for the moment forgotten.

  I faced him with an icy gaze. I didn’t want to think about T.J. or what had happened or what could happen. “Thought you wanted to play,” I said.

  Son-Boy’s eyes met mine and he shrugged. “All right then, let’s play.”

  Picking up a stick, he outlined the outer and inner circles for the game. He placed Little Man’s and my marbles, alternating them with his, around the inner circle, then took the last of my marbles, a red, and one of his, a yellow, and shook them up in his hands. Don Lee, his eyes covered by Christopher-John’s pudgy hands, made the draw from his brother’s hand, picking the red. I got the first shot.

  “Cassie, let me shoot,” demanded Little Man, neatly avoiding any dirt as he, like I, sat on his haunches. “One of ’em’s mine, ya know.”

  I started to object to Little Man’s shooting at all, but decided against it since I needed his marble and did not want him to snatch it from the circle. “Jus’ let me shoot down one of their men first,” I said, “then you take your turn.”

  Little Man frowned and conceded. He was a very rational boy and accepted the fact that I was a better and more experienced shot than he.

  The object of the game was to knock the opponent’s marbles out of the circle. Any such marbles then became the property of the person who knocked them out. I did very well, but on this particular day neither Son-Boy, who was usually an excellent shot, nor Don Lee was having much luck. Little Man and I handily took four of their men
in a row. Even Christopher-John took a roll and scored. In fact, we were on our way to wiping Son-Boy and Don Lee out when Papa said: “What y’all doin’ here?”

  I looked up, my shooting marble still in hand. We had been so engrossed in the game we hadn’t heard him come out. “Playing marbles,” I answered.

  “And we whippin’ the pants off ’em too, Papa,” boasted Little Man.

  “That a fact?”

  “Yes, sir!” grinned Christopher-John, still jubilant over having claimed one of Son-Boy’s marbles for his own.

  “Well, I think y’all best give Son-Boy and Don Lee’s marbles back to them.”

  “But, Papa,” I protested, “we won ’em fair!”

  Papa motioned toward the marbles. “Son-Boy, you and Don Lee take your marbles.”

  Christopher-John, Little. Man, and I regarded Papa with dismay as Son-Boy and Don Lee joyfully scooped up the marbles which rightfully belonged to us.

  “What ’bout them?” Papa asked concerning the three remaining marbles on the ground.

  “They’re ours,” I answered.

  “Then give ’em here.”

  I gathered up the marbles and gave all of them, including the one in my hand, to Papa, who deposited them in his coat pocket. “All right, go get in the wagon. We going now.”

  Once we had said good-bye to Mrs. Lee Annie and the Ellises and had started home again, Papa said, “I don’t want y’all playing marbles no more.”

  Little Man, Christopher-John, and I stared aghast at Papa. Stacey, however, showed no concern. Since he now considered himself above such childish games as marble playing, he no doubt felt the edict didn’t affect him one way or the other.

  “I seen it lead too many times to gambling, and that gambling’s like a sickness, a terrible thing. Can destroy a person. Anytime you take possession of somebody else’s things through a game, there’s usually gonna be hard feelings. Now, that marble shooting might go on perfectly all right for a while, then one day somebody’ll get mad ’bout losing, or cheating, or something, and there’ll be trouble. Then again somebody’ll decide winning marbles ain’t enough, and they’ll start betting money and you into gambling.”

  “But, Papa,” I protested, “we wasn’t doin’ nothin’ wrong.”

  “Not now, Cassie girl, and I don’t want you to either. That’s why I want y’all to leave this marble playing alone. There’s plenty of other games to play.”

  “But Papa—”

  “There ain’t no changing my mind about it, so you just might as well make up yours to the fact you’ve played your last game of marbles. You decide otherwise, you know what I’m gonna have to do, don’t you?”

  “Yessir,” all three of us murmured with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. Although I knew perfectly well that Papa would whip us good if he found out we’d been shooting marbles again, the whole thing made no sense to me. We hadn’t been gambling and I for one had no intention of doing so. There was nothing I loved more than a good game of marbles. And I was good at playing them too, better than most anybody, including Son-Boy. I hated the thought of giving up the game, but I knew as well as Christopher-John and Little Man did that Papa had meant what he’d indicated about the whipping. There were no if’s, and’s, or but’s about that.

  * * *

  It was Son-Boy who started it all. There I was sitting in Sunday school with my Bible verse firmly planted upon my lips when he pulled out the emerald-blue marble and started flashing it to all the boys and girls securely hidden by the first row of students. Rolling it between his thumb and forefinger, he had every marble addict present drooling over his prize. But true to his word, he allowed no one to touch it but himself. Finally, unable to stand it any longer, I whispered to Little Man beside me, “I’m gonna get that thing.”

  Christopher-John, sitting on the other side of Little Man, turned toward me horrified. “C-Cassie, you can’t! You know what Papa said!”

  “I gotta have it.”

  “I betcha you gonna have a whippin’ too,” predicted Little Man.

  “Maybe so, Papa find out, but I gotta figure out a way for Son-Boy to let go of that marble. Maybe—”

  “Cassie?”

  It was Mrs. Lettie Love, the elementary Sunday school teacher.

  I stood quickly. “Yes’m?”

  “You learn your Bible verse for the week?”

  “Yes’m. ‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house or anything that is thy neighbor’s,’ “I said dutifully without a moment’s guilt.

  Mrs. Love smiled, happy that one of her students had learned her verse so well. I sat down smiling too as I stared down the row at Son-Boy. He might as well get in his last few minutes of glory with that marble, because I planned for it to be mine within the hour.

  Immediately after Sunday school Little Man and I found Maynard Wiggins and Henry Johnson, who had kept marbles jiggling in their pockets since school had begun, and put a proposition to them. If they would put up their marbles against Son-Boy’s ten, I would do the shooting with the promise that if I began to miss, Maynard or Henry could take over to recoup their losses. If I won, they would each be richer by the number of marbles they’d put up. If I lost, then that was just the chance we took. All I wanted from the deal was Son-Boy’s emerald-blue.

  As we were making our plans, Joe McCalister wandered over carrying Son-Boy’s sister’s baby. Joe was a short, bandylegged man with a face that could have been twenty or forty. There was just no telling what age he was by looking at him. Big Ma said that was because he didn’t have any worries to speak of, and folks with no worries didn’t show their age much.

  “What y’all younguns up to?” he asked.

  “Nothin’, Joe,” I said. Everybody called him Joe.

  “Y’all see this child here,” he said, indicating Doris Anne, who was almost two years old. “She sho’ like ole Joe.”

  “That’s nice,” I said, just wanting him to go so we could get on with the business at hand.

  “Her mama always askin’ me to look out for her. Her papa too. They know ole Joe take good care of her.”

  “Yeah . . . well . . . ain’t that her mama callin’ for her now?” asked Henry.

  Joe stood still, cocking his head toward the church. “Didn’t hear nothin’,” he said.

  “Thought I did,” said Henry.

  “I better go check.”

  “Yeah, maybe you better.”

  Joe walked off a little way, then stopped. “Gots to ring that bell come church time. They ’pends on me for that, ya know.”

  “Yeah, that’s nice, Joe,” I said.

  “Now,” said Maynard as soon as Joe had gone on his way, “Son-Boy ain’t gonna hardly put up that emerald-blue.”

  “Yes he will,” I said with confidence.

  “How you know?” questioned Henry. “And how you know he gonna wanna play anyhow?”

  “’Cause he greedy, that’s why! Look, y’all gonna give me your marbles or not? We only got half an hour to church time.”

  Maynard and Henry went off for a short conference, then came back agreed that they would risk their fortunes on me. We decided that it would be best for them to make the arrangements with Son-Boy. As they hurried off, I hollered after them, “Tell him he’s gotta play all ten. It won’t be no good ’less he play all of ’em . . . and don’t say nothin’ ’bout playing that emerald-blue. You do, he probably won’t play.”

  Christopher-John, who had stood disapprovingly apart from these troubling proceedings, hurried over and tried to make me see the folly of my ways. “Cassie, Papa gonna skin you alive sure, he find out—ya know that? What’s the matter with you, anyway? You gone crazy?”

  He certainly had a point; but not even the thought of Papa’s belt could turn me from the course I had set for myself. That emerald-blue had a nasty hold on me, and if I could just get my hands on it, I promised myself and God that I’d never shoot marbles again. And perhaps, if luck was with me, Papa would never even have to know I’d disobe
yed him.

  Soon Maynard and Henry returned. The deal was set. We would meet Son-Boy down by the fallen tree about five minutes deep into the woods.

  “What!” exclaimed Little Man, not too pleased about the chosen site. To reach the fallen tree we had to scurry through some pretty heavy growth, and chances of a stain were great. Little Man was a most particular boy when it came to his clothes, his school materials, his anything. He frowned down at his immaculate jacket, pants and shoes, then at Henry and Maynard, and demanded, “Couldn’t y’all find no place better’n that?”

  “Can’t play no closer to the church,” replied Maynard. “Y’all goin’ or not?”

  “Yeah, we goin’,” I said, hurrying toward the middle-grades class building. The path leading into the woods was behind it.

  Little Man, deciding that too much was at stake to remain behind, followed with Maynard and Henry. Christopher-John pulled up the rear shouting warnings that not only was Papa going to get us but God too.

  “Why don’t you jus’ go on back and stop bothering me?” I told him when we reached the fallen tree where Son-Boy and Don Lee, along with Curtis Henderson, were already gathered.

  “Y’all come too!”

  “Not till I get that emerald-blue,” I whispered.

  Pushing my coat out of the way, I dug into my dress pocket, the only useful feature in an uncomfortable garment, and pulled out the marbles Maynard and Henry had placed in my keeping. Then I settled down on my haunches trying to keep my dress from dragging in the dirt.

  The battle began.

  Luck was with Son-Boy. He got first shot, then immediately captured three of our men. Nervously, I made my shot and missed.

  “Cassie!” cried Maynard, as he and Henry scowled down at their rapidly dwindling marbles. Their faith in me was quickly ebbing.

  Son-Boy laughed. “Didn’t y’all know couldn’t no girl be good as me?” He shot again, but this time his shot marble hit nothing.

  “Serve ya right,” judged Little Man.

  I went for my turn feeling the perspiration trickling down my arms despite the chilliness of the day. But before I could shoot, Maynard grabbed my arm. “Better let me shoot,” he decided.