Let the Circle Be Unbroken

by Mildred D. Taylor

  “You know why the government had to do that, don’t you? To keep folks not under contract from planting as much cotton as they feel like and making more money’n folks done joined the program.” He stared pointedly at Papa. “This tax is an understandable thing when you look at it right. After all, how’re we gonna keep prices up if folks keep glutting the market? You and me both know prices’ll fall to six, maybe five cents again.”

  Mr. Granger waited as if expecting Papa to say something. When Papa didn’t, he added, “It’s for the good of everybody.”

  “So I understand,” Papa said.

  “Good. . . . You know, David, I like you. You run foolish sometimes, but far as I can see, you got a streak of sense in you and I admire that. What I’d like to do is help y’all out. Now we done had our differences and I gotta admit you done riled me good several times—both you and Mary, and your mama too—but y’all done a good thing for me last summer keeping that fire from spreading ’cross to my place, and I ain’t forgot. Now I know y’all need money, so I’d like to help y’all out if I can—maybe pay your taxes and y’all can pay me back when y’all can.”

  Papa tilted his head slightly at the offer, but he said: “Well, Mr. Granger, I thank you kindly for your offer, but we always take care of our taxes ourselves.”

  “Well, I’d be glad to. Wouldn’t’ve offered otherwise.”

  “Like I said, I thank you.”

  Mr. Granger’s eyes met Papa’s; he smiled again. “All right, David, but you change your mind, you let me know.”

  “Don’t ’spect I’ll be changing it.”

  “Well, you never know. . . .” Mr. Granger shifted gears and Papa stepped back from the car. “By the way, you hear tell of a union man talkin’ to anybody down in here?”

  “Can’t say that I have.”

  “Heard there was some socialist up organizing ’round Vicksburg.” He shook his head. “Hope that rottenness don’t come down in here. That’s a nasty business, that union, and no good’ll come of it.” He pulled into the drive and turned around. “One other thing, David. You find you don’t need all your bale tags, I’ll be glad to take them off your hands. Pay you a good price for ’em. Don’t forget my offer now ’bout your taxes. Be glad to help. Anytime.”

  The boys and I went over to Papa, standing motionless watching the rolls of dust as the car sped back up the road. “Papa, how come Mr. Granger being so nice?” I asked.

  “Nice?”

  “Yes, sir. Offering to pay our taxes and all.”

  Papa laughed. I shot him a puzzled look.

  “Listen, sugar,” he said, putting his arm around me. “You boys, too, and remember. Any time that man offer something, you jus’ look to see how he gonna gain from it.”

  “But, Papa, how could he?” asked Stacey. “He’d be putting out money.”

  “’Cause, Stacey, he pay our taxes and his name’ll get on our tax record, and then one day he could put in his claim against our land. Could take it to court and the land maybe could become his.”

  Stacey and I looked at each other.

  Papa nodded. “That’s a fact. Most likely figured I didn’t know.” He put his other arm around Christopher-John’s shoulders and we headed back up the drive. “Something else to remember too. Gotta always stay one step ahead of folks like Harlan Granger . . . two if you can.”

  At the entrance to the backyard, the boys and I turned toward the house. Christopher-John and Little Man ran noisily down the porch and into the kitchen, but Stacey lingered a moment by the entrance then ran after Papa, who was headed toward the barn. Curious, I followed.

  “Papa, ’bout this tax Mr. Farnsworth mentioned, what was he talking ’bout?”

  Papa looked at Stacey, and took a moment before he answered. “Bad news, son, that’s what it is. The government’s gonna charge us a fifty-percent tax on all the cotton we grow ’bove what they figure we oughta be growin’.”

  “But we ain’t got no contract! We don’t hafta grow what they tell us!”

  “Looks like we do now, son. Like Harlan Granger said, this here’s to keep everybody following the government’s program whether they got a contract or not.”

  “But a fifty-percent tax! Papa at twelve cents a pound, that’d mean we’d only be getting six cents a pound. That ain’t hardly worth the trouble of planting!”

  A wry smile edged Papa’s lips. “That’s what the government figures.”

  I came closer. “Papa, I don’t rightly understand all this tax and contract business.”

  Papa looked my way. “What don’t you understand, sugar?”

  I frowned. “Well, the whole business . . . the government program and the contracts and now this here new tax.”

  “Well, it ain’t exactly a new tax. Government put it on last year, after we’d already planted, but we didn’t feel it ’cause we’d lost so much of our cotton to the fire. . . . But I know it’s confusing all right.” He glanced out toward the walnut tree standing at the edge of the backyard near the garden. “Come on and let me see if I can clear it up for you.” The three of us walked over to the tree and sat on the bench under it. “Now you know we into what folks are calling a depression?”

  I nodded. I knew that well enough. I had been hearing about it most of my life. “Well, with this here Depression, prices fell way low on a lotta things—corn and potatoes and hogs . . . fell on cotton too. Fell to five and six cents a pound.”

  “And that’s way low?”

  “That’s way low.” Papa shook his head and smiled. “Back in 1919—that was the year I met your mama—prices for cotton got up to thirty-five cents a pound.”

  “Did?”

  Papa nodded. “But right after that prices started falling, so come this here Depression, cotton prices were already low, and they just hit bottom with this five and six cents a pound.”

  “And that’s when President Roosevelt come in,” said Stacey.

  I shot him an irritated glance. “Papa’s telling this.”

  “He’s right,” Papa said. “Back in thirty-three when Mr. Roosevelt become president, this here Agricultural Adjustment Administration—”

  “The AAA?” I said.

  “That’s right. It come into being. And the folks on this AAA figured that the way to get prices up again was to cut back on the amount of cotton grown and put on the market. Reasoning was that when something’s scarce and more people want what’s left, then folks’ll pay more for it—”

  “And prices’ll rise?”

  Papa smiled at me. “Exactly. Well, the government figured that they had to get their program started right away, so they come around in the summer of that same year—thirty-three—and they asked all the cotton farmers to plow up part of their crop—”

  “And it was already blooming. I remember that.”

  “It was blooming all right. Looked to be a good crop. But the government figured it couldn’t wait, so to get folks to plow up their cotton, they said they’d pay everybody for the acres they plowed up.”

  “And that was in the contracts,” Stacey interrupted again. This time I didn’t say anything to him and Papa went on.

  “Anyways, the contracts sounded pretty good, but then you know we signed like jus’ ’bout everybody else and you know what happened—Harlan Granger’s name was on our check.”

  I nodded, remembering.

  “The next year—thirty-four—the government come out with a new contract. Said they’d pay folks not to plant. Said if folks didn’t plant some thirty-five to forty-five percent of their acres they were used to planting in cotton, then they’d pay ’em so much per acre. For thirty-five, they wanted folks not to plant some twenty-five percent of their cotton acres; said though they could plant crops to improve the soil or crops for use just on the farm. It all sounded good, but we decided we’d better not sign up again cause of that check business.”

  “Yes, sir.” I was thoughtful a moment. “Moe said their government check go straight to Mr. Montier and he t
ake all of the money.”

  Papa shook his head at the injustice. “Folks ’croppin’ like the Turners and Miz Lee Annie and the Ellises, things are even harder for ’em now than they were before the government stepped in. They’re hard on us too—don’t get me wrong—but on ’croppin’ folks, well, it’s really bad. Lotta that money that was s’pose to go to them been ending up in the pockets of the landlords. Landlords claim the government money belongs to them ’cause of the credit they give to folks ’croppin’ their land. Claim all the people ’croppin’ on their places owe them money and some of ’em I guess are telling the truth on that. Still there’re some of these landlords that are making a nice tidy sum from the government and the AAA when they oughtn’t be.”

  “No wonder Mr. Granger can afford a new Packard,” I surmised.

  Papa laughed. So did Stacey.

  “That’s a fact,” Papa said. Then he stopped laughing. “Thing is, though, while Harlan Granger and the like are getting this government money, folks that’re s’pose to be getting part of it too are having hard times. They’re planting less and getting nothing in return. A lot of them are getting put off their farms ’cause the government wants to cut back so much on the number of cotton acres planted. Harlan Granger and the rest take the government money and just put a lotta folks off the land to cut back on the number of their acres planted. Ain’t s’pose to, but they do anyway. Then come picking time, they use day laborers.”

  I looked at Papa. “And that’s how come we see so many folks with all their stuff piled on their wagons. They been put off their land.”

  “It’s a crying shame, but they got no place to go.”

  I heaved a heavy sigh and looked out over the land. “But that won’t happen to us.”

  Papa’s eyes followed my gaze. “Not as long as I have anything to say ’bout it, Cassie girl.” I glanced around and saw Stacey nodding in silent affirmation, as if Papa’s words went for him too; still, the same worried look was on both their faces.

  * * *

  “Know what I heard?” said Christopher-John, smiling broadly as we started off to school the next morning.

  “What?” asked Little Man.

  Christopher-John looked from Little Man to Stacey to me and beamed. “Papa ain’t goin’ back to the railroad!”

  I stopped. “Ain’t?”

  “That’s what I heard. Ain’t that somethin’!”

  Stacey looked at him warily. “Where’d you hear that? Papa or Mama tell ya?”

  “Naw. But I heard them talkin’ this morning off the back porch. Mama, she said: ‘David, I don’t want you going back to that railroad.’ And then Papa, he said: ‘Well, sugar, I don’t wanna go back neither.’ How ’bout that?” Christopher-John then grinned with happiness as Stacey, Little Man, and I stared at him waiting for him to go on.

  “Well?” I said finally.

  Christopher-John looked puzzled. “Well, what?”

  “Well, what else?”

  “Nothin’. They seen me and they didn’t say nothin’ else.”

  “Ah, shoot, boy!” I exclaimed. “Papa not wanting to go back don’t mean he ain’t gonna go back.” I walked on in irritated frustration that Christopher-John’s news meant nothing. For three years now, since the cotton market had gotten so bad, Papa had been going to Louisiana each spring. From there he traveled into Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas repairing and laying railroad track. He had been lucky to get the job, and because he was a good, dependable worker he had kept it as well. But then last spring he had been shot and his leg broken in a run-in with the Wallace brothers. He had not been able to go back to the railroad. The money he would have earned was sorely missed, yet despite knowing how much we needed the money, I was glad Papa had stayed home and I didn’t want him to go again.

  “But Stacey, don’t it mean he’s thinkin’ ’bout not goin’ back?” Christopher-John asked, undaunted.

  Stacey sighed. “He thinks ’bout it every year, Christopher-John—don’t you be thinking he wanna go away—but there’s the property taxes and seeding and farm tools to pay for; and the cotton, it just don’t bring in enough to pay for everything. We need that railroad money.”

  For several minutes we walked in silence. Then Christopher-John, ever hopeful, said: “What ’bout if Papa got another job close to home?”

  “That ain’t likely. You know he looked before and ain’t no work ’round here.”

  “Well . . . I sure wish he could stay on home and not go back on that railroad no more.”

  “Me too,” put in Little Man.

  I said nothing else and neither did Stacey as the four of us continued solemnly toward school wondering if this would finally be the year Papa would really stay.

  From the second crossroads, we could see the Jefferson Davis school some distance to the north. It was there that white children attended school. Farther down, at the next crossroads, was the Wallace store, where much of T.J.’s trouble had begun. We glanced down the road; then, hearing the Great Faith warning bell, quickened our steps. Once on the school grounds, we slowed our pace, for seven hours at Great Faith was nothing to rush toward. Midway across the yard, Christopher-John and Little Man waved good-bye and headed for their class building. Stacey and I headed for the middle-grades building. That I had “caught up” with Stacey when he continuously liked to remind the world of how old he was getting certainly didn’t please him, but lower grades or upper grades, they made no difference to me. I wasn’t particular about any of them.

  At the steps of the building, Stacey joined Clarence and Little Willie. Seeing only Mary Lou Wellever and Gracey Pearson from my own class with whom to while away the last minutes before the final bell, I went inside. As I entered the classroom, Son-Boy Ellis and Maynard Wiggins were involved in a challenge of tussle against the tarpaulin curtain which divided our class from the sixth graders next door. The two boys wrestled good-naturedly against the curtain, to the pushings of invisible fingers and audible taunts on the other side. In the back of the room, Dubé Cross and several other teen-age fifth graders glanced over, absently waiting for class to begin. I joined the students who had gathered to watch the match, but just as Son-Boy was about to force Maynard to the floor, the final bell started clanging and Mrs. Crandell walked in. The pandemonium fizzled to an end and I scooted into the third-row bench I shared with two other students. Mrs. Crandell called the roll, then opened her history book.

  Another dismal school day had begun.

  Although school this year was no more exciting than my previous four years, it did at least offer one thing: a classroom free of Miss Daisy Crocker. Miss Crocker had reigned over my fourth-grade class with a personality in direct contrast to my own, and a hickory stick which had more than once gotten its wear against my skin. This year, however, good fortune had smiled on me and I had Mrs. Myrtis Crandell, a rather shy but sweet lady. Despite the fact that her teaching style was no more exciting than Miss Crocker’s, at least she didn’t continuously repeat herself about the same boring nothing, and she tended to be more sympathetic to my lapses into inattention, so I was content. Today as she presented the rudiments of United States government to students whose major concerns were picking cotton and slopping hogs, the boredom of it all was suddenly broken by my recognition of a name she had just written on the blackboard.

  “Pat Harrison and Theodore Bilbo,” said Mrs. Crandell, turning to the class with a smile. “Who can tell me who these two men are?”

  I raised my hand. The name “Bilbo” had stuck with me. It was such a funny little name.

  “Cassie?”

  I stood promptly. “I don’t know who that Harrison fella is, but that other one is the governor of Mississippi.”

  Mrs. Crandell smiled, pleased. “Was, Cassie, was. He’s our senator now, just elected last fall. And Pat Harrison is our other senator—you remember, every state has two. You know anything else about Senator Bilbo?”

  I knew a lot about Bilbo now. Since I had first heard hi
s name, Mama, Papa, and Big Ma had spoken of him several times. “Well, I don’t know all he done, but I betcha I know one thing. When that little rascal was governor—”

  Mrs. Crandell’s face abruptly changed. No longer smiling, she reprimanded me, “Cassie, we do not refer to our senators as ‘rascals.’”

  I frowned, then decided to rephrase. “Well . . . that ole devil—”

  “Sit down, Cassie!”

  An explosion of giggles erupted.

  “It’s not funny and she’s not funny!” Mrs. Crandell declared, though wide grins and bright eyes from her students denied this. “I want it silent this minute, and Cassie Logan, I’ll see you after class.”

  At noon I remained seated as the other students noisily made their escape. When we were alone, Mrs. Crandell called me to her desk.

  “Cassie,” she said, “I didn’t think that was one bit funny what you did in class today.”

  I stared blankly at her. I hadn’t tried to be funny.

  “You’ve got a good mind, Cassie, but sometimes you say things you shouldn’t—”

  “My papa said Bilbo was a devil,” I blurted out, feeling that she had wronged me badly. “Him and other folks say he ain’t nothin’ but a devil ’cause of the way he do us and—”

  “That’s enough now, Cassie.” Mrs. Crandell’s pale yellow face seemed suddenly drained. “I don’t want to hear what your papa and other folks are saying about the senator. I only care what goes on in this classroom, and I won’t have any disrespect in here—you understand?” Her voice had risen sharply. “You leave your daddy’s comments to yourself when you enter this room. I won’t have you endangering my position with your mouth. I won’t lose my job like your mother lost hers—you hear me?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “You hear me!”

  “Yes’m,” I mumbled, deciding that I did not like Mrs. Crandell so much after all. “Can I go now?”

  Mrs. Crandell nodded, avoiding my eyes. But as I reached the door, she stopped me. “Cassie,” she called.

  “Ma’am?”

  She stared at me apologetically. I wasn’t going to make it easy for her. “Nothing,” she said finally, slumping back into her chair. “Go on.”