The Land

by Mildred D. Taylor

  I glanced over at Mitchell, reading him before he said his next words; still, I asked, “Why’s that?”

  “You know why. You lookin’ white in the night done saved us this time, but them men catch a white-lookin’ man and a black one for sure on the road walkin’ t’gether come light, they might have theyselves a change of mind ’bout our thievin’. We be separated and they come on us, they won’t remember one of us from anybody else. Same goes if the lumbermen got folks after us. We travel t’gether, folks take too much notice.”

  I knew Mitchell was right. I had already thought it myself. “I could help get us out of a mess, though, we get stopped.”

  “Can’t help me, you swingin’ from a tree yo’ own self.”

  I sighed.

  “They figure you got colored in ya, Paul, that’s what’s gonna happen sure. You be swingin’ ’fore I do.”

  “All right,” I said, not liking the truth of any of this but knowing it was so. “You going to head on up to the camp?”

  “Yeah, figure t’ do so.”

  “I’ll be going to that Luke Sawyer’s store.”

  “We can meet up there. Say, in a month or so?”

  I nodded, and the matter was settled. “But you send me word before then,” I said, “and I’ll do the same.” Mitchell agreed to that. We figured it would ease both our minds to know that the other hadn’t gotten caught by Jessup or been mistaken again for a chicken thief.

  We stayed on by the campsite awhile after that, waiting for the men to move farther away from us. But before the morning came, we took to the trail again, still headed due north. Couple hours after the dawn we went our separate ways.

  I was dead tired; still, I walked all that day. Mitchell and I had split the last of Maylene’s food, and I ate the final piece of chicken for my dinner shortly past noon. I figured to save the corn bread for my supper. By nightfall I was looking for a place to lay my head in some kind of peace. The moon was rising and I still hadn’t found a spot. The darkness came, followed by a full moon. The land opened up into meadow, and I left the trail, crossed the meadow in part, and found myself a hillside to climb. There were some trees, but no dense brush. Out beyond the slope I could see the outline of a forest in the moonlight. There was no man-made light, and I took solace from that. I took off my gear and set it on the ground beside a good-sized rock and wondered how far Mitchell had gotten in his travel. Then, without rolling out my bedroll or checking around that rock for rattlers or any other such thing, I lay down and went to sleep.

  Next morning when I woke, the sun was already high, shining bright in my eyes. Having not had much sleep in the past days, on this morning I had slept long, and even peacefully, despite being in a place I didn’t know and without Mitchell to keep watch with me. I shielded my eyes from the sun, gave them a rub, then looked out upon the day.

  I was awed by what I saw.

  All around me was emerald green, and above that, God’s own bluest skies, blessed only with two or three perfect rolls of pillow-like clouds. A meadow lay all around me, and a forest of longleaf pine dotted with oak and hickory circled the meadow. Gazing from the slope where I sat beside the rock, I felt I was sitting where God Himself must have once sat and been pleased with Himself.

  I got up and began to walk the land. I trod down the slope, circled the meadow, and lastly went into the forest along a cow trail laden with dung, to a glade that held a pond as its center. A fallen tree lay beside the pond, and I sat upon it as the morning light slit through the trees and shone everything golden. For the first time since I’d left my daddy’s land, my heart soared, higher than any mountain I’d ever imagined, up to God’s own perfect clouds, and I felt a peace come over me.

  “ ’Ey, boy! Whatcha doin’ here?”

  I turned, startled, and stood quickly. I’d been sitting on the log for some time and the sun was now directly overhead.

  “I say, whatcha doin’ here?”

  An old man stood before me, a stick in his hand for support. He was a man of color.

  “Just sitting,” I said.

  “You ain’t from round here, is ya? Ain’t seen ya before.”

  “No, sir. Just came here this morning. Slept up on the slope yonder last night.”

  The old man’s eyes narrowed and he came closer. “Who you? What name ya go by?”

  “Name’s Paul Logan,” I said, feeling a sudden familiarity with the old man, as if he were a part of home. “I come out of Georgia.”

  “And here ya is way over here? Ya don’t know it, boy, this here’s Mississippi!”

  “Yes, sir. I know that.”

  The old man eyed me again, then sat down on the log. I took my seat beside him. “Whatcha doin’ way over here in Mississippi?” he asked me.

  “Heading toward Vicksburg.”

  “T’ do what?”

  I smiled at the old man’s curiosity. “Maybe get a job.”

  “Umph” was all the old man had to voice to that.

  “It’s right pretty country here,” I said.

  “That sho’ the truth.”

  “You know who owns it?”

  “Oughtta. Man done bought it from my Old Master Morris Granger. Old Master done had t’ sell a bunch of his land for taxes, or so that’s what folks say. After that war he ain’t had no money. Now, I been on this here place from time I was a youngun. Old Master tole me that done been way more’n three score and ten, and I ain’t never figured nobody else be puttin’ they name t’ this land outside Old Master’s people. Young Master Filmore, he in charge now. Old Master gone on t’ the Maker, but I still here.”

  I nodded in appreciation of that fact. “Well, who owns this land now?”

  “That there’d be Mister J. T. Hollenbeck. Come down from somewheres north and done bought it after the war. Bought near t’ all the land round in here.”

  “You think he’d be willing to sell some of it?”

  The old man turned and stared at me through milky-looking eyes. “Now how’s I s’pose t’ know somethin’ like that? Ya wants t’ know that, then ya needs t’ be askin’ him.”

  I rose. “Then I expect I will. Where can I find him, this J. T. Hollenbeck?”

  “Jus’ follow that there trail back t’ that meadow, then ya head yo’self straight north. Turn t’ the east ya come t’ a creek, and a forked road. Follow that right fork, and ya find him.”

  “Well, I thank you.”

  The old man nodded.

  I started away, then stopped to look back at him. “May I ask your name?”

  “Elijah,” he said. “That’s what he called me, Old Master did. Elijah. That’s all.”

  I thanked him again, then left him there, sitting by the pond. I went back to the slope, got my gear, and headed out. I followed old man Elijah’s directions as far as the creek and stopped there to wash up. I had myself one spare shirt and a spare pair of pants, and after I’d cleaned myself, I put them on. I brushed my teeth with a sweet gum stick and combed my hair back straight. Then I continued on my way to see J. T. Hollenbeck. I wasn’t dressed Sunday-go-to-meeting, but I was clean.

  When I presented myself to J. T. Hollenbeck, I let him know right off I was a man of color. I figured it was best I not misrepresent myself concerning this land. If I did business with him, he’d eventually find out anyway, since I wasn’t trying to hide the fact, and I didn’t want any chance I might have of buying this land to backfire in my face. Thing was, as it turned out, J. T. Hollenbeck wasn’t interested in selling, no matter what color I was.

  “If you really want land,” he told me, “the man to see is Filmore Granger. I know he’s made a few small land deals in the last few years, but I can tell you from experience, dealing with him won’t be easy. Now, you say you’re a man of color, so I can’t guarantee you that Filmore Granger will even do business with you. But if you’re interested in buying some land in these parts, you need to at least talk to him. Tell him I sent you, though I don’t know how much of a recommendation that woul
d be.” He smiled. “I don’t know whom Filmore Granger despises more, white Yankees or free Negroes.”

  “Well, I thank you for your advice,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment about the land. “I’d be much obliged, though, if you ever do decide to sell any of your land, you’d keep me in mind.”

  J. T. Hollenbeck looked me over, scrutinizing my worth, I suppose. “I ever do think on selling, I’ll probably be asking cash money. You’d be able to do that?”

  “Well, that’d be depending on your price.”

  “It’d be fair, but it wouldn’t be cheap. Most men of color couldn’t afford it. Where would you get it?”

  “Well, that wouldn’t be your worry, Mister Hollenbeck,” I said, speaking direct, “long as I meet your price.”

  J. T. Hollenbeck smiled again. “I’ll keep that in mind, Paul Logan.” Then J. T. Hollenbeck told me how to get to the Granger house, but when I left him, I kept to the trail toward Vicksburg. I had no interest in seeing another piece of land right now. I had seen the land I wanted, and it was that land that stayed on my mind.

  Caroline

  When I got to Vicksburg, I went straightaway to find Luke Sawyer’s store. When I found it, I told Luke Sawyer that Miz Hattie Crenshaw out of Laurel had suggested I look him up. I told him that I was a wood craftsman and that I was looking for a place to start up my work again. I told him that I could make just about anything when it came to wood furniture; then I handed him the yellowed sheet of paper Miz Crenshaw had written on my behalf when I’d left her place. The fact that I was a man of color was in that letter. Luke Sawyer looked solemnly at the letter, then glanced over his spectacles at me. “How you know Miz Hattie?” he finally said.

  “I worked for her a few years back.”

  “Doing woodworking?”

  “Some.”

  “You learned woodworking at her place, then?”

  “No, sir. I apprenticed with a man in Georgia, but I finished up with a man outside Laurel.”

  “You got tools?”

  “Just what I can carry with me. Not all I need.”

  “So how you expect to make furniture if you don’t have all the necessary tools?”

  “Well, Miz Crenshaw said you used to have a cabinetmaker working out of your store, so you’d most likely have access to the tools I’d need. What you don’t have, maybe I could make.”

  “You’d want to buy the tools from me then?”

  “What I’d like to do,” I said quite frankly, checking his eyes, “is go into business with you. You supply the major tools and I’ll make the furniture.”

  Luke Sawyer studied me. “And how do I know you can do what you say you can?”

  “You got something you want made?”

  Luke Sawyer gazed at me in silence before pulling out a notebook from below his counter. Then he turned and motioned for me to follow him. He led me outside to a shed that was set back a ways on the west side of his store. He unlocked the door and showed me in. There were some tools hanging on the wall, a fireplace was in the corner, and a lathe sat in the middle of the floor. Planks of lumber were leaning against the wall and dust was settled around the room. “It’s been a good while since I had anybody working in here,” said Luke Sawyer as he coughed from the dust. Then waving the dust away, he opened his notebook and thumped his forefinger on a page showing a picture of a night table. “Can you make that?”

  I studied the picture, then glanced around the room at Luke Sawyer’s tools. “Long as these tools of yours are good, I can make it.”

  “Well, I know a lady who mightily wants an oak night table like this and a chifforobe to match. I’m not going to risk my wood on a chifforobe just yet, but if you can make a night table to satisfy her, then I’ll consider a proposition with you and I’ll pay you for the table. You turn out a poor piece and mess up my wood or my tools, I’ll put you to work chopping wood or anything else needs doing ’til I figure you’ve paid me in full for them. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” I said. “But I’ll tell you right now, Mister Sawyer, there’ll be no need for me to chop wood.”

  “How long you figure it to take you?”

  I looked again at the picture. “I can start today, finish in about a week, maybe less. After that, I’ll have to put a finish on. If I use linseed oil, it could take several weeks for a nice finish. Just a couple of days if I use shellac.”

  “Shellac’ll do,” said Luke Sawyer. “You got a place to stay?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Then you stay the night here, if you want. There’s the fireplace over there in the corner you get cold, and some firewood out back. Just don’t burn my place down.”

  “It’ll be here in the morning,” I said.

  Luke Sawyer grunted and left me to my work.

  It had been late afternoon when I arrived at Luke Sawyer’s store. I cleared away the dust, then settled down to making the night table. I worked the evening and into the night, slept a few hours, then woke before the dawn and started on the work again. It had been some time since I had set my hands to finished wood, but the touch of it, the smell of it, was the same as it had always been, and it was satisfying to me. I worked the morning long without any food or drink, except for some water from Luke Sawyer’s pump out back. About noontime I stood up from my workbench and went outside.

  The day was crisp and sunny, and I took my first food of the day in the outdoors. I had bought some cheese and bread from Luke Sawyer’s store, and I ate on the bench that set next to the door of the shed. I ate my fill, wrapped the remainder of the cheese and bread, which I figured to save for my supper, then went to stretch my legs.

  Now, Luke Sawyer’s store was set on a large triangular piece of land, with roads on every side. It was a good location. Folks came from every direction to the store. There was no way a body could have missed it. I walked midway down the stretch of the store’s side yard and stood looking out at the surroundings. The greenery of Vicksburg was all around, and I breathed it in, feeling good in the sunshine of that springtime day. But then I heard a commotion rising near the front of the store, and I walked a bit farther to see what it was. Before I got to the road, I stopped beside a big oak tree that bathed me in shadow.

  On the road were five boys about the ages of eight or nine, four of them white, one a boy of color. The white boys were circling the colored boy and yelling obscenities. The colored boy stood with his head bowed, crying and wordless. Though I chose to stay out of other folks’ business, it bothered me to see those four boys taunting that one, and I started from the shadows to stop it. But then I heard someone yelling at the boys, and I stayed put. Turning, I saw that the yelling was from two young women coming up the road. “Y’all leave him be! Y’all leave him be right now!” cried one of the young women, and the white boys grew silent. At first they seemed startled by the order; then when they saw from whom it came, they began to laugh.

  The young women kept their stride. One wore a light-blue dress. The other wore a similar dress, but in gray. They were no more than girls, actually, looking to be in their mid teens or so. I couldn’t tell which was older. Both were tall and stately, with pretty faces and skin the reddish brown of pecans. Both wore long braids, and they each carried a covered basket and bore one between them. I figured them for sisters. There was no laughing from either one as they approached the boys and stood before them.

  “So, what y’all want?” asked one of the smart-mouthed boys. “This ain’t y’all’s business.”

  “You messin’ with this boy here, it is,” said the girl dressed in blue.

  “Gal, you best stay outa this.”

  “I’m not a gal. I’m the person tellin’ you to leave this boy be.”

  “You best be watchin’ yo’ mouth!”

  “You best be watchin’ yo’s,” warned the young woman, undaunted. “I said leave this child be and I mean it. Come on with us now, Henry.”

  Another one of the sassy-mouthed boys stepped forward in front of the boy o
f color. “He ain’t goin’ nowheres ’til we say so!”

  The young woman glanced away for a moment, and the expression on her face told me she was tired of fooling with these children. She set down both of her baskets, then looked again at the boys. “Now, look here,” she said, “I know each and every one of y’all’s mamas.” She stared each boy right in the face. “Lloyd James, you know my daddy just saved your cow in birthin’. And Harold Thomas back there, yo’ mama been buyin’ pies from my mama for years. Jamie Struthers and Conrad, I see y’all too, and you know I know your mamas, and I know for a fact not a one of ’em would ’low y’all to be down here doin’ such a thing, makin’ fun of this here child.” The young woman then placed long-fingered hands on her hips. “Now, go on and get ’fore I have to go tell them ’bout y’all.”

  “And if this girl here don’t tell y’alls mamas, y’all can rest assured I will!” hollered someone from the porch of the store. I turned. It was Luke Sawyer. He stood in the store doorway, a large forbidding presence holding a bloody butcher knife.

  The boys looked up fearfully. The young woman, however, without looking around at Luke Sawyer, had the last word. “Now, y’all get!” she ordered once again.

  The boys took off.

  The young woman watched them go; so did Luke Sawyer. Then he said, “Girls, them baskets for me?”

  Both girls replied, “Yes, sir.”

  “Got some more of them good pies and cakes from your mama?” Luke Sawyer grinned. “Well, bring ’em on in.”

  “Yes, sir, Mister Sawyer, in just a minute,” said the young woman who’d done all the talking. She put her arm around the boy, Henry. “Soon’s we tend to this boy here.”

  “Suit yourself,” said Luke Sawyer, turning back to his store, then stopped and looked around again. “Where’s your papa? He bring y’all into town?”

  “Yes, sir, he did,” answered the same young lady. “He over at Mister Crane Cooper’s place.”