Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

by Mildred D. Taylor

  “That night they come—I can remember just as good—it was cold, so cold we had to huddle all ’gainst each other just trying to keep warm, and two boys—’bout eighteen or nineteen, I reckon—come knocking on my daddy’s door. They was scairt, clean out of their heads with fright. They’d just come back from Shreveport. Some white woman done accused them of molestin’ her and they didn’t know nowhere to run so they come up to my daddy’s ’cause he had a good head and he was big, bigger than me. He was strong too. So strong he could break a man’s leg easy as if he was snapping a twig—I seen him do it that night. And the white folks was scairt of him. But my daddy didn’t hardly have time to finish hearing them boys’ story when them devilish night men swept down—”

  “Night men!” I echoed in a shrill, dry whisper. Stacey sitting beside me on the floor stiffened; Christopher-John nudged me knowingly; Little Man leaned forward on Papa’s lap.

  “David…” Mama started, but Papa enfolded her slender hand in his and said quietly, “These are things they need to hear, baby. It’s their history.”

  Mama sat back, her hand still in Papa’s, her eyes wary. But Mr. Morrison seemed not to notice. “…swept down like locusts,” he continued in a faraway voice. “Burst in on us with their Rebel sabers, hacking and killing, burning us out. Didn’t care who they kilt. We warn’t nothing to them. No better than dogs. Kilt babies and old women. Didn’t matter.”

  He gazed into the fire.

  “My sisters got kilt in they fire, but my Mama got me out….” His voice faded and he touched the scars on his neck. “She tried to get back into the house to save the girls, but she couldn’t. Them night men was all over her and she threw me—just threw me like I was a ball—hard as she could, trying to get me away from them. Then she fought. Fought like a wild thing right ’side my daddy. They was both of them from breeded stock and they was strong like bulls—”

  “Breeded stock?” I said. “What’s that?”

  “Cassie, don’t interrupt Mr. Morrison,” said Mama, but Mr. Morrison turned from the fire and explained. “Well, Cassie, during slavery there was some farms that mated folks like animals to produce more slaves. Breeding slaves brought a lot of money for them slave owners, ’specially after the government said they couldn’t bring no more slaves from Africa, and they produced all kinds of slaves to sell on the block. And folks with enough money, white men and even free black men, could buy ’zactly what they wanted. My folks was bred for strength like they folks and they grandfolks ’fore ’em. Didn’t matter none what they thought ’bout the idea. Didn’t nobody care.

  “But my mama and daddy they loved each other and they loved us children, and that Christmas they fought them demons out of hell like avenging angels of the Lord.” He turned back toward the fire and grew very quiet; then he raised his head and looked at us. “They died that night. Them night men kilt ’em. Some folks tell me I can’t remember what happened that Christmas—I warn’t hardly six years old—but I remembers all right. I makes myself remember.”

  He grew silent again and no one spoke. Big Ma poked absently at the red-eyed logs with the poker, but no one else stirred. Finally Mr. Morrison stood, wished us a good night, and left.

  Uncle Hammer stood also. “Guess I’ll turn in too. It’s near one o’clock.”

  “Wait awhile, Hammer,” said Big Ma. “Now you and David both home, I gotta talk to y’all—’bout the land….”

  * * *

  Visions of night men and fire mixed in a caldron of fear awakened me long before dawn. Automatically, I rolled toward the comforting presence of Big Ma, but she was not beside me.

  A soft light still crept under the door from Mama and Papa’s room and I immediately hurried toward it. As I opened the door and stepped into the shadowy room, lit now only by the flickering yellow of the low fire, Big Ma was saying, “…y’all start messin’ with these folks down in here, no telling what’ll happen.”

  “Is it better to just sit back and complain about how they do us?” Mama snapped, her voice rising. “Everybody from Smellings Creek to Strawberry knows it was them but what do we do about it? We line their pockets with our few pennies and send our children up to their store to learn things they’ve got no business learning. The older children are drinking regularly there now, even though they don’t have any money to pay, and the Wallaces are simply adding the liquor charges to the family bill…just more money for them as they ruin our young people. As I see it the least we can do is stop shopping there. It may not be real justice, but it’ll hurt them and we’ll have done something. Mr. Turner and the Averys and the Laniers and over two dozen other families, and perhaps even more, say they’ll think about not shopping there if they can get credit somewhere else. We owe it to the Berrys—”

  “Frankly,” interrupted Uncle Hammer, “I’d rather burn them out myself.”

  “Hammer, you go to burning and we’ll have nothing,” Mama retorted.

  “Ain’t gonna have nothing noway,” replied Uncle Hammer. “You think by shopping up at Vicksburg you gonna drive them Wallaces out, then you got no idea of how things work down here. You forgetting Harlan Granger backs that store?”

  “Mary, child, Hammer’s right,” Big Ma said. “I’m doing what I told y’all ’bout this land ’cause I don’t want some legal thing to come up after I’m gone that let that Harlan Granger get this place. But we go backing folks’ credit with our land, we’d lose it sure; and we do that, I couldn’t face Paul Edward—”

  “I didn’t say we should back it,” Mama said, “but we’re just about the only family with any collateral at all.”

  Papa looked up from the fire. “That may be, honey, but we put up this land to back this thing and it’ll be just like giving it away. Times like they are, it ain’t likely that any of these people can pay the bills they make—as much as they might mean to—and if they can’t pay, where would we be? We’ve got no cash money to pay other folks’ debts.” He shook his head. “No…we’ll have to find another way…. Go to Vicksburg maybe and see what we can arrange—” His eyes fell upon me in the shadows and he leaned forward. “Cassie? What is it, sugar?”

  “Nothin’, Papa,” I mumbled. “I just woke up, that’s all.”

  Mama started to rise but Papa motioned her down and got up himself. Escorting me back to bed, he said gently, “Got no cause for bad dreams, Cassie girl. Not tonight anyway.”

  “Papa,” I said, snuggling under the warm quilts as he tucked them around me, “we gonna lose our land?”

  Papa reached out and softly touched my face in the darkness. “If you remember nothing else in your whole life, Cassie girl, remember this: We ain’t never gonna lose this land. You believe that?”

  “Yessir, Papa.”

  “Then go to sleep. Christmas is coming.”

  * * *

  “Books!” cried Little Man on Christmas morning.

  For Stacey there was The Count of Monte Cristo; for me, The Three Musketeers; and for Christopher-John and Little Man, two different volumes of Aesop’s Fables. On the inside cover of each book in Mama’s fine hand was written the name of the owner. Mine read: “This book is the property of Miss Cassie Deborah Logan. Christmas, 1933.”

  “Man sold me them books told me these two was written by a black man,” Papa said, opening my book and pointing to a picture of a man in a long, fancy coat and a wigful of curly hair that fell to his shoulders. “Name of Alexander Du—mas, a French fellow. His daddy was a mulatto and his grandmama was a slave down on one of them islands—Mar-ti-nique, it says here. Man said to me, they right hard reading for children, but I told him he didn’t know my babies. They can’t read ’em now, I said, they’ll grow into ’em.”

  In addition to the books there was a sockful of once-a-year store-bought licorice, oranges, and bananas for each of us and from Uncle Hammer a dress and a sweater for me, and a sweater and a pair of pants each for Christopher-John and Little Man. But nothing compared to the books. Little Man, who treasured clothes above
all else, carefully laid his new pants and sweater aside and dashed for a clean sheet of brown paper to make a cover for his book, and throughout the day as he lay upon the deerskin rug looking at the bright, shining pictures of faraway places, turning each page as if it were gold, he would suddenly squint down at his hands, glance at the page he had just turned, then dash into the kitchen to wash again—just to make sure.

  * * *

  After the church services, the Averys returned home with us for Christmas dinner. All eight of the Avery children, including the four pre-schoolers, crowded into the kitchen with the boys and me, smelling the delicious aromas and awaiting the call to eat. But only the eldest girls, who were helping Mama, Big Ma, and Mrs. Avery prepare the finishing touches to the meal, were allowed to remain. The rest of us were continuously being shooed out by Big Ma. Finally, the announcement we were all waiting for was made and we were allowed to begin the Christmas feast.

  The meal lasted for over two hours through firsts, seconds, and thirds, talk and laughter, and finally dessert. When we were finished the boys and I, with Claude and T.J., went outside, but the half-inch layer of snow made everything sloppy, so we soon went back in and joined the adults by the fire. Shortly afterward, there was a timid knock on the front door. Stacey opened the door and found Jeremy Simms standing there looking frozen and very frightened as he peered into the bright room. Everyone turned to stare at him. Stacey glanced around at Papa, then back at Jeremy. “You—you wanna come in?” he asked awkwardly.

  Jeremy nodded and stepped hesitantly inside. As Stacey motioned him toward the fire, Uncle Hammer’s eyes narrowed, and he said to Papa, “He looks like a Simms.”

  “I believe he is,” agreed Papa.

  “Then what the devil—”

  “Let me handle it,” Papa said.

  Jeremy, who had heard, flushed a deep red and quickly handed Mama a small burlap bag. “I—I brung them for y’all.” Mama took the bag. As she opened it, I peeped over her shoulder; the bag was full of nuts.

  “Nuts?” I questioned. “Nuts! Why we got more nuts now than we know what—”

  “Cassie!” Mama scowled. “What have I told you about that mouth of yours?” Then she turned to Jeremy. “This is very thoughtful of you, Jeremy, and we appreciate them. Thank you.”

  Jeremy nodded slightly as if he did not know how to accept her thanks, and stiffly handed a slender, paper-wrapped object to Stacey. “Made this for ya,” he said.

  Stacey looked at Papa to see if he should take it. For a long moment Papa studied Jeremy, then he nodded. “It—it ain’t much,” stammered Jeremy as Stacey tore off the wrapping. “M-made it myself.” Stacey slid his fingers down the smooth, sanded back of a wooden flute. “Go ’head and try it,” said a pleased Jeremy. “It blows real nice.”

  Again Stacey looked at Papa, but this time Papa gave him no indication what he should do. “Thanks, Jeremy, it’s real nice,” he said finally. Then, flute in hand, he stood uncomfortably by the door waiting for Jeremy to leave.

  When Jeremy did not move, Papa asked, “You Charlie Simms’s boy?”

  Jeremy nodded. “Y-yessir.”

  “Your daddy know you here?”

  Jeremy bit his lower lip, and looked at his feet. “N-no sir, I reckon not.”

  “Then I expect you’d better be getting on home, son, ’fore he come looking for you.”

  “Yessir,” said Jeremy, backing away.

  As he reached the door, I cried after him, “Merry Christmas, Jeremy!” Jeremy looked back and smiled shyly. “Merry Christmas to y’all too.”

  T.J. made no comment on Jeremy’s visit until both Papa and Uncle Hammer had left the room. He was afraid of Papa and downright terrified of Uncle Hammer, so he never had much to say when either was around, but now that they had gone outside with Mr. Avery, he said, “You ain’t gonna keep that thing, are you?”

  Stacey looked malevolently at T.J. and I knew that he was thinking of the coat. “Yeah, I’m gonna keep it. Why?”

  T.J. shrugged. “Nothin’. ’Ceptin’ I sure wouldn’t want no whistle some ole white boy been blowin’ on.”

  I watched Stacey closely to see if he was going to allow himself to be goaded by T.J.; he was not. “Ah, stuff it, T.J.,” he ordered.

  “Ah, man, don’t get me wrong,” said T.J. quickly. “You wanna keep the ole thing, it’s up to you. But for me, somebody give me something, I want it to be something fine—like that pretty little pearl-handled pistol….”

  When the Averys had left, Stacey asked, “Papa, how come Jeremy give me this flute? I mean, I didn’t give him nothin’.”

  “Maybe you did give him something,” said Papa, lighting his pipe.

  “No sir, Papa. I ain’t never give him nothin’!”

  “Not even your friendship?”

  “Well…not really. I mean…he’s a crazy kid and he likes to walk to school with us, but—”

  “You like him?”

  Stacey frowned, thinking. “I told him I didn’t want him walking with us, but he keeps on anyway and the white kids laugh at him ’cause he do. But he don’t seem to let it bother him none…. I s’pose I like him all right. Is that wrong?”

  “No,” Papa said carefully. “That ain’t wrong.”

  “Actually, he’s much easier to get along with than T.J.,” Stacey went on. “And I s’pose if I let him, he could be a better friend than T.J.”

  Papa took the pipe from his mouth, rubbed his moustache and spoke quietly. “Far as I’m concerned, friendship between black and white don’t mean that much ’cause it usually ain’t on a equal basis. Right now you and Jeremy might get along fine, but in a few years he’ll think of himself as a man but you’ll probably still be a boy to him. And if he feels that way, he’ll turn on you in a minute.”

  “But Papa, I don’t think Jeremy’d be that way.”

  Papa’s eyes narrowed and his resemblance to Uncle Hammer increased. “We Logans don’t have much to do with white folks. You know why? ’Cause white folks mean trouble. You see blacks hanging ’round with whites, they’re headed for trouble. Maybe one day whites and blacks can be real friends, but right now the country ain’t built that way. Now you could be right ’bout Jeremy making a much finer friend than T.J. ever will be. The trouble is, down here in Mississippi, it costs too much to find out…. So I think you’d better not try.”

  Stacey looked full into Papa’s face and read his meaning.

  On my way to bed, I stopped by the boys’ room to retrieve an orange Christopher-John had swiped from my stocking and spied Stacey fingering the flute. As I stood in the doorway, he lingered over it, then, carefully rewrapping it, placed it in his box of treasured things. I never saw the flute again.

  * * *

  The day after Christmas Papa summoned Stacey, Christopher-John, Little Man, and me into the barn. We had hoped against hope that Mama would not tell him about our trip to the Wallace store or, if she did, that he would forget what he had promised. We should have known better. Mama always told Papa everything, and Papa never forgot anything.

  After we had received our punishment, we emerged sore and teary-eyed and watched Papa, Uncle Hammer, and Mr. Morrison climb into the Packard and speed away. Mama said they were going to Vicksburg.

  “Why Vicksburg, Mama?” asked Stacey.

  “They’ve got some business to attend to,” she said shortly. “Come on now, get busy. We’ve got chores to do.”

  In the late afternoon, shortly after the men had returned, Mr. Jamison arrived. He brought with him a fruit cake sent by Mrs. Jamison and a bag of lemon drops for each of the boys and me. Mama allowed us to say our thanks, then sent us outside. We played for a while in the patches of snow that remained, but when that grew tiresome, I popped into the house to see what was happening; Mama ordered me to pop back out again.

  “What they doing?” asked Little Man.

  “Looking at a whole bunch of papers,” I said. “And Uncle Hammer was signing something.”

  “What k
ind of papers?” asked Stacey.

  I shrugged. “I dunno. But Mr. Jamison was saying something ’bout selling the land.”

  “Selling the land?” questioned Stacey. “You sure?”

  I nodded. “He said: ‘Y’all sign them papers and Miz Caroline got no more legal right to this land. Can’t sell it, can’t sign on it. It’ll be in y’all’s name and it’ll take both of y’all to do anything with it.’”

  “Both of who?”

  I shrugged again. “Papa and Uncle Hammer, I guess.”

  After a while it grew chilly and we went inside. Mr. Jamison, sitting next to Big Ma, was putting some papers into his briefcase. “I hope you feel better now that that’s done, Miz Caroline,” he said, his voice a soft mixture of Southern aristocracy and Northern schooling.

  “Hammer and David, they been takin’ care of things a long time now,” Big Ma said. “Them and Mary works hard to pay the taxes and mortgage on this here place and I been wantin’ to make sure while I’m still breathin’ that they gets title to this place under the law without no trouble. I ain’t wantin’ a whole lot of problems after I’m gone ’bout who gots rights to this land.” She paused a moment, then added, “That happens sometimes, you know.”

  Mr. Jamison nodded. He was a long, thin man in his mid-fifties with a perfect lawyer face, so placid that it was difficult to guess what thoughts lay behind it.

  The boys and I sat down silently at the study table, and the silence allowed us to stay. I figured that Mr. Jamison would be leaving now. His business was evidently finished and despite the fact that the family thought well of him, he was not considered a friend in the usual sense, and there seemed no reason for him to stay longer. But now Mr. Jamison put his briefcase back on the floor, indicating that he was not leaving, and looked first at Big Ma and Mama, then across at Papa and Uncle Hammer.