Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry Read online

  “That’s the truth of it all right,” agreed Big Ma. “But when Mr. Jamison died in 1918 and Wade ’come head of the family, he sold them two hundred acres to Paul Edward and the rest of his land to Harlan Granger, and moved his family into Strawberry. He could’ve just as easy sold the full thousand acres to the Grangers and gotten more money, but he didn’t…and till this day Harlan Granger still hold it ’gainst him ’Cause he didn’t….”

  The soft swish of falling leaves made Big Ma look up from the pond and at the trees again. Her lips curved into a tender smile as she looked around thoughtfully. “You know,” she said, “I can still see my Paul Edward’s face the day Mr. Jamison sold him them two hundred acres. He put his arms ’round me and looked out at his new piece of land, then he said ’zactly the same thing he said when he grabbed himself that first two hundred acres. Said, ‘Pretty Caroline, how you like to work this fine piece of earth with me?’ Sho’ did…said the ’zact same thing.”

  She grew quiet then and rubbed the wrinkles down one hand as if to smooth them away. I gazed at the pond, glassy gray and calm, until she was ready to go on. I had learned that at times like these it was better to just sit and wait than to go asking disrupting questions which might vex her.

  “So long ago now,” she said eventually, in a voice that was almost a whisper. “We worked real hard gettin’ them crops sown, gettin’ ’em reaped. We had us a time…. But there was good times too. We was young and strong when we started out and we liked to work. Neither one of us, I’m proud to say, never was lazy and we didn’t raise us no lazy children neither. Had ourselves six fine children. Lost our girls when they was babies, though…. I s’pose that’s one of the reasons I love your sweet mama so much…. But them boys grew strong and all of ’em loved this place as much as Paul Edward and me. They go away, they always come back to it. Couldn’t leave it.”

  She shook her head and sighed. “Then Mitchell, he got killed in the war and Kevin got drowned….” Her voice faded completely, but when she spoke again it had hardened and there was a determined glint in her eyes. “Now all the boys I got is my baby boys, your papa and your Uncle Hammer, and this they place as much as it is mine. They blood’s in this land, and here that Harlan Granger always talkin’ ’bout buyin’ it. He pestered Paul Edward to death ’bout buyin’ it, now he pesterin’ me. Humph!” she grumped angrily. “He don’t know nothin’ ’bout me or this land, he think I’m gonna sell!”

  She became silent again.

  A cold wind rose, biting through my jacket, and I shivered. Big Ma looked down at me for the first time. “You cold?”

  “N-no, ma’am,” I stuttered, not ready to leave the forest.

  “Don’t you be lyin’ to me girl!” she snapped, putting out her hand. “It’s time we was goin’ back to the house anyways. Your mama’ll be home soon.”

  I took her hand, and together we left the Caroline.

  * * *

  Despite our every effort to persuade Stacey otherwise, when Mama came home he confessed that he had been fighting T.J. at the Wallace store and that Mr. Morrison had stopped it. He stood awkwardly before her, disclosing only those things which he could honorably mention. He said nothing of T.J.’s cheating or that Christopher-John, Little Man, and I had been with him, and when Mama asked him a question he could not answer honestly, he simply looked at his feet and refused to speak. The rest of us sat fidgeting nervously throughout the interview and when Mama looked our way, we swiftly found somewhere else to rest our eyes.

  Finally, seeing that she had gotten all the information she was going to get from Stacey, Mama turned to us. “I suppose you three went to the store too, huh?” But before any of us could squeak an answer, she exclaimed, “That does it!” and began to pace the floor, her arms folded, her face cross.

  Although she scolded us severely, she did not whip us. We were sent to bed early but we didn’t consider that a punishment, and we doubted that Mama did either. How we had managed to escape a whipping we couldn’t fathom until Saturday, when Mama woke us before dawn and piled us into the wagon. Taking us southwest toward Smellings Creek, she said, “Where we’re going the man is very sick and he doesn’t look like other people. But I don’t want you to be afraid or uncomfortable when you see him. Just be yourselves.”

  We rode for almost two hours before turning onto a backwoods trail. We were jarred and bounced over the rough road until we entered a clearing where a small weather-grayed house stood and fields stretched barren beyond it. As Mama pulled up on the reins and ordered us down, the front door cracked warily open, but no one appeared. Then Mama said, “Good morning, Mrs. Berry. It’s Mary Logan, David’s wife.”

  The door swung wide then and an elderly woman, frail and toothless, stepped out. Her left arm hung crazily at her side as if it had been broken long ago but had not mended properly, and she walked with a limp; yet she smiled widely, throwing her good arm around Mama and hugging her. “Land sakes, child, ain’t you somethin’!” she exclaimed. “Comin’ to see ’bout these old bones. I jus’ sez to Sam, I sez, ‘Who you reckon comin’ to see old folks like us?’ These yo’ babies, ain’t they? Lord a’mighty, ain’t they fine! Sho’ is!” She hugged each of us and ushered us into the house.

  The interior was dark, lit only by the narrow slat of gray daylight allowed in by the open door. Stacey and I carried cans of milk and butter, and Christopher-John and Little Man each had a jar of beef and a jar of crowder peas which Mama and Big Ma had canned. Mrs. Berry took the food, her thanks intermingled with questions about Big Ma, Papa, and others. When she had put the food away, she pulled stools from the darkness and motioned us to sit down, then she went to the blackest corner and said, “Daddy, who you s’pose done come to see ’bout us?”

  There was no recognizable answer, only an inhuman guttural wheezing. But Mrs. Berry seemed to accept it and went on. “Miz Logan and her babies. Ain’t that somethin’?” She took a sheet from a nearby table. “Gots to cover him,” she explained. “He can’t hardly stand to have nothin’ touch him.” When she was visible again, she picked up a candle stump and felt around a table for matches. “He can’t speak no more. The fire burned him too bad. But he understands all right.” Finding the matches, she lit the candle and turned once more to the corner.

  A still form lay there staring at us with glittering eyes. The face had no nose, and the head no hair; the skin was scarred, burned, and the lips were wizened black, like charcoal. As the wheezing sound echoed from the opening that was a mouth, Mama said, “Say good morning to Mrs. Berry’s husband, children.”

  The boys and I stammered a greeting, then sat silently trying not to stare at Mr. Berry during the hour that we remained in the small house. But Mama talked softly to both Mr. and Mrs. Berry, telling them news of the community as if Mr. Berry were as normal as anyone else.

  After we were on the main road again, having ridden in thoughtful silence over the wooded trail, Mama said quietly, “The Wallaces did that, children. They poured kerosene over Mr. Berry and his nephews and lit them afire. One of the nephews died, the other one is just like Mr. Berry.” She allowed this information to penetrate the silence, then went on. “Everyone knows they did it, and the Wallaces even laugh about it, but nothing was ever done. They’re bad people, the Wallaces. That’s why I don’t want you to ever go to their store again—for any reason. You understand?”

  We nodded, unable to speak as we thought of the disfigured man lying in the darkness.

  On the way home we stopped at the homes of some of Mama’s students, where families poured out of tenant shacks to greet us. At each farm Mama spoke of the bad influence of the Wallaces, of the smoking and drinking permitted at their store, and asked that the family’s children not be allowed to go there.

  The people nodded and said she was right.

  She also spoke of finding another store to patronize, one where the proprietors were more concerned about the welfare of the community. But she did not speak directly of what the Wallaces
had done to the Berrys for, as she explained later, that was something that wavered between the known and the unknown and to mention it outright to anyone outside of those with whom you were closest was not wise. There were too many ears that listened for others besides themselves, and too many tongues that wagged to those they shouldn’t.

  The people only nodded, and Mama left.

  When we reached the Turner farm, Moe’s widowed father rubbed his stubbled chin and squinted across the room at Mama. “Miz Logan,” he said, “you know I feels the same way you do ’bout them low-down Wallaces, but it ain’t easy to jus’ stop shoppin’ there. They overcharges me and I has to pay them high interest, but I gots credit there ’cause Mr. Montier signs for me. Now you know most folks ’round here sharecroppin’ on Montier, Granger, or Harrison land and most of them jus’ ’bout got to shop at that Wallace store or up at the mercantile in Strawberry, which is jus’ ’bout as bad. Can’t go no place else.”

  Mama nodded solemnly, showing she understood, then she said, “For the past year now, our family’s been shopping down at Vicksburg. There are a number of stores down there and we’ve found several that treat us well.”

  “Vicksburg?” Mr. Turner echoed, shaking his head. “Lord, Miz Logan, you ain’t expectin’ me to go all the way to Vicksburg? That’s an overnight journey in a wagon down there and back.”

  Mama thought on that a moment. “What if someone would be willing to make the trip for you? Go all the way to Vicksburg and bring back what you need?”

  “Won’t do no good,” retorted Mr. Turner. “I got no cash money. Mr. Montier signs for me up at that Wallace store so’s I can get my tools, my mule, my seed, my fertilizer, my food, and what few clothes I needs to keep my children from runnin’ plumb naked. When cotton-pickin’ time comes, he sells my cotton, takes half of it, pays my debt up at that store and my interest for they credit, then charges me ten to fifteen percent more as ‘risk’ money for signin’ for me in the first place. This year I earned me near two hundred dollars after Mr. Montier took his half of the crop money, but I ain’t seen a penny of it. In fact, if I manages to come out even without owin’ that man nothin’, I figures I’ve had a good year. Now, who way down in Vicksburg gonna give a man like me credit?”

  Mama was very quiet and did not answer.

  “I sho’ sorry, Miz Logan. I’m gonna keep my younguns from up at that store, but I gots to live. Y’all got it better’n most the folks ’round here ’cause y’all gots your own place and y’all ain’t gotta cowtail to a lot of this stuff. But you gotta understand it ain’t easy for sharecroppin’ folks to do what you askin’.”

  “Mr. Turner,” Mama said in a whisper, “what if someone backed your signature? Would you shop up in Vicksburg then?”

  Mr. Turner looked at Mama strangely. “Now, who’d sign for me?”

  “If someone would, would you do it?”

  Mr. Turner gazed into the fire, burning to a low ash, then got up and put another log on it, taking his time as he watched the fire shoot upward and suck in the log. Without turning around he said, “When I was a wee little boy, I got burnt real bad. It healed over but I ain’t never forgot the pain of it…. It’s an awful way to die.” Then, turning, he faced Mama. “Miz Logan, you find someone to sign my credit, and I’ll consider it deeply.”

  After we left the Turners’, Stacey asked, “Mama, who you gonna get to sign?” But Mama, her brow furrowed, did not reply. I started to repeat the question, but Stacey shook his head and I settled back wondering, then fell asleep.

  5

  The blue-black shine that had so nicely encircled T.J.’s left eye for over a week had almost completely faded by the morning T.J. hopped into the back of the wagon beside Stacey and snuggled in a corner not occupied by the butter, milk, and eggs Big Ma was taking to sell at the market in Strawberry. I sat up front beside Big Ma, still sandy-eyed and not believing that I was actually going.

  The second Saturday of every month was market day in Strawberry, and for as far back as I could remember the boys and I had been begging Big Ma to take us to it. Stacey had actually gone once, but Christopher-John, Little Man, and I had always been flatly denied the experience. We had, in fact, been denied so often that our pestering now occurred more out of habit than from any real belief that we would be allowed to go. But this morning, while the world lay black, Big Ma called: “Cassie, get up, child, if you gonna go to town with me, and be quiet ’bout it. You wake up Christopher-John or Little Man and I’ll leave you here. I don’t want them cryin’ all over the place ’cause they can’t go.”

  As Jack swept the wagon into the gray road, Big Ma pulled tightly on the reins and grumbled, “Hold on! You, Jack, hold on! I ain’t got no time to be putting up with both you and T.J.’s foolishness.”

  “T.J!” Stacey and I exclaimed together. “He going?”

  Big Ma didn’t answer immediately; she was occupied in a test of wills with Jack. When hers had prevailed and Jack had settled into a moderate trot, she replied moodily, “Mr. Avery come by after y’all was asleep last night wanting T.J. to go to Strawberry to do some shopping for a few things he couldn’t get at the Wallace store. Lord, that’s all I need with all the trouble about is for that child to talk me to death for twenty-two miles.”

  Big Ma didn’t need to say any more and she didn’t. T.J. was far from her favorite person and it was quite obvious that Stacey and I owed our good fortune entirely to T.J.’s obnoxious personality.

  T.J., however, was surprisingly subdued when he settled into the wagon; I suppose that at three-thirty in the morning even T.J.’s mouth was tired. But by dawn, when the December sun was creeping warily upward shooting pale streams of buff-colored light through the forest, he was fully awake and chattering like a cockatoo. His endless talk made me wish that he had not managed to wheedle his way so speedily back into Stacey’s good graces, but Big Ma, her face furrowed in distant thoughts, did not hush him. He talked the rest of the way into Strawberry, announcing as we arrived, “Well, children, open your eyes and take in Strawberry, Mississippi!”

  “Is this it?” I cried, a gutting disappointment enveloping me as we entered the town. Strawberry was nothing like the tough, sprawling bigness I had envisioned. It was instead a sad, red place. As far as I could see, the only things modern about it were a paved road which cut through its center and fled northward, away from it, and a spindly row of electrical lines. Lining the road were strips of red dirt splotched with patches of brown grass and drying mud puddles, and beyond the dirt and the mud puddles, gloomy store buildings set behind raised wooden sidewalks and sagging verandas.

  “Shoot!” I grumbled. “It sure ain’t nothing to shout about.”

  “Hush up, Cassie,” Big Ma said. “You, too, T.J. Y’all in town now and I expects y’all to act like it. In another hour this place’ll be teeming up with folks from all over the county and I don’t want no trouble.”

  As the stores gave way to houses still sleeping, we turned onto a dirt road which led past more shops and beyond to a wide field dotted with wooden stalls. Near the field entrance several farm wagons and pickups were already parked, but Big Ma drove to the other side of the field where only two wagons were stationed. Climbing from the wagon, she said, “Don’t seem like too many folks ahead of us. In the summer, I’d’ve had to come on Friday and spend the night to get a spot like this.” She headed toward the back of the wagon. “Stacey, you and T.J. stay up there a minute and push them milk cans over here so’s I can reach ’em.”

  “Big Ma,” I said, following her, “all them folks up there selling milk and eggs too?”

  “Not all, I reckon. Some of ’em gots meats and vegetables, quilts and sewing and such. But I guess a good piece of ’em sellin’ the same as us.”

  I studied the wagons parked at the field entrance, then exclaimed, “Well, what the devil we doing way back here then! Can’t nobody see us.”

  “You watch your mouth, girl,” warned Big Ma. Then, arranging the milk cans and
baskets of eggs near the wagon’s edge, she softened her voice and promised, “We’ll do all right. I got me some regular customers and they’ll check to see if I’m here ’fore they buy.”

  “Not back here they won’t,” I grumbled. Maybe Big Ma knew what she was doing, but it made absolutely no sense to me to be so far from the entrance. Most of the other farmers seemed to have the right idea, and I couldn’t help but try to make her see the business sense in moving the wagon forward. “Why don’t we move our wagon up there with them other wagons, Big Ma? There’s plenty of room, and we could sell more.”

  “Them’s white folks’ wagons, Cassie,” Big Ma said gruffly, as if that explained everything. “Now, hush up and help me get this food out.”

  “Shoot,” I mumbled, taking one of the buckets from Stacey, “by the time a body walk way back here, they’ll have bunions on their soles and corns on their toes.”

  * * *

  By noon the crowd which had covered the field during the early morning had thinned noticeably, and wagons and trucks began to pack up and head for town. After we had eaten our cold lunch of oil sausages and cornbread washed down with clabber milk, we did the same.

  On the main street of Strawberry once more, Big Ma parked the wagon in front of a building where four shingles hung from a rusted post. One of the shingles read: “Wade W. Jamison, Attorney-at-Law.”

  “Mr. Jamison live here?” I cried, scrambling down. “I wanna see him.”

  “He don’t live here,” said Big Ma, opening her large purse. She pulled out a long manila envelope, checked inside, then gingerly put it back again. “This here’s his office and I got some business with him. You get on back in the wagon.” Big Ma climbed down, but I didn’t get back in. “Can’t I just go up and say ‘Hey’?” I persisted.

  “I’m gonna ‘Hey’ you,” Big Ma said, “you keep pesterin’ me.” She glanced over at Stacey and T.J. “Y’all wait here for me and soon’s I get back, we’ll go do that shoppin’ so’s we can get on home ’fore it gets dark.”