Let the Circle Be Unbroken (23 page)

“Well, that’s the truth all right, sugar. But I jus’ been thinking. Now’s I’m learning the law, why shouldn’t I jus’ go on down and vote jus’ like them white folks—”

“You done gone foolish—” Big Ma said again.

“Probably knows it better than a lot of them,” Mrs. Lee Annie continued, unperturbed. “My papa voted. Said it was a right fine feeling. He voted and he didn’t know no law at all ’ceptin’ that he was a free man and a free man could vote. And here I jus’ been readin’ the constitution, and I ain’t votin’ at all—”

“You been readin’ too much, that’s what you been doin’,” Big Ma retorted.

“Well, I’m gon’ do it, Caroline. Gon’ vote . . . sho’ is. Where that Mary? Ow, you, Mary! Where you at?”

Mama came in from the kitchen and Mrs. Lee Annie told
her what she had told us. Mama glanced from Mrs. Lee Annie to Big Ma.

“Don’t look at me,” Big Ma said. “I done told her she was crazy. ’round here talkin’ ’bout she free and she gon’ vote . . . like she got somebody to vote for.”

Mama came back to the circle and took her seat, but she didn’t pick up the quilt. Instead, she put her hand on Mrs. Lee Annie’s arm. “Now, Mrs. Lee Annie,” she said, “why you want to do this thing? You know these people aren’t going to let you vote.”

“I knows what I gotta do to take that test,” Mrs. Lee Annie contended stubbornly, pounding her knee through the heavy quilt for emphasis. “I gots to have my poll taxes paid—and they gonna be, Russell give me the money—and I gotta tell the registrar what them there words in the constitution mean—and I gonna be able to do that—then I can vote.”

“Mrs. Lee Annie, how many colored folks you know vote?”

“Ne’er a one. But part of that’s ’cause these ole white folks think ain’t no colored folks gon’ come down to their ole voting places to vote. Well, this here ole aunty gon’ strut right down there and show them I knows the law. Ole Lee Annie Lees gon’ vote jus’ like her daddy done.”

“Now, Mrs. Lee Annie—”

“Lee Annie Lees, that’s ’bout the silliest thing I done heard of!” exclaimed Big Ma in exasperation. “Now jus’ who you think you gon’ vote for if they lets you vote? Bilbo?”

“Humph!” grumped Mrs. Lee Annie.

“Mrs. Lee Annie,” Mama said, “now have you thought about what could happen if you try to register? First of all, they most likely won’t even let you, and even if they do, they won’t pass you on the test, but they’ll remember you
tried to vote and they won’t think too kindly of you for it either.”

“That ain’t what I’m living for, for these crackers to think kindly of me!”

Mama smiled and nodded. “But more than that, have you thought of what Harlan Granger might say?”

Mrs. Lee Annie looked surprised. “Harlan Granger? What he got to do with it?”

Mama took Mrs. Lee Annie’s hand. “You’re living on his land and he expects certain things—”

“And I gives ’em to him, too! Works my land and puts in my crop ’longside Page and Leora every year.”

“Yes, ma’am, I know that, but—”

“And he knows it too!”

“Yes, ma’am. But Harlan Granger doesn’t expect you to go off trying to vote, and he’s not going to like it. Not one little bit.”

For the first time Mrs. Lee Annie was silent.

“He’s not going to care,” Mama continued, “about your papa or your dreams. All he’s going to care about is that one of ‘his’ colored people is trying to do something he figures is white folks’ business, and believe me, Mrs. Lee Annie—I know that man—when he doesn’t like something, that means there’s going to be trouble . . . for you. . . . Things could happen.”

Mrs. Lee Annie was thoughtful, one hand fingering the quilt, the other still held by Mama. She remained unspeaking for so long that Mama finally said, “Mrs. Lee Annie?”

Mrs. Lee Annie looked back at Mama. “Mary, child, all my life whenever I wanted to do something and the white folks didn’t like it, I didn’t do it. All my life, it been that way. But now I’s sixty-four years old and I figure I’s deserving of doing something
I
wants to do, white folks like it or
not. And this old body wants to vote and like I done said, I gots my mind made up. I’s gon’ vote too.”

Mama patted her hand. “Promise me you’ll think about what I said.”

“I’ll think ’bout it all right, but it ain’t gonna change my mind none. What I really wants though is for you to help me. You and Cassie. What Cassie and me ain’t learned, you can teach us. Will you do that for me, sugar?”

“Mrs. Lee Annie—”

“I said I’d think ’bout it, ain’t I? But I still wants your help.”

Mama puckered her lips and sighed. “You think about what I said and you think hard now—”

“And you gonna help me?”

“It’s against my better judgment . . .”

“But ya will?”

Mama shook her head, allowing a frustrated laugh. “I suppose.”

“Good!” said Mrs. Lee Annie, smiling brightly and picking up her quilting.

Mrs. Lee Annie did not change her mind. The most devoted of students, she listened intently to Mama’s explanations of the constitution and laboriously attempted to commit them to memory. There were nearly 300 sections of the constitution and Mrs. Lee Annie wanted to know each and every one of them. Already she could quote many of them word for word, but it was the understanding she needed and was determined to have. Her enthusiasm for learning was, in fact, so strong that it proved contagious, affecting Big Ma, Mr. Tom Bee, and even me.

“Ain’t gon’ vote, but I guess it ain’t gonna hurt me none to know some of that stuff,” Big Ma had decided as she sat with Mrs. Lee Annie, Mama, and me around the dining
room table. “Now, Mary, child, what you say that business ’bout them courts bein’ open to everybody was?”

Mr. Tom Bee, who was often at Mrs. Lee Annie’s when Mama and I went there, was more indirect about his interest. He sat through a number of the sessions seemingly uninterested, whittling on a piece of wood as Mama explained the sections and Mrs. Lee Annie attempted to understand. None of us thought he had paid any attention to anything that was going on until one afternoon when Mrs. Lee Annie was trying, with difficulty, to explain to Mama what “jurisdiction” meant, and he suddenly exclaimed: “Naw, naw, Lee Annie! Don’t ya ’member? What you talkin’ ’bout is a jury. Jurisdiction tells ya’ who got the power in a thing.”

We all looked at him in amazement.

“You sure you won’t join us over here, Brother Bee?” Mama invited.

“Ah, no, ma’am, Miz Logan. I’s fine right where I is.”

But despite his feigned lack of interest, Mama and I both noted that more and more often he was at Mrs. Lee Annie’s when we arrived, and on several occasions even accompanied Mrs. Lee Annie down to our house for the lessons held there.

“That Tom Bee, don’t he bother you none sittin’ off to hisself whittling when you be teaching?” asked a vexed Big Ma after one of the sessions. “He do me. Pretending he ain’t payin’ no ’tention, but always ready to correct a body if she ain’t said the right answer.”

Mama smiled, aware that Mr. Tom Bee’s correcting Big Ma three times during the afternoon had not exactly sat well with her. “Not at all. I love it.”

As for me, under Mama’s instruction I suddenly found the dry words of the constitution beginning to take meaning. Mama explained that a number of the laws were quite good
and in theory quite fair. The problem, however, was in the application, and that if the judges and the courts really saw everyone as equal instead of as black or white, life could have been a lot pleasanter. Mama said that maybe one day equal rights would be for everyone, but as far as she could see, that day was still a ways off. I personally hoped that it wasn’t as far off as she made it sound. I figured that before I died, I’d like to enjoy a little of that liberty and justice the constitution kept talking about myself. And I didn’t intend to be sixty-four when I did either.

*   *   *

By the first week in May the young shoots of cotton were up and we had gone through the backbreaking chore of chopping and our first weeding. More than anything I hated weeding. It was sweaty, tiring work which was unending, for no sooner had we pulled the weeds from the last row of all three fields than we found more had worked their way into the first rows. Each morning before the color of the land had changed from predawn gray to the emerald brilliance of spring, we had already eaten breakfast and were finishing the last of the morning chores. By the time the sun itself peeped over the horizon, we were in the fields bending and pulling.

As May wore toward June and the fieldwork continued, news that work was soon to begin at the hospital building site spread through the community. When the work announcement became official, men, both black and white, gathered at the old Huntington farm where the hospital was to be built, sleeping long nights on the hard ground to be ready as soon as the call to work came.

“You ever think ’bout seeing ’bout working up there yourself?” Stacey asked Little Willie when he learned that Mr. Wiggins had gotten on at the site.

We were sitting on the Wigginses’ back porch eating
roasted peanuts. Little Willie popped a peanut into his mouth before answering and shook his head. “Naw. Why would I? All them men up there, what chance I got?” He looked questioningly at Stacey. “What? You thinkin’ to get on?”

“He might be thinkin’ it,” I said, reaching into the pan, “but that don’t mean nothin’ long as Mama ain’t.”

Stacey glared at me as if I were the burden of his life, but I paid no attention as I went on eating. “I figure it wouldn’t hurt to try,” he said.

“S’pose not,” agreed Little Willie. He popped another peanut into his mouth. “Ya wanna go over there?”

Stacey stared out at the gloom of the drizzling day and decided that he would, then along with Little Willie tried to persuade the rest of us to stay behind. But since we were having none of that, they finally gave in, and after telling Mrs. Wiggins we were going for a walk, we crossed the north field to the forest beyond. Coming to Soldiers Road, we walked the half mile down to the Huntington place. As we approached it, a newly painted sign with large black lettering, oddly out of place among the ferns and weeds already coiling around its legs, loomed on the left side of the road. On the sign was printed:

PROPOSED SITE OF THE
SPOKANE COUNTY MEMORIAL HOSPITAL.

I looked around. Only the forest was visible. “Well where is it?”

Stacey nodded past the sign. “Must be that road there.”

What Stacey had politely called a road was no more than a wagon trail. We went up it, our bare feet caking with the red mud, and soon saw what had once been the Huntingtons’ house, a gray clapboard dwelling with a tin roof, now being used as an office for the site. Standing in front of the building
in an orderly single file were over a hundred men, all of them white. Little Willie pointed to the side of the house. “Papa say they got the hiring place for colored ’round there.”

Following Little Willie’s lead, we passed the men and went around to the right side. The line here was just as long with men standing patiently, unable to sit because of the muddy ground. To our surprise, Dubé Cross was in the line.

“Hey, this where you been keeping yourself?” Little Willie asked. “Ain’t hardly seen you ’round no place these last few weeks.”

Dubé shook his head. “J-jus’ come up here yesterday. B-b-been spending t-time with Mr. Wh-Wheeler and Mr. Moses w-with the union.”

Stacey’s brow furrowed.

Dubé noticed it. “Th-that’s right. I ffff-figures that’s the only way folks like me g-g-gonna get anywheres.”

Stacey chose not to get into a conversation about the union, and instead looked back down the line at all the men gathered. “You figurin’ you gonna be able to get on here?”

“G-g-gonna try.”

“They hirin’ less’n sixteen?”

“D-don’t know. You mos’ likely g-g-gotta ask Mr. Crawford ’b-bout that.”

“Mos’ likely you get hired,” said Little Willie. “You got the muscles.” He looked out at the fields, where groups of black men were working under the direction of white leaders. “You seen my papa anywheres?”

“G-g-got work early on th-this mornin’ pullin’ stumps.”

“Where ’bout we find this Mr. Crawford?” Stacey asked.

Dubé looked around, then pointed to the edge of the yard. “Th-there he go y-y-yonder with Mr. Harrison.”

We wished Dubé luck and headed toward the two men, but before we reached the end of the line, Jake Willis
stopped us. Smiling broadly, the two gold teeth clearly visible, he said, “Well, looka here! Y’all Logan younguns, ain’t ya? I reckon y’all don’t ’member me, now do ya? But I ’members y’all all right. ’Members the whole family.”

“We remember you,” Stacey said without enthusiasm.

Jake Willis laughed. “Well, ain’t that something! Yeah . . . What y’all doing out here? Job hunting?”

“Little Willie’s father here. He’s working up yonder in the field,” Stacey said, slyly skirting the truth.

“Ya don’t say?” Jake Willis glanced out at the field. “Well, seem everybody get lucky but me and I don’t never get lucky. Been out here since six o’clock and ain’t got nothing.” He turned back to us with a laugh. “Ain’t gonna get no Packards that way, now am I?”

Stacey put a hand on my shoulder to urge me on. “We gotta go.”

“Well, anyways, it was good to see y’all. I’m just glad y’all ain’t out here job hunting too. For a moment there, I was thinkin’ I was gonna have to fight for my job ’gainst a Logan. Thought maybe things had gotten so bad for y’all, maybe y’all had been sent out for hire.” He laughed then, a raucous, distasteful laugh, and Stacey pushed us on.

“That man, I don’t like him much,” Christopher-John admitted as we walked away.

“You ain’t the only one,” I said.

“Look here, Stacey,” Little Willie said as we neared Mr. Harrison and Mr. Crawford, “ya wanna do the talking?”

“Don’t matter to me.”

“Okay, then you go ’head.”

When we reached the two men, Mr. Harrison, a white-haired man in his seventies whose plantation bordered our land to the west, took the time to speak to us. Mr. Crawford, however, tall, weathered-looking, and occupied with
both rolling a cigarette and hollering orders across the field, didn’t even see us. Mr. Harrison asked what we were doing there and Stacey told him.