“And you or anybody else should be able to have a friend who’s different, whatever the difference might be. But at this time, black and white friendships are not always approved of in our… community.”

  “We don’t live in a community, do we?” I asked. “I mean, we live in the country.”

  “Not far enough country,” she said. Mama pulled her hair back and twisted it into a soft knot on her head.

  “I don’t respect the sheriff. He’s been a troublemaker since he got here. I believe he’s using you as an excuse to pick on Champion. And he can, or he feels like he can, because Champion’s colored. Tell me this,” she said, “how did the sheriff happen to be in the drugstore? Did he just walk by and see Champion sitting at the counter?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I didn’t see him come in. I was looking at funny books. Then I heard him talking about that sign and scaring Champion because he was sitting instead of standing at the counter.”

  “Good Lord,” said Mama, smoothing the hair away from my forehead with cool fingers. She was looking at me with her greeny-gray eyes like she hadn’t seen me in a long time. “There’s something more to all this that I don’t understand. Something bad is going on in this world, and it’s not just the Depression. It’s as though something’s been turned loose, something threatening. I heard on the radio today that the Japanese have seized Shanghai and Nanking.”

  I couldn’t see what Japan and China had to do with us. “All I know is that the day of the big fight was one of the best days of my life,” I said. “And today was one of the worst!”

  Swan appeared in the faint gloom of the doorway. She was wearing red lipstick and it was crooked. I guess she’d been playing lady.

  “The sheriff’s mean and I hate him!” she said.

  “I thought you were in your room,” said Mama. “Come on over here by me. I don’t know what you heard, but I don’t want you to hate anybody. You can hate how they act, but not the person.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Now, go wash that lipstick off, and we’ll go downstairs. You two go on into the parlor. It’s almost time for Fibber McGee and Molly. I’ll be there in a minute. I have to make a phone call first.”

  From the parlor, we could hear the thin peeping of tree frogs through the open doors of the veranda. Mama went down the hall to use the telephone. I turned the radio on and told Swan to find the right station. “I’ll be right back as soon as I go to the bathroom,” I said. I wanted to eavesdrop on Mama’s call and I didn’t want Swan to see me. If she did, she might tell.

  “Mayor Puckett?” I heard Mama say. “Serena Sayre, here. I hate to disturb you in the evening, but I have a problem. I need to talk to you about something that happened today between the sheriff and my son.”

  Oh, lordy, I thought. She’s gonna tell what happened and Lily’s gonna find out and kill me.

  I went back to the parlor just as Fibber McGee’s closet opened and everything fell out with a crash. Swan got tickled like she always does.

  “I love him almost as much as I love Baby Snooks,” she said.

  * * *

  On Sunday morning, Doc Phinizy was in the nave of First Presbyterian Church, giving out programs. I didn’t take one ’cause I’m mad with him. After services, he and Mama walked out into the church yard and had a little talk. When she came back, Mama said he tried to explain what happened in his drugstore, and that he felt bad about it. But I don’t care. He still ought to take that stupid sign down.

  * * *

  Early the next morning, I was in a hurry to get out of the house before Lily arrived, so I offered to go pick blackberries. Swan wanted to come too, but Mama said she’d get chiggers, so I went by myself.

  Confederate and Union soldiers are buried in the old cemetery down the road. It’s a good place with lots of shady trees so it’s cool. The biggest blackberries and dewberries grow there. The only problem is they grow in the hedges where there isn’t much shade.

  Picking blackberries is almost as bad as picking cotton, which I’ve never actually done, but it must be about the same. It’s hot work, the bugs swarm around you, your fingers get pricked with thorns, and you have to watch out for snakes. If I hadn’t been so scared of what Lily was going to say when she found out I’d squealed, I wouldn’t have done it even for money. Which, by the way, I didn’t get.

  The sun was high by the time my pail was full so I decided to go home. I was too miserable to go anyplace else and besides, I didn’t have any place to go.

  Meadowlarks swooped over fields where tall grasses lapped in green waves. I walked up the grassy rise, climbed the split-rail fence, and went into the apple orchard. Only it’s not really an orchard any more, just old trees that produce small, hard apples that Mama says are only good for cooking. Wild roses climbed their branches and wasps droned over windfall fruit.

  When I came out on the other side of the orchard, Lily was standing at the clothesline, hanging out the wash. I tried to slip back into the shelter of the trees, but she’d already seen me. She glared at me, her face like a thundercloud.

  “You’re a fine piece of work,” she said. “What’d I tell you?”

  “Not to worry Mama,” I said.

  “Uh-huh. Didn’t do much good, did it?”

  Then I got kind of mad. After all, I was in the middle of what happened, too. “Lily,” I said, “yesterday wasn’t Champion’s fault or mine.”

  “Brother,” she said, “I love Champion, he’s my blood. But there’s things about living here that he doesn’t understand. You either.”

  “I think I’m learning,” I said, “and it stinks!”

  “We have to live in this town, and we don’t make the rules,” said Lily.

  “Does the sheriff?”

  “Some of them,” she said.

  “He’s got no right to do that!” I said.

  “Coloreds don’t have any rights, Brother. How come you haven’t figured that out? If we get in trouble, we have to hope for help from somebody like your mama, and some of the other folks in town. Most of the time we just mind our business and keep our heads down.

  “There’s an old saying: ‘As long as you got your hand in the lion’s mouth, you have to be easy ’til you get it out.’ You understand?”

  Feeling worse every second, I just nodded, hoping that something would happen to stop my torture. Then, Lily reached into the clothes basket and began hanging sheets on the clothesline.

  “Never mind,” she said, “the damage is done. Take those berries inside and rinse ’em off in the sink. I think I’ll make a cobbler for dessert.”

  Chapter Eleven

  In late afternoon, dark thunderclouds began building in the west. Lily brought the clothes in, then left to go to the farm before the rain caught her. The sky was glassy, the air smelled of sulphur, and the birds grew quiet. Then rain began drifting across the fields in silvery sheets. Fat drops pocked the dust, flattening on the boards of the porch.

  “Check the upstairs windows for me, Brother!” Mama called from the dining room.

  Rain drummed heavily on the roof as I went from room to room, closing windows. I was on my way downstairs when I saw Sheriff Hamm standing at the front screened door. His shirt was wet and rain glistened on his polished boots.

  I knew this was going to happen, I knew it! Once Mama made that call to the mayor, I was dead. I wanted to pretend I didn’t see him and go back upstairs, but I couldn’t. My stomach felt like it was going to fall out. There was a ringing in my ears.

  He peered through the screened door and saw me.

  “Tell your mama I’m here,” he said.

  I didn’t say anything. I just turned and went into the dining room. For a minute, I stood there looking at Mama. She was laying out a dress pattern on the dining room table. The thin tissue paper crinkled under her fingertips as she pinned the pattern to the material. Swan sat in a corner dressing her dolls from scraps of cloth light as summer butterflies.

  “Mama,” I whispered. I was so scared my voice sounded squeaky. “The sheriff’s outside on the porch.”

  In the muted light from the windows, Mama’s face was pale. “Have him come in,” she said, “then you and Swan make yourselves scarce.”

  “I’m not gonna leave you alone with him,” I told her.

  “It’ll be all right,” she said.

  Swan and I hid behind the hall door.

  When he first went into the room, I heard him say he was sorry about upsetting her. Sorry my foot, I thought. He didn’t look like he was sorry. I bet he only said it ’cause the mayor made him.

  Then I couldn’t make out any more words, just a kind of mumbling. A few minutes later he walked back down the hall and out to the porch. Mama didn’t walk to the door with him, the way she did with regular company.

  We waited a second, then we left our hiding place and watched as he left the porch and went down the steps. The rain had ended and the air was fresh and clean; steam rose from the ground. The sheriff stomped down the front path, his boots crunching on the gravel. Then he walked toward the gate, brushing past the tea roses that tumbled over the front fence.

  We followed him out to the yard, and Shirley Boligee followed us, lifting her paws delicately over the wet grass. Swan picked her up. When Sheriff Hamm reached the gate, Swan called out to him, her voice high and thin as a pennywhistle.

  “You ol’ bully,” she said. “You ought not be mean to folks. It’s bad manners!”

  I was so shocked I couldn’t move.

  The sheriff stopped and turned to face us. His face grew red, and he puffed up like a toad. He glared at Swan, but she didn’t waver. She held her ground, her skinny little legs trembling, her cat in her arms.

  “Well, little missy,” he said in a low voice, “that’s a fine cat you’ve got there. Let’s hope it’s got nine lives like it’s supposed to.” Then he turned and opened the gate.

  Waves of anger swept over me. Winds rushed through my head and the air around me turned black. Stepping in front of Swan, I grabbed a handful of wet clay. Kneading it into a hard clod, I took aim, threw it, and hit him smack in the middle of his fat back.

  “That’s for Champion!” I said. Then I grabbed Swan’s hand and we ran back to the house and safety.

  Mama was standing at the front door and saw me throw the clod. When the sheriff got in his car and left, she called me. “Come here, Brother,” she said.

  I could see she was upset. I tried to tell her that I didn’t plan to throw the clod, it just happened, ’cause I was so mad.

  “I understand that,” she said. “But anger just produces anger. I think you need to calm down and stay close to home for a while.”

  “How long?” I asked.

  “A week,” she said.

  I don’t understand grown-ups, not even my mother. But I never said I was sorry for what I did, because I wasn’t. It was worth it. I never pitched that good before in my life.

  * * *

  It was a long week. The whole time I was confined to the house I kept waiting for the sheriff to come back and arrest me, but he didn’t. I kept a good lookout, though. If I saw him coming I was going to escape out the back. Lily kept giving me sideways looks. She said that Champion wasn’t allowed to come to the house. I couldn’t go fishing and when I asked her if Jesse and Champion had been, she just said, “I don’t know what they’re up to. Workin’, I expect.”

  The railroad men didn’t show up the whole time I was in prison. Then, at breakfast, Mama poured herself a cup of coffee and made her announcement.

  “Your ordeal has ended,” she said.

  That same day, I was in the backyard weeding the flower beds. Not because I was still in trouble, but because Mama said they needed it. Swan was up in the chinaberry tree, singing at the top of her lungs:

  Throw out the lifeline across the dark wa-a-ave,

  There is a brother whom someone should sa-a-ave…

  Somebody’s brother! Oh who then, will dare

  To throw out the lifeline, his peril to sha-a-a-are!

  Every time she said the word “brother,” she sang louder.

  Champion came around the corner of the house. I was surprised to see him even though Mama and Lily had decided that he could come over. We weren’t allowed to go to town or anyplace else where the sheriff or Mr. Linton might see us. It was too dangerous.

  He waved to Swan, who was still singing.

  “Don’t let on like you hear her,” I said. “She’s just showing off. What’ve you been doing while I was in prison?”

  “Moving pigs,” he said.

  I was surprised; he didn’t like pigs any better than he did mules.

  “Grandpapa was fixin’ the pigpen,” he explained. “So we had to put ’em in the shade so they wouldn’t get sunstroke.”

  “Oh, so you had to move ’em.” That made sense.

  Swan started in on the chorus:

  Throw out the lifeline!

  Throw out the lifeline!

  Someone is drifting awa-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay;

  Throw out the lifeline!

  Throw out the lifeline!

  SOMEONE IS SINKING TODAAAAAY!

  “Help me finish weeding,” I said, “then let’s get out of here. I’m going stir-crazy.” After we finished the flower beds, we piled the weeds in the wheelbarrow and took them to the compost heap. That’s when we decided to go down to the railroad tracks.

  “Nobody’ll bother us down there,” I said. “Only don’t tell Swan where we’re going. She’ll want to come, too.”

  I helped Swan down from the chinaberry tree. She told Champion that I’d been punished. “It wasn’t fair,” she said.

  “Go tell Mama we’ll be back in a little while,” I said.

  “Okay,” she said. She picked up her cat and went inside.

  As we sneaked out of the backyard, I told Champion why I’d been punished.

  “You really hit the sheriff with a clod? All Aunt Lily told me was that you were in trouble and couldn’t leave the house. And that I couldn’t come see you.”

  I told him what the sheriff had said to Swan. “He was mean to her about her cat. It made me mad, him picking on a little girl. All of a sudden I was aiming for him.”

  “You did right. What’d Shirley Boligee ever do to him?”

  “What’d you ever do to him?” I said.

  “Brother,” he said, “after you hit him, were you scared?”

  “Naw,” I said. But I told a lie. I was scared, I still am. I keep thinking about him and what he might do. “Mama said to give him a wide berth.”

  “What’s that mean?” he asked.

  “That’s what I asked, and she said it means to stay as far away from him as I can. And I’d be glad to, only I never know when I’ll see him.”

  After that, we called him all the bad names we knew. Champion knew more bad words than I did.

  “I believe folks talk worse in Detroit than in Snow Hill,” I said.

  “Some do, some don’t,” he said.

  Chapter Twelve

  The railroad tracks smelled cindery in the hot sun. Dragonflies hovered over grass that was cut to stubble for the train’s passage. If we’d had some pennies we’d have put them on the tracks for the train to flatten, but we didn’t have any.

  “Hey,” said Champion, “know what we could do?”

  “What?”

  “We could hop a freight to Joe Louis’s training camp!”

  “Where is it?”

  “New Jersey.”

  “New Jersey? Are you crazy? Why, that might just as well be France, or someplace.”

  “What do you know about France?” he asked.

  “‘I love Paris, I love France, where they don’t wear no underpants,’” I sang.

  Champion was laughing as he walked ahead of me down the tracks. Suddenly, he stopped stock-still, and I bumped into him.

  A big colored man was stretched out on the side of the tracks, his hat sideways on his head. We eased over and stood looking down at him.

  “Is he dead?” I whispered.

  Suddenly, his big hand shot out and grabbed my ankle. I was so scared my eyes were watering. But when I tried to pull away, it was like I was caught in a vise. Looking through the mist, I saw Champion scrambling to get out of the way, but he was too slow. The man reached out and with his other hand grabbed Champion’s ankle.

  “Yiieeeks!” Champion hollered at the top of his lungs. You could’ve heard him yelling all the way to Boaz.

  “Whoa! Hold on there,” said the man, “I ain’t gon’ hurt you. Amos Ragsdale never hurt nobody.”

  * * *

  For somebody who’d nearly scared us to death, Amos Ragsdale turned out to be a nice man. A hobo, he was on his way to Florida to pick fruit.

  “Why were you laying by the tracks?” I asked. “We thought you were dead.”

  “I lay alongside so I can feel the train comin’ a long way off,” he explained. “You see, I been ridin’ side-car Pullmans, what you call boxcars, for three years now. You gotta be careful, ridin’ the rails.”

  I looked over at Champion, who ignored me.

  “Some places,” said Amos, “the law’ll catch you and put you on a chain gang. Once, the railroad bulls took me off a train and arrested me for vagrancy. They called me a vagrant!”

  “How old do you have to be for them to call you a vagrant?” I asked, thinking about being put on a chain gang.

  “Old as they say,” he answered. “So if you boys was thinkin’ about ridin’ the rails, think again.”

  Crows called over warm, empty fields that smelled of grass. The rails were hot to the touch and shone silvery in the sun. Amos wiped the sweat from his face with a red bandanna.

  “Last time I got out of jail, they give me thirty-five cents and a pair of overalls. Bein’ a hobo ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Sometimes, you go hongry. There was one time, I knocked on folks’ doors for food. Wouldn’t nobody feed me.”

  “My mama would have,” I said. “And Lily. They’d give you supper.”

  “So, you got a mama?” Amos asked.

  “I do.”

  He looked at Champion. “You got a mama?”

 

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