Letters to Missy Violet (4 page)

It turned out the dead man was kin to a lady named Miss Willa Sumter, who lived on the outskirts of town, and he was a gangster who lived up north in Chicago. The undertaker's helper said he had been shot.

That Saturday at the funeral when the casket was opened for the family to have “the last look” there was the dead man, lying there facing the congregation. Starin' at them with those scary gray eyes just the way he had stared at us. They say Miss Willa fainted and some of the people ran out of the church.

Soon word got around, thanks to Miss Nula Irish, that the body had been “tampered with,” especially since Miss Nula claimed she saw “a redheaded scamp and a gang of rascals” running from the church on Friday afternoon. The news got back to Mama, and Mama remembered that I'd gotten a splinter in my knee that I couldn't explain. She put two and two together and came after me with Papa's shavin' strap. Oh Lordy!

I know Charles is my first cousin and all, but I wish his ma would get well so he could go on back up to Mount Gilead. Papa says he doesn't think Aunt Charlotte will ever get well. He thinks there's something wrong with her heart. He says she's been sick ever since she was a little girl. He said if she ran and played too much she'd get tired and faint and their mama would have to hold smelling salts under her nose. Papa said most of the time she just sat on the porch in the rocker and tattled on the other children.

One time I dreamed Charles found some redheaded, freckle-faced people just like himself and moved far, far away. When I told Mama I wished that dream would come true, she said I got to be nice to Charles and show Christian charity because he's a guest in our home and he's our kin. Sometimes I wonder if Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Nehemiah just send him down here to get rid of him. I wouldn't blame them if they did. Mama says they sent him down here so he can be with his cousins because there are no children up there for him to be with. I think the children up there just don't like him.

Sometimes we'll be getting along just fine, but then he'll go and do something mean and spoil everything. Like the other day when nobody was looking, he cuffed me upside the head because he's still mad about what I said in the letter to Missy Violet about the cow patty. He's becoming a real bully. Mostly he picks on girls or boys like Jasper Kelly and Arthur Jones. Jasper's got a funny leg and Arthur's got a birthmark over one eye.

Charles is always making fun of them. “Where you get that ol' crooked leg from?” he says to Jasper, and Jasper's eyes fill up with water. Or he'll smack poor Arthur across the eye and say, “Oops, I thought that was a doodlebug settin' on your eye!” Sometimes he pushes them into each other to make the other kids laugh.

But somebody fixed Charles's business real good in school the other day, and it was Ruby Dean Baker! She had an apple on her desk and Charles kept foolin' with it—acting like he was going to snatch it off Ruby Dean's desk and eat it. Ruby Dean kept telling him to stop, but nobody hardly pays Ruby Dean any mind, she's so easygoing. But that day Ruby Dean meant it. So when Charles grabbed the apple and took a great big bite out of it, Ruby Dean clobbered him. She wrestled him to the floor, bopped him in the eye, and pounded him good. She was all over him like a net.

Miss Battle didn't say one word, just sat at her desk marking papers. And I shouldn't say this because Mama says it's a sin to laugh when your enemy gets his come­uppins, but I was glad, glad, glad! That big ol' Ruby Dean might not be so bright when it comes to learning, but she sure can wallop a bully! Now everybody wants to be her friend.

The only friend Charles has left is Jeff Brown, and Jeff's own mama says Jeff's head is not crowded with brains. But Jeff thinks Charles is the “bee's knees” because he's got freckles and red hair. He tells Charles, “I ain't never seen no colored boy like you before. You must be some kinda lucky!” And Charles just swells up. He's got Jeff thinking he can do anything.

Besides Jeff Brown and Missy Violet, the only other person who likes Charles is Cleo, my baby sister—and that's because she's only a few months old. But she sure cottons to Charles. Whenever he chucks her under the chin, she coos and grins. And her little baby eyes say, “I love you, Cousin Charles.”

Not long after Ruby Dean Baker whupped Charles good in class, he tried to make up with me.

“Hey, cuz, wanna play jacks?” he asked.

“Nope. Don't wanna play no jacks,” I answered.

“Wanna play cards?”

“Nope.”

“Well, how 'bout we go fishin', then.”

Now, he had me when he said “go fishing.” I loved fishing. Besides, I could fish circles around Charles. So that Saturday after we finished our chores we started out for our favorite fishing spot on the Pee Dee River. “Let's take the shortcut through the woods,” Charles said. But I didn't want to go through the woods with Charles, because every time I go through the woods with him he gets all crazy and tries to scare me. We'll be walking along and he'll just disappear. Or he'll make scary noises or jump out from somewhere shouting, “LOOK OUT! THE RAUSY BOYS!” or “HERE COMES HAIRY ESAU!” And I almost run over myself trying to get away. One time I fell down and busted my lip and skinned both knees, he scared me so bad.

“No,” I said. “You gonna try and scare me.”

“No I ain't,” Charles promised. I don't know why I was stupid enough to believe him. I guess I really, really wanted to go fishing. Or maybe it was because I always hear Mama say, “Forgive those who trespass against us.” But something happened in the woods that day that was a lot scarier than Charles.

The sun was nice and warm when we left, and the fish were jumping high. I caught seven catfish and two bass. Charles only caught four sunfish. My mouth was watering as I thought about those fish fryin' in Mama's big black skillet. But on the way back home, we walked up on something real, real scary: the Ku Klux Klan.

The Ku Klux Klan are a bunch of bad white men who go around beating up colored people, or anybody who is not white. They even kill people. Mama and Papa said they were the ones who killed Uncle Bud, Papa's great-uncle, because he tried to vote for the Republican Party.

All the men had on white robes with hoods covering their heads, and they were standing around in a circle. At first we thought they were stringing somebody up, but then we saw that they were just talking and having some kind of meeting. Some children were with them, too—three boys. One of them looked like he was only five or six years old. Charles left me and jumped in the bushes, but I was too scared to move, and one of the men saw me. “Hey, gal, what you up to!” he hollered. I couldn't see his face, but I knew that voice. “I'm not doin' nothing, Mista Lordnorth,” I answered. Mister Lordnorth's the man who owns the biggest furniture store in town.

“STUPID!” I heard Charles squawk in the bushes. “Now they gonna string us up for sure, 'cause you done pegged one of 'em.” When Charles said that my knees began to knock and I could just see me and Charles swinging from a tall oak tree.

“Who in them bushes?” one of the men shouted as he went over and pulled Charles out of the mulberry bush. I could tell that Charles was scared because his eyes were as big as wagon wheels. “Well, well, well, what have we here,” said a great big Ku Klux man. I think he must have been the leader, because he wore a special hood and his robe had a big red circle with a white cross in the middle. He made us give him our fish and told us to “skedaddle.” But the man with Mister Lordnorth's voice told him they couldn't let us go.

“Well, what we gonna do with 'em?” the man asked. And the man with Mister Lordnorth's voice said something to the leader man, and they tied us up and went back to what they were doing. Charles and I started to cry. “Viney, they gonna kill us!” Charles kept saying, and every time he said it my stomach hurt. I started wondering what it would feel like when they killed us and what it would feel like to be dead and never to see Mama and Papa again. I was crying so hard, my nose started to run, but I couldn't wipe it because my hands were tied and that made me cry even more.

I could hear Charles praying and I tried to pray, too, but the words kept getting all mixed up. I wondered if God could hear us way down there in the woods. I closed my eyes real tight, trying to pray, but all I could see was Charles and me laid out in two white caskets, like the one they had for Miss Daisy Mack's little girl when she died of the diphtheria. Two small-size white caskets standing in front of the pulpit at the church, and Mama and Papa and Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Nehemiah just crying their hearts out.

I wanted Papa to come and get me. I wanted him to ride up on his horse and snatch me and Charles up on his saddle and ride away. “Oh, Papa, Papa, Papa!” I kept crying, and when I opened my eyes one of the little boys who was with the Ku Klux was standing there looking at us. He had big blue eyes that looked like two blue marbles, and he just stared and stared at us. Then he did a curious thing—he untied our hands.

“Hey,” he said when we were untied.

“Hey,” we said back.

“My name is Jody and y'all better run,” he said. And we did. We ran as fast as we could. It was just like a miracle in the Bible how that little boy helped us get away. But I wondered what made him do it. I wondered how his little fingers untied that heavy rope. Jody . . . Jody . . . Jody. I kept saying his name in my head all the way home so I wouldn't forget it. And I kept hoping that those bad men would never find out what he did.

When we got home we told Mama and Papa what had happened to us, and Mama started crying and thanking the Lord for saving us from the Klan. When we told them the part about Mister Lordnorth, Mama had to sit down. “Those the same men who give us a ride home after we done worked in their wives' kitchens and fed their children,” she said. “The same men be underneath those white sheets! The same men who wait on us in the stores be hidin' under those hoods, 'cause they don't want folks to know who they are. Some of their own family members don't even know they belong to the Klan!”

Mama said we'd never set foot in Mister Lordnorth's store again even though he was good about letting colored people have credit. But the last thing she said on the matter was “Lord, bless that little white boy's sweet baby heart.”

For a long time after that happened I had bad dreams about Mister Lordnorth and I was afraid to go into town with Mama and Papa on Saturdays. I was afraid Mister Lordnorth would see me and send the Klan to get me out of my bed one night or burn a cross in front of our house.

Papa said not to worry so much about it, that all colored children looked the same to Mister Lordnorth. He said if he was going to remember anyone it would be Charles because of his red hair. That made me feel a little better, but not much. I didn't want them to get Charles either. I hope God will save us from the Ku Klux again the way He did when we were tied up down in the woods.

September 22, 1929

Dear Missy Violet,

I just had to write you again and tell you about the terrible thing that happened to Charles and me when we went fishing this past Saturday. We took a shortcut to the Pee Dee river. But we walked up on the Ku Klux having a secret meeting. They saw us and made us turn over our fish. They tied us up because I recognized Mister Lordnorth when he spoke even though his face was covered up with a hood. We were so scared. I thought they would kill us for sure. I thought I would never see you or Mama and Papa again. Charles left me and jumped in the bushes, though he's been telling folks that he fought the Klan off.

But the truth is, he cried and prayed so hard and pitiful, I couldn't even get mad at him. I was crying and praying, too. Then, Missy Violet, a good thing happened. There were some boys in the woods with those men. One was only about five or six years old. A little boy with blue eyes. He came over and untied us. His name was Jody. He said, “Y'all better run.” I pray for little Jody every night, because he saved us.

My brothers want to go get Mister Lordnorth, but they know better. Mama wants them to keep quiet about what happened. She doesn't want any trouble. She and Papa finally got the boys to calm down, all except Claude Thomas. You know how Claude Thomas is, Missy Violet. He says he is going to kill one of the Klan. Mama is so afraid for him, she is thinking about sending him away. Mama told him about little Jody saving us, but it didn't do any good. He's mad at all white people. I wish I could understand why all different kinds of people can't love each other.

Charles try to pretend he's not scared. He says he is going to tell Mister Lordnorth that his great-granddaddy on his mama's side was white and he thinks that that will keep the Klan from bothering him. Papa told him if he knows what's good for him he'd better keep his mouth shut! Please pray for us and please write soon.

Viney

 

September 22, 1929

Deer Missy Violet,

Its me again writin to tell you what happen to me and Viney in the woods comin from the P.D. riva. Me and Viney went fishin and I catched a lot of fish, twiney or thurdy. Viney just catched a few sunfish. She think she such a good fisher but I can catch more thin her any time. Any how we come back thru the woods. It was Viney's idea. And guess what, Missy Violet? We walk right up on the klan. They was wearin white sheets and hoods and evything, and befo we could hide they seen us.

One of the men under the hoods was Mr.Lordnorf who own the firniture store. Viney went and called out his name, thin he new she new who he was and they tied us up. Viney was just hollerin and cryin and callin on the Lord. I tole her to hush but she woodint shut-up. You know she is a real scurdy cat.