Let the Circle Be Unbroken Read Online Free PDF Page A

escaped him, slipping down the steps and through the crowd which had gathered. He ran off toward the woods.
    “You don’t understand how that boy is, David,” Mr. Ellis said. “He ain’t like most younguns—he ain’t right in the head. You gotta teach him hard ’bout right and wrong. He jus’ don’t know no better.”
    “He wasn’t gonna hurt the baby,” Papa said. “I think he just went up there to get her down.”
    “You tellin’ me she got up there by herself then?”
    “No. . . .” Papa hesitated. “No, I ain’t saying that. Only I wouldn’t be hard on the boy. I got a feeling he was just trying to help.”
    Mr. Ellis only looked at Papa, then came on down the steps. Everyone turned and went around to the front of the church. When we reached the church door, I looked back out to the woods where Wordell had fled. Suddenly from nowhere Joe appeared and ran into the woods also. I glanced up at Papa, wondering if he’d seen. Then a thought occurred to me: Where had Joe been all that time when Doris Anne had been up in the belfry? He was the one who was supposed to ring the bell. Before I could ask Papa about it, he ushered me inside the church, where we were greeted by the congregation’s singing of “Look Out, Sinner! Judgment Day’s A-Comin’!” which reminded me of my own impending punishment and that I had more than Joe to worry about.

  2  
    Clarence Hopkins brought the news. He dashed across the school lawn just minutes before the afternoon bell was to ring, crying out to Stacey, who was standing with Little Willie Wiggins, Moe Turner, and several other eighth-grade boys beside the tree which shaded the well. He caused such a ruckus with his yelling that all the students still lingering outside were alerted that something important was up. Immediately Son-Boy, Maynard, and I left the steps of the middle-grades building to join the growing circle as Little Man and Christopher-John came running from the far corner of the toolshed, where they had been throwing horseshoes.By the time we had pushed our way into the group, Clarence was already into his story. He had gone home for lunch and had gotten the news from his mother, who had gotten it from Mr. Silas Lanier, who had just come back from Strawberry: T.J. Avery was to go on trial next month.
    “You sure?” questioned Stacey. “They gonna really let him have a trial?”
    “That’s . . . what . . . Mr. Lanier . . . said,” Clarence replied between gasps to recover his breath. He had run all the way from home. “He said it’s all over town. That’s all the white folks talkin’ ’bout.” Clarence breathed in deeply before he continued. “They say there ain’t no need of no trial, but Mr. Jamison, he been worryin’ all this time to get one . . . and he sho’ ’nough got it—”
    “My daddy said a trial ain’t gonna do no good,” remarked Moe, a quiet, gentle boy who usually had little to say in a crowd, but whose opinion was always respected.
    “Maybe not,” agreed Little Willie, “but leastways he got one. That’s better’n nothin’, I ’spect.”
    Stacey frowned. “Don’t know ’bout that. They ain’t gonna believe what T.J.’s gotta say no way so what’s the use of a trial?” His words were bitter and no one attempted to answer him as silence settled over the group. Then Stacey asked if anyone had seen T.J.
    “Nobody I know ’bout,” said Clarence, “’ceptin’ maybe his folks and Mr. Jamison.” He was silent a moment, then added, “I’d sure like to go to that trial.”
    At first no one commented, then Little Willie scratched his head. “You s’pose they gon’ let colored folks in?”
    Clarence looked surprised. “I don’t see why not! We got a right—”
    “What day is it?” Stacey asked, brusquely ignoring Clarence’s summation of what rights he thought we had.
    “The tenth,” answered Clarence, unruffled. “December tenth.”
    Moe turned to Stacey. “You gonna try