The Land Read Free Page B

mama was right. I shouldn’t have sent Hammond and George. I needed to settle this thing with Mitchell myself.
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    Once I came to that conclusion, to handle things myself, even when Hammond and George offered to help again, I said no. They had taken one look at me after Mitchell’s last beating, and George said, “Looks like that talk we had with Mitchell didn’t do much good.”
    â€œYou want us to go talk to him again?” Hammond asked.
    â€œBetter still,” said Robert, “this time we’ll beat him up good for ya!”
    â€œNo,” I replied. “You talk to him again or you whip him, he’ll still come after me. I’ll handle it my own self.”
    â€œThen least we’d better teach you how to fight better,” said George.
    â€œNo,” I said. “I’ve got it figured now. I’ll be all right.”
    George laughed. “Hope you’re right. We don’t want to have to bury you.”
    Well, I didn’t want them to have to bury me either. I had a plan, and all I could do was pray that it worked. That same day I went looking for Mitchell. When I found him, he seemed surprised to see me. He looked around. “Well, where they at?” he said.
    â€œWho?” I asked.
    â€œYour brothers. Ain’t ’spected you to be out walkin’ round without ’em.”
    â€œWell, I am. I come looking for you.”
    â€œWhat for? To get yo’self another whippin’?”
    â€œTo ask you something.”
    â€œAnd what’s that?”
    â€œI wanna know exactly how come you don’t like me. I mean, I got some of your reasons figured, but far as I can tell, I never done anything to you.”
    Mitchell shrugged. “Just don’t like you.”
    â€œJust don’t?” I questioned.
    He looked at me square and said matter-of-factly, “I got no use for white niggers.”
    I thought on that for a moment. I hated that word nigger, but I wasn’t about to lecture Mitchell concerning it right now. Instead, I said, “I wasn’t so white-looking, would you like me?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWhy not?
    â€œâ€™Cause you think you way better’n everybody else.”
    â€œNow, what makes you think I think that? You inside my head?”
    â€œYou know how come,” Mitchell retorted.
    â€œJust ’cause my daddy’s white and he owns this place?” I asked. “Well, I didn’t have a say about who my daddy is, and I didn’t have a say about my looking white. It’s just who I am.” I dismissed all that with a shrug and hoped Mitchell would do the same. “What else makes you think I feel like I’m better?”
    â€œYou so smart, you go on figure it out,” said Mitchell, having now said more to me than ever before without having started to pound on me.
    I thought on what he said before I spoke again. “You know, Mitchell, you way stronger’n me, and ’cause you are, there’re a whole lotta things you can do I can’t. But there’re some things I can do and you can’t, like read and write and figure. Maybe you think I feel better’n everybody else ’cause I can do those things and you can’t, so I was thinking: What if I taught you to read and write and figure? Then you’d pretty much know what I know and there wouldn’t be any reason for you to think I’m thinking I’m so smart.”
    Mitchell scowled. “What I want t’ read and write and figure for?”
    â€œâ€™Cause it’s something worth knowing,” I reasoned, “and ’cause most white folks don’t want us knowing how, ’cause once we do know, we can learn all sorts of things white folks know. You ever think why it is most white folks don’t want us to know how to read and write and figure? My daddy says it’s ’cause they need us as workers and so they don’t want us knowing much as they