The Land by Mildred D. Taylor

do?”
    â€œMainly they talk about our daddy and say how our whole family cotton to Negroes.” Robert moved away from me then, and though I hated to admit it, he seemed embarrassed.
    â€œYou let them just talk about our daddy?” I questioned.
    Robert turned quickly. “Course not! Gotten into more than one fight ’cause of what they said!”
    Now it was I who studied him. “You tell our daddy?”
    â€œWhat for? He’d figure for me to take care of the Waverlys myself, just like you had to do that time about Mitchell and those other boys. Thing is, though, that school is hard enough as it is, and it just makes things worse for them to go around spreading their stories the way they do.”
    â€œI suppose things aren’t all that good for either one of us right now,” I said.
    Robert agreed. “Wish we could’ve both just stayed here.”
    â€œI know. But, Robert . . . I don’t figure that’ll ever be again.”
    I took Robert’s advice about Jessie Pinter, and when I went back to Macon, I told her the story Robert had told me. I told her stories too that I hadn’t heard from Robert, but were stories that were spoken in low voices in the fields and around late-night fires. I told that girl Jessie that if she thought of me as her friend, then she needed just to leave me alone. I was there to study and learn, not there to be friends with anybody. She listened to me and turned away, and made a point from then on of speaking to me only when necessary.
    During this time I was staying in Macon, I got to go home about once every couple of months. My daddy, George, or Hammond, if they were home, or sometimes a field hand who worked my daddy’s land, would come to get me. That first year I was away, I was always looking forward to going home because I was so homesick. My daddy always tried to arrange for Robert and me to come home at the same time, and when we saw each other, we would talk the night away, filling each other in on all that was happening in our lives. When the summertime came after the first year, Robert got to spend the whole summer at home, but I could only stay a few days at a time because of my apprenticing. But then there came a long string of weeks that I couldn’t go home at all. Josiah Pinter said there was too much work to be done, and he needed me. He wrote my daddy and said he’d bring me down himself as soon as the work let up. Well, Josiah Pinter did take me home, but by the time he did, Robert had gone back to school, and I didn’t hear from him regular like I had the school year before. He wrote only once, a short letter, and said his schoolwork kept him busy. When I finally did see Robert again, he filled me in on the Waverlys. “You know they lost their mama a month or so back.”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œThey were out of school for a few weeks.”
    â€œWell, you weren’t writing, so I didn’t know. Were they any better when they came back?”
    â€œâ€™Bout the same.”
    â€œThen they’re still giving you a hard time.”
    â€œOh, they’re not so bad,” said Robert.
    â€œWhat do you mean, not so bad? What’s not so bad about them?”
    â€œWell . . . I mean they just regular fellas.”
    â€œRegular fellas?” I stared at my brother, then murmured, “Uh-huh,” in a way we both understood. Robert looked at me too and turned away. We said no more about the Waverlys.
    The next time I got to go home, it was Christmas Eve and Josiah Pinter again took me. My daddy wasn’t on the place when I arrived, but would be coming soon. Cassie and Howard were expected, and George and Hammond too. It was going to be a grand Christmas. I was told Robert was already home. “Well, where is he?” I asked my mama.
    My mama looked at me as if she wasn’t too happy about my asking about Robert. “He went off with them Waverly