Let the Circle Be Unbroken by Mildred D. Taylor

looked from Mr. Jamison’s hand to his face, then back to his hand again. “Well . . . black.”
    “Mrs. Barnett, since you yourself said that you saw no features of the men, but that they were definitely black, do you think that it was possible that the men could have been wearing stockings? Black stockings?”
    A murmur rose in the courtroom.
    “That perhaps the men who fought with your husband, who killed him, might not have been black at all, but white men wearing black stockings so that you would think that they
were
black?”
    A wave of disbelief rose and crescendoed as Judge Have-shack wildly pounded his gavel and threatened repercussions until all was quiet again. Then he glowered down at Mr. Jamison. “Now, Wade, you know all that’s supposition. You got no right to ask this witness to testify to what was in the minds of her attackers.”
    Mr. Jamison nodded. “Then Mrs. Barnett, tell me this. Without having seen any of their features—noses, mouths, eyes, hair—only the blackness of their faces, can you swear that the men who killed your husband were Negroes? Before God Almighty, can you swear that?”
    Mrs. Barnett stared at Mr. Jamison. Doubt had set in. She stared at the stocking still covering Mr. Jamison’s hand, then up at Mr. Jamison. She puckered her lips, wet them, and answered: “No, I can’t say that I can. I surely can’t. . . .”
    R. W. Simms and Melvin Simms followed Mrs. Barnett on the witness stand. Both testified that they had seen T.J. and two other Negroes running from the back of the Barnett Mercantile when they had come into town to shoot pool at Courtney Jones’ place. When asked by Mr. Macabee why they hadn’t become suspicious and stopped them, they told the court that they had recognized T.J., whom they had once befriended, and T.J. had told them that he and the other Negroes had just come from Ike Foster’s shed, where they had been playing cards and had been accused of cheating. They claimed, according to R.W. and Melvin, that they were fleeing with their winnings.
    R.W. laughed. “At the time, I thought it was nigger business. Let them take care of it. . . .”
    To our surprise, Mr. Jamison did not question R.W. or Melvin, but passed over them with what he called the right to recall.
    Mr. Macabee then called the white farmer who had given T.J. a ride back from Strawberry in his wagon on the night of the break-in. He testified that he had picked T.J. up shortly after nine o’clock on Soldiers Road, and that T.J. had told him he was coming from Strawberry. Mr. Jamison asked the farmer if he had noticed whether or not T.J. had been hurt. The farmer said that T.J. had been hurt and that he had said two men had beaten him, but had not said who. Following the farmer, Sheriff Hank Dobbs testified that the gun Mrs. Barnett had earlier identified as having come from her store had been found by Clyde Persons, a citizen of the town deputized to apprehend the thieves.
    “Deputy, my foot!” I grumbled. “Ole Clyde Persons was one of them lynchmen.”
    “Hush, Cassie,” Stacey ordered. I hushed.
    Clyde Persons was called, and testified that he had indeed found the pearl-handled pistol in T.J.’s corn-husk mattress. Next Dr. Crandon told of Jim Lee Barnett’s and Mrs. Barnett’s conditions when he arrived on the scene. He described Mr. Barnett’s head injury, what treatment he had administered, and told the time of death.
    With his testimony the prosecution rested its case, and Mr. Jamison stood up. “I’d like to call T.J. Avery to the stand,” he said.
    All the fidgeting that had gone on during the last testimonies ceased, and all grew quiet. The faces of the boys around me were tense, anxious, waiting. I stopped breathing as T.J. stood. He looked around the courtroom, bewildered, as if too afraid to move. Mr. Jamison nodded to him; T.J. moved mechanically to the witness stand. He was sworn in, then sat down.
    Mr. Jamison started his questioning of T.J. by