The Land by Mildred D. Taylor Page B

am, Cassie Logan. I was miserable, and I was just like you. I got to blaming our mama and our daddy for my misery. Well, not so much our mama, but our daddy. I blamed him for treating me like I was somebody, like I would be treated the same away from this place as he’d treated me here. I was his daughter, but I could never be a part of his world off this place. I was pretty bitter the way I turned my resentment on him, and every time he came to see me, I let him know it too. Then I met Howard at a church social.”
    â€œTalking about me?” Howard Milhouse had come in the back door. He had a broken bridle in his hands. Howard was a good-looking young man of medium height and yellow-hued skin. He was quiet-spoken, yet a perfect match to Cassie’s outspokenness. Cassie said that in any dispute Howard would sit back quietly while she ranted her views, and once she was tired of talking to herself, he would settle the argument with just a few words spoken. The two of them smiled at each other as only lovers do, and I was happy for my sister.
    â€œJust looking for some leather to tie this together,” he said, holding out the bridle. “Figured maybe I could mend it.”
    Howard liked to keep busy when he came, and was always looking for something to do. He couldn’t sit idle. Maybe that’s what made him such a good businessman.
    â€œI was just telling Paul about when I first went to Atlanta,” said Cassie. “About how folks treated me up there.”
    Howard nodded as he looked through an open tin of odds and ends my mama kept on a shelf. “You tell him that’s how we come to meet?”
    â€œTold him where we met. At that church social.”
    Howard glanced back at Cassie. “But you didn’t tell him why I got my courage up and came over to talk to you?”
    â€œWell, no. I didn’t go into all that.”
    â€œWell, Paul,” said Howard, still looking through the tin, “there were some ladies who were saying some unkind things about our Cassie—mean little jealous kinds of things. They weren’t saying them to Cassie, but within her hearing. I took one look at Cassie, and I knew she was about to explode. So, before hair got to flying and clothes got to ripping right there in the Lord’s house, I went over and started talking to her. I calmed her down and got her out of there.”
    â€œHe did that, all right,” confirmed Cassie, “and just in time too. I was about to let those girls have it, Lord’s house or not, ’cause of what they were saying about our mama and our daddy and how I came to be.”
    â€œLucky for me you did come to be,” said Howard with a grin, then held up a piece of leather string he’d found in the tin as if it were a prize, and went back out.
    â€œI like him,” I said.
    Cassie smiled. “So do I.”
    â€œThings are better for you now in Atlanta, right?”
    â€œOh, yes. Not perfect, but better. Folks who don’t know about me still shy away if they’re colored, and if they’re white, I don’t try to pass. It’s always awkward with them, but they’re the ones who have to live with it. Now I’ve got Howard and his family, and they love me and I love them. Folks are getting to know who I am, and I’ve made friends.”
    I nodded. “Still, what you had to go through, the way I’m being treated now, if our mama and daddy hadn’t been together, things would be different.”
    â€œYeah, a whole lot different,” Cassie agreed with a laugh. “We wouldn’t be here!”
    I didn’t laugh. I frowned at her. “You know what I mean.”
    Cassie studied me. “When you were a little boy, you never thought this way.”
    â€œWhen I was a little boy, I still had a lot to learn.”
    â€œAnd you still do. You’ve got a lot to learn about a man and a woman and what goes on between them. You’ve got a