“Humph,” Aunt Belle said with a grunt.
This land is your land. This land is my land. Maybe that’s why the ninth-grade teacher wanted the class to do a patriotic play and sing that song. Perhaps she, like Papa, considered Mississippi home. This land was her land as much as it was any white person’s land. Mississippi. This land was my land too. And I had a right not to let anybody chase me away from it the way they had done Mama and Mr. Pete. All that land. And he sold it to rent something called an apartment.
A battle raged within me. What if I remained in Mississippi and never became more than a field worker or some white woman’s maid? What if I never finished school? I admired Papa for his strength. For his contentment. But I couldn’t emulate it. I knew I could never be happy living in a shack on some white man’s cotton plantation. Nor could I be happy living in a town where I had to look down at the ground whenever I saw a white person approaching. I couldn’t be happy living in a place where I was made to feel less than human. Either things had to change in Mississippi, or I had to leave it. Someday.
“What about me, Papa?” I asked. “What did you think when I was born?”
A smile spread across Papa’s face. But before he could speak, Aunt Belle chimed in. “I rememberth when thu were born,” she said, smiling.
Monty patted her hand and said, “Rest that jaw, baby.”
“Soon as old Addie left the room, Belle ran in there to see you. You was as pink as you could be,” Papa said, laughing. “Belle begged Anna Mae to call you Rose.”
“You did?” I asked Aunt Belle.
She nodded and said, “Rotha. I called you Rotha.”
“Rosa?” I asked.
Aunt Belle smiled and nodded.
“How did it get to be Rose?” I asked.
“Pearl,” Papa answered briskly. “She said Rosa wadn’t a real name.” He paused and chuckled. “Old Addie wrote Rosa on the birth record anyway,” he said, “no matter how many times Pearl told her your name was Rose.”
“She still calls me that,” I said. “Hallelujah, too.”
“Rosa,” Monty piped in. “It’s Italian. Comes from Rose of Viterbo, a saint from Italy. But the name also means ‘dew.’”
“Like the stuff on the grass in the morning?” I asked.
Monty nodded. “Like the dew in the morning, gently refreshing the earth. The bearers of this name tend to want to analyze and understand the world. They search for deeper truths than simply what’s on the surface.” He winked at me and said, “Rosa. I like that. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, right?”
I smiled. Maybe having a walking, talking Encyclopedia Britannica as an uncle wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Monty turned to Papa. “Mr. Carter, why isn’t this girl in school?”
Papa fumbled for words. He removed his pipe from his mouth and, staring at the ceiling, scratched his chin, which I doubted even itched.
During the past three weeks, while I watched Queen and Fred Lee rise and dress for school and I dressed for the field, I had wondered the same thing: Why wasn’t Papa fighting for my right to be in school? Why was he allowing Ma Pearl to force me to settle for only a seventh-grade education when he himself had regarded education important enough to teach himself to read and write? I had asked him about it only once, and he’d replied that I was where I was needed most. It turned out he had the same reply for Monty.
“Rose is where I needs her most right now,” he said. But then he added, “She’ll go to school, soon as the harvest is in.”
My eyebrows shot up. “I will?”
Papa nodded and said, “You will.”
“I won’t have to stay home and help Ma Pearl?”
Papa shook his head. “Pearl’ll be a’right. The good Lawd’ll send her the help she need.”
Tears rushed to my eyes. I was going to school when the cotton was picked. I might be late starting, but at least I was going. I wanted to rush to Papa and hug him. But that was something I’d never done before, and I knew I was too old to start. So I simply whispered a choked “Thank you.”
But Monty sat up straight on the sofa. “Mr. Carter, on my many drives throughout this county, I’ve seen plenty of Negro men who could take Rose’s place in that field. These men have nothing better to do than play checkers in front of a country store.”
Papa placed his pipe back in his mouth. “Them mens expects to be paid.”
“Then pay them,” Monty said.
Papa glared at Monty. “I already hired all the extras I could afford. I can’t hire no mo’.”