Lay That Trumpet in Our Hands

Reesa meets Maryvale, known to her friends as Vaylie, the grand-niece of old Maybelle, the postmistress whose stern behavior makes her unpopular with the town’s children. The two enjoy each other’s company. Vaylie has no dolls, as Miss Maybelle had led Reesa to believe, and she is dressed just like Reesa— in shorts and a shirt, not in girly clothes. The two girls watch Ren and his friends have a rattlesnake race at their favorite hangout, the Dry Sink. They drop the snakes from sacks and watch how quickly each snake slithers in search of cover.

Afterward, Reesa and Vaylie go to Reesa’s house to play in the attic and listen to the rain. They stumble upon an old hatbox. Inside is a picture of a handsome military man and a newspaper clipping announcing his death. He turns out to be Lieutenant Richard Randall Swann, and the paper is dated 1918. He had been killed in the war. While rummaging around, the girls stumble across something shocking. It is a newspaper clipping of a wedding shower. Great Aunt Maybelle had been scheduled to marry the lieutenant before he died. This information shed new light on the grumpy old woman’s behavior, and Reesa promises herself to treat Maybelle more kindly.

Mr. Marshall and Mr. Moore become regular visitors to the McMahon household. They come for the information Warren collects; for each piece of information, Warren has located three witnesses to corroborate his findings. Reesa and Mr. Moore discuss Aristotle, the Greeks, and the idea of democracy. His visits to these parts of the country with his work for the NAACP concern voter registration.

School ends right before Memorial Day weekend, and Lizbeth insists that the family take a picnic to the beach. Reesa and Vaylie exchange letters and, through their correspondence, Reesa discovers the depth of Maybelle’s pain. Vaylie tells Reesa that her aunt’s fiancé had volunteered for the war’s last battle right before he planned to come home and Maybelle had confined herself to her room for months after his death.

While Reesa is minding the showroom, a man and twin boys in an over-sized pickup truck pull up. Reesa recognizes them as the Bowman twins; they attend the same school. A Confederate flag is emblazoned on the truck, and a gun rack is visible inside. The man asks Reesa for the advertised “all you can drink for a dime” glasses of orange juice. He calls her a Jew when she explains that they only give three glasses so tourists won’t get sick. Reesa feels terrible, but she does not fully understand why. As they pull out of the parking lot, Reesa sees the initials J.D. tooled on his belt, and remembers the name of J. D. Bowman. It dawns on Reesa that he is the man who killed Marvin.

The next day everyone learns that the Carver House Village Project for Negroes was bombed, and everyone suspects the Klan is responsible. All of Reesa’s Northern friends call to discuss their horror and to beg the family to leave until the situation settles down. Reesa reads in the paper that Mr. Marshall has made a call to J. Edgar Hoover to step in. They learn that Mr. Marshall has also made an official call for justice concerning Marvin’s murder case.

On Reesa’s thirteenth birthday, she imagines all the things she should be doing—watching their Italian neighbors cook, eating Armetta’s heavenly cake, telling stories, and dancing with Marvin. Instead, because of Marvin’s death and the recent bombings in the Black community, the McMahon family sit hushed around the radio listening for news of the bombing of St. Steven’s church. Warren wonders why the local businessmen have not cried for justice because of the loss in tourism. The only positive thought in Reesa’s head is Marvin’s beloved baseball.