CHAPTER 1
Bernice and Mary lived together on a dusty road called Bradford Way in a little rural community just east of Memphis, Tennessee called Leesville. Their closest neighbors to the north were the Leigh family, who lived on a hill about two city blocks away. The neighbors to the south were the Andersons, who were nearly three city blocks away. In back of Mary’s house lived the Jeffries, a bit more comfortable financially than the others, yet genuinely kind people; a sprinkling of other families lived within a one-mile radius on all sides, and there was the small store that everyone frequented up in the town of Leesville.
On the north side of town lived predominantly white people. And on the south side of town lived predominantly black people. There was only one school in Leesville for all of Leesville's black children; it was a large brick building that consisted of first through twelfth grades. The other school in Leesville was attended by white children. The black children that lived in the rural area of Leesville were either driven to school in a car or they were picked up by school bus and taken there. The Leigh' children were driven by bus.
In all, the families surrounding Mary and Bernice got along well and maintained a respectable distance between themselves. Everyone was pleased with his or her ability to keep out of the other’s business. They all had been acquainted with each other for many years, and they supported one another in good times and bad. Their properties had been handed down from generation to generation, and no one ever spoke of moving away or selling out. Leesville was their home forever. Often they could be heard saying to each other (and to anyone that would listen) that “We was born here and we goin’ die here!” And they meant it.
In fact, Bernice was the only one in that small community who had never made such a statement. She knew the world was much larger than Leesville and she aimed to explore it one day.
Many years prior, Bernice had set out to separate herself from the others in the community by way of her dialect. She had taken great pains to perfect her speech every since she was a little girl. She mimicked her grammar school teachers in their speech because she felt it sounded so much richer, more sophisticated than everyone else’s dialect. In high school, she continued to study her teachers closely in their speech, strengthening her knowledge even more. And now she commanded the English language the way she felt everyone should command it. It was no secret that her eyes were on a bigger, brighter prize in life.