White Lilacs

Rose Lee spends the next few weeks sketching the buildings in Freedom. The residents are impressed by her work; they compliment her, offer her drinks while she works, give her gifts to take home to Momma, and ask her if she’ll draw them a copy to keep. As people continue to move away and school approaches, she realizes she is running out of time and works every day before going to work at the Bells.

Principal Prince comes by in mid-August and brings Rose Lee a photo of last year’s graduating class. He tells her it is the only picture he has with the school in it but hopes it will help her draw the school from memory. He then informs Momma that he is not sure when school will start—he has been unable to find a new building and both teachers quit. However, Aunt Susannah interjects, offering to teach at the school. To Rose Lee’s surprise, she has decided that she likes being in Texas and is contemplating moving permanently.

Aunt Tillie interrupts their conversation, distraught. She tells them that Raymond found a job in Topeka. He plans to move with Cora there, which makes Rose Lee realize for the first time that her family will not all be staying together.

On Labor Day, the citizens of Freedom decide to travel to The Flats, where they plan to build their new homes, and bless the land. The smell is horrible, drifting over from a nearby cesspool, and the air is hot with little wind and no shade. Most of the people leave immediately after the blessing, unwilling to open their picnic baskets due to the smell and all the bugs.

The day after Labor Day, school starts for Rose Lee. Even though there is no schoolhouse, books, or supplies, Principal Prince and Susannah do their best. They gather the children each day and take them to Knights of Pythias Hall, teaching them what they know in their minds or bringing books from home. There are rumors that a new school is going to be built by the city, but Rose Lee fears that it will be near Dogtown or another bad part of Dillon.

That Sunday, Rose Lee, her family, and other members of Freedom go to The Flats and begin marking out where their new homes will go. They decide to make streets and name them after Freedom citizens who moved, like Ragsdale Avenue and Morgan Street; someone even suggests naming a street after Rose Lee’s grandfather Jim, so Rose Lee’s family makes their home on Williams Street.

While most of the residents arranged to have their old homes moved, those that already moved away leave their homes behind to be destroyed. Aunt Susannah surprises everyone when she announces that she bought Dr. Ragsdale’s house. She sold her engagement ring in St. Louis, and it was enough for a down payment.

When it comes time to move Rose Lee’s house, she stays at her grandparents. She watches as the men lay down logs, then use a team of mules to pull the house, moving the logs along underneath it to help it roll easier. She attempts to sketch the scene, struggling to draw the mules and people. When she is on the verge of giving up, her grandmother tells her that she draws “good enough to help [them] remember,” which encourages her to finish (203). She notes how it would be her last drawing of Freedom.

In total, about one-third of the families from Freedom moved their homes to The Flats. Many left, while a few ended up in Dogtown. As a result, Poppa does not have enough business to keep his barbershop open, eventually closing it down. Momma also struggles with continuing to do laundry, unable to go around Dillon to get enough clothes now that they are further away. However, when Mrs. Bell finds a new girl to serve for her, Rose Lee starts working with her uncle to drive around and pick up or drop off clothes each day, doing her best to help her mother stay in business.

Grandfather Jim slowly moves the bricks, fencing, and plants from his old garden up to The Flats. He does his best to plant a new Garden of Eden. Although Rose Lee thinks the work is “hopeless,” her grandfather insists she just needs to wait until next spring.

One afternoon, Mr. Ross, the Academy’s janitor, comes by the house. Rose Lee listens in as he offers a job to Poppa working as a janitor with him. She thinks of how hard it would be for her father to take the job after having his own business for so long, but she hears Poppa take the job.

Henry is rarely around, and when he is, Rose Lee thinks of how he seems “to have gone deeper into himself” (213). He rarely mentions Garvey or Africa anymore, and Rose Lee speculates that the tarring had an impact on him and that he is disappointed that no one fought to keep Freedom.

One night, Poppa comes home from work, shouting for Henry. Momma explains that no one has seen him in a while. Poppa tells them that he heard that Henry was disrespecting the Bell family. When Edward Bell tried to make Henry wash his car, Henry refused, instead telling him that white and Black people are equal before angrily leaving the Bells’ garden. Edward has been looking for him to “teach Henry a lesson […] since he seems to have forgotten the last one” (215). Aunt Tillie then comes in and tells them that Henry has been saying a lot, and she recommends getting him out of town as soon as they can.

That night, Rose Lee is woken by Poppa and Henry arguing. Henry insists that he is not a “slave,” and Poppa tells him that he is paid and that he should never treat anyone with disrespect, no matter how they treat him. Henry initially refuses to leave town but relents when his parents convince him that his actions could bring harm to the rest of his family.

The next day, Poppa plans to go to work as normal and spread the rumor that Henry is sick. Meanwhile, Henry will stay home and prepare to go to the train station and up to Topeka, where Raymond will hopefully help him find work. Unbeknownst to everyone else, Rose Lee decides that she is going to go to the Bells’ garden that day and work in Henry’s place, hoping to hear more talk about him.

At the Bells’ house, Rose Lee overhears Edward and his friend talking about going to find Henry. She then sneaks into the house and upstairs to Catherine Jane’s room. She asks Catherine Jane to borrow her dad’s car and drive Henry to their family’s farm nearby. To her surprise, Catherine Jane immediately agrees, telling Rose Lee that she has realized that the poor treatment of Black people is wrong, and she wants to be like Miss Firth and do what she can to help.

Rose Lee and Catherine Jane drive to Rose Lee’s house. They go inside and tell Momma and Poppa the plan, but they adamantly tell them no. They are afraid that both Catherine Jane and Henry will be in trouble if they are caught, with Henry potentially hanged. As they argue, Rose Lee goes into Henry’s room. She tells Henry the plan, and he too initially refuses to go. He does not want the help of a white girl. However, when a neighbor comes and tells them that Edward and his friends are planning to come for Henry now, both Henry and his parents finally agree to the plan. At the same time, Aunt Susannah comes over and tells Catherine Jane that she will ride with her.

After Henry puts his things in the car, Rose Lee goes back inside and gets her sketchbook. She gives it to Henry so he will remember where he came from and so that he can, one day, bring it back. To her surprise, Henry hugs her, and promises to bring the book back.

The night that Henry leaves, Edward and his friends drive slowly through The Flats, shouting for Henry. However, after a few nights, they stop.

On the way back from leaving Henry, Catherine Jane has car trouble, so her parents find out she was gone. However, no matter how she’s threatened, she refuses to tell them where she went.

Fall ends, then winter comes. Poppa quits his job as a janitor and attempts to start a general store but does little business. He contemplates trying to find work on the railroad. Henry stays in Topeka, and in his letters he suggests that he might be moving to Colorado, hoping to save enough money to go to Africa. Rose Lee continues to try to help her mother’s laundry business and helps at the Bell house when she can. Grandfather Jim struggles to protect his garden, as The Flats flood far more frequently than Freedom did. Rose Lee notices how he is moving much slower and struggles more with the work, but he insists on protecting his garden for spring.

Rose Lee decides to go back to Freedom to look at the town one last time. She sees the Baptist church—which could not be moved—as well as the broken-down houses that were left behind. She cries “bitter tears” at the site of her old home (234). She sees her grandfather’s former garden, imagining that it looks the way the Biblical Garden of Eden did after Adam and Even left it.

That spring, three days before Easter, Grandfather Jim becomes ill. Rose Lee rushes to the only doctor nearby, a white man in Dillon, but he refuses to come out to The Flats. Grandfather is too tired and sick with fever to make it to the doctor’s clinic and instead stays at home in his bed. In his last moments, he makes Rose Lee promise to take care of his white lilac bush.

For years after Grandfather Jim dies, Rose Lee takes care of the lilac bush. When she moves away from The Flats and starts her own family, she takes the bush with her. However, “it didn’t bloom much, not like it used to” and, eventually, “it just seemed to give up and die” (237).