I walked downhill and into the Square and across to the store. (There were two or three men and a boy there this morning, unusual for that hour: about 7:30. I did not speak to them of course; I do not know any of them. None work my land.)

When I returned home with the paper, just as usual, I went into the study and began to read and then, all at once, there it was, something I now realize I have been waiting to see (I hasten to add I did not ever think I would see it, or know what it would look like, but seeing it once was knowing it), tucked high on the twentieth page above advertisements for women’s summer suits and girdles, to the managing editor only one step above a filler, but to me, had I made up the paper today, important enough for page one-column eight, heralded perhaps with type as large as was used to headline the Pearl Harbor Attack. I have clipped it and pasted it below:

FIRE DESTROYS FARM

Set By Owner?

Sutton, May 30—A fire razed the house of farmer Tucker Caliban, two miles north of here—and none of the thirty-odd spectators made any effort to extinguish it. Witnesses stated the fire was started deliberately by Caliban, a Negro, himself.

Those interviewed said they had watched Caliban most of the day as he salted his own land, shot his animals, destroyed several pieces of furniture, and then, at eight in the evening, went inside and set his own house ablaze. Then, they asserted, he walked away without explanation.

Caliban was not available for comment.

I am sure this article meant very little to anyone else. But in light of what Tucker told me, the feelings he expressed, this is very meaningful at least to him, and to myself. He has freed himself; this had been very important to him. But somehow, he has freed me too. He is only one man, and this, of course, does not make a reality all the things I had dreamed of doing twenty years ago. But it is something. And I contributed to it. I sold him the land and the house. I doubt if he knew what he was going to do when he bought it that night last summer, but that does not matter. Yesterday, his act of renunciation was the first blow against my twenty misspent years, twenty years I have wasted feeling sorry for myself. Who would have thought such a humble, primitive act could teach something to a so-called educated man like myself?

Anyone, anyone can break loose from his chains. That courage, no matter how deeply buried, is always waiting to be called out. All it needs is the right coaxing, the right voice to do that coaxing, and it will come roaring like a tiger.

Tuesday, September 22, 1931: