It was the “Star Spangled Banner.” They sung it through and started it again. By the third time, a guard stalked past our cell, muttering to himself.

Isom laughed his high cackling laugh. “Jesus God! That’s the worst song in the world!” He kicked Everett Day, who slept on the floor. “Wake up, Everett. Let’s help em.”

We waited until they reached the beginning and started in. “Oh, say can you see, by the dawn’s early light!”

A guard ran up, banged on the door. “Shut that up!”

“O-oer the la-a-and of the freeee!”

We took shifts, sung it over and over again. Isom rocked back and forth on his heels, waved his arms in time to the music.

“Aint it fun bein seditious?” he said.

“—and the ho-ome of the bra-a-ave!”

After seven or eight hours, it weren’t so much fun. We tapered off a bit, but we managed to keep it going. Finally they let us out, cussing all the time. Annadel waited in the hallway along with Roscoe Titlow, one of Ermel’s Democrat cronies. Roscoe was a short man with close-cropped gray hair and a face that looked like it had been gnawed on.

“We been here since four o’clock,” Annadel said.

Isom hooted. “Hit was the singin done it! Where’s them red colored people? I want to shake somebody’s hand.”

The Negroes was brought up shortly. We hugged and jabbered, our voices cracking.

“All right, boys,” Ermel declared. “Hit was fun. But hit werent the singin done it. Hit were Roscoe here.”

Roscoe nodded his head. “Me and the sheriff had a little talk.”

“And the sheriff live beside the jail,” Doc Booker said. “Could he hear the singin?”

“He heard it,” Roscoe admitted. “Said it was drivin him crazy.”

We cheered, slapped backs, and headed for home.

We laughed about our jail stay, even long afterwards, but we cried when we got home. They had broke into our newspaper office, smashed the press and scattered type out into the street.

“Never mind,” Ermel said. “I’ll help you start again.”

But it would be six months before we put out another edition of the Free Press. In the meantime, Isom come to me and Doc and said, “You’re right. We got to do something. And I got an idea.”

“What’s that?”

“Make me Chief of Police. Between us, we’ll make sure nobody can never come into Annadel and do this again. One thing I want to git straight, though. I aint no socialist, nor never will be. I dont care to see the government run these here mines.”

“Hell,” Doc said, “you think I want to see Woodrow Wilson in charge here? That man got his head so far up his ass he hear his heart beat.”