35 pages • 1 hour read
Chris CroweMississippi Trial, 1955
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2002A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary
Grampa is outraged at the news of the move to Arizona and refuses to help in the process. Once Hiram and his parents make it to Tempe, they have many more children, which Hiram considers ironic, having “left the Delta in fertile Mississippi for the barren Arizona desert” (40). At first, Hiram continually begs his parents to let him return to Greenwood, which they do not allow. The fights with his own father increase and their relationship becomes strained. Finally, in April 1955, when he is almost sixteen, Grampa’s “annual invitation to Greenwood arrived” (42), but this time with the news that he had suffered a minor stroke. With this knowledge, Hiram presses harder to force his parents to allow him to go to Greenwood for the summer. His father disapproves but ultimately allows it, based on his wife’s coaxing. Hiram’s father leaves him with a warning that now that he’s older, he will see and realize things about Greenwood that he had not before, and that he’s “sorry for what you’ll see” (44).
Chapter 5 Summary
Hiram realizes that he does not remember Mississippi as well as he thought he would. When he arrives at the train station, Ruthanne is there to greet him and she likens him to his father, which Hiram dismisses saltily. He meets her nephew, Bobo (Emmett Till), who is visiting from Chicago. The boys make small talk on the walk to the truck. As Ruthanne and Hiram drive away, he sees a young blonde girl, and Ruthanne tells him it is none other than Naomi Rydell. Hiram hopes that she will remember him when he sees her face to face. When they arrive back at the house, his memory is flooded by the good, warm memories of the past. Hiram and Grampa do not discuss Hiram’s father. Instead, they sit down to dinner and Hiram feels at home again.
Chapter 6 Summary
In his first full day back in Greenwood, Hiram gets up early for breakfast then goes out exploring, noticing that not much has changed. He gets caught in conversation with Ralph Remington, who mistakes him for his father, calling him Harlan, though Hiram keeps correcting him. After their confusing and frustrating conversation, Hiram heads out for a solo fishing excursion and peacefully falls asleep under a tree. He is woken up by violent splashing in the river and realizes someone is drowning. He dives in to help the struggling victim, needing to knock him out in order to bring him to the banks. He recognizes the boy as Ruthanne’s nephew, Bobo/Emmett. When he arrives home, he does not tell anyone about what happened, and explains his wet clothes to just clumsily falling in to the river while trying to undo a snag on his line. He and Grampa head out to the River Cafe for lunch and his Grampa is surprised that Hiram does not know about the debate over desegregation happening in the Supreme Court, assuming his father would have told him about it, and feeling “happier than a pig in mud about all that craziness” (66-67). Feeling exhausted by the events of the day, Hiram hopes they will run into some of his Grampa’s friends at lunch to distract him and keep the tension about the Supreme Court case from agitating him further.
Chapters 4-6 Analysis
Hiram is just as upset as his Grampa about leaving Greenwood, but his father is adamant that he cannot stay. Hiram is unable to understand why this is the case and he only sees the unfairness of it all and blames his father for this unhappiness in his life. He renews his request every year to go spend the summer there, and it is only granted after Grampa has a stroke and needs the extra assistance. Hiram’s mother seems to want to maintain the relationship between Grampa and Hiram, despite her husband’s wishes otherwise. Hiram’s return to Mississippi brings with it the observations that his childlike memory is not quite in line with his adult one, and he starts to see the town he had always loved and cherished from a different vantage point. Though he tries to retrace the paths of familiarity, there is a continual tension as he witnesses more and more just how much his Grampa is involved in the politics of the South and what they stand for.
Much to his irritation, Hiram is continually compared and likened to his father, which he initially resents, seeing himself as his Grampa’s boy. After he saves Emmett from drowning in the river and they chat for a bit afterwards, Hiram sees him just like any other regular teenager. At the same time, he realizes that he should not reveal this encounter to anyone, beyond the fact that Emmett ask that Hiram keep it a secret. Being more aware of the prejudice in the air, Grampa’s own griping about the issue of segregation makes Hiram feel tense and he wants to discuss anything else but that. Though he does not understand it fully, he is becoming more aware of the state of things in the South, and realizes that he should avoid any hot-button issues that could cause a disturbance in the home he so desperately wished to return to after so long.
