However, the rain also brings the nightriders, which Cassie sees and is frightened by. The Logan children fear that the nightriders are after them, trying to get revenge for the bus incident. The rain is a bad omen and creates an atmosphere of fear and worry. It is during the rain that Mr Tatum is tarred and feathered by the nightriders.
In chapter 5, the rain has gone but at the beginning of chapter 6, it says that ‘the night was a thick blackness and smelled of coming rain’. This adds tension and anticipation of bad things to come, as last time there was rain the night men rode.
The arrival of Uncle Hammer adds friction to the situation, as the whites do not like to see a successful black person. The weather is getting colder, which is indicated by Uncle Hammer’s gift of a coat to Stacey. At Christmas, it is very cold and the family huddle round the warmth of a fire in their home. But it is only cosy inside the house and outside the chill of racism is everywhere. Only inside the family home is everything snug. Cassie has experienced that reality is different to the Logan family’s safe environment during her trip to Strawberry.
On a particularly cold day at school when Cassie is send from her front seat near the stove to the back of the class, Mama is fired from teaching and the Logan family’s troubles escalate. At the same time the Logan children reject T.J. because he is responsible for Mama being sacked. It is then that T.J. starts hanging around with R.W. and Melvin which leads to more trouble.
When Great Faith School dismiss it is spring. Spring is always an optimistic time. Cassie says that ‘rain-drenched, fresh, vital, full of life, spring enveloped us all.’ Things seem to be looking up to Cassie; school is out, ‘Lillian Jean ain’t so persnickety’ and T.J.’s so-called friends aren’t so nice to him behind his back, which Cassie likes. When Mr Jamison asks how Mama is she says she is “Just fine” but things are not fine and perhaps Cassie is under an illusion that everything is “Just fine”.
Papa and Mr Morrison go to Vicksburg to buy provisions for the black families. The day they are due back, the rest of the Logan family waiting for their return. Tension is building up, it has begun to rain heavily and thunder is rumbling. The thunder especially warns you of what is coming. When fears are made reality a strong link is then made between storms and danger. Throughout the rest of the book you know that thunder means danger.
The next mention of weather is in August when ‘the heat swooped over the land, clinging like an invisible shroud. The land is dry from lack of rain and there is anticipation in the air because rain ‘occasionally threatened but did not come’. You get the idea that everyone is waiting for the rain to come and yet there is mystery, as you do not know what the rain will bring.
More tension is added with mentions of the weather like ‘the air felt close, suffocating, and no wind stirred’ and by Papa saying “It’s gonna storm all right…but it may not come till late on over in the night.” People know there’s a storm coming but they don’t know when it will come. This represents the situation with the nightriders. The black community know that they are going to strike and anything could trigger this but they do not know when they will strike. Uncle Hammer says that, “It gets hot like this and folks get dissatisfied with life, they start looking round for somebody to take it out on.”
That night it is muggy, hot and there is distant thunder. Something is definitely about to happen. When T.J. arrives at the Logan house you know something is wrong. As the Logan children return T.J. to his house, ‘the thunder was creeping closer’. This makes you aware that what happened to T.J. was just the distant thunder, the actual storm was still to come.
As Cassie, Little Man and Christopher-John run home ‘Thunder crashed across the corners of the world and lightening split the sky.’ The storm has arrived. When Papa is made aware of the situation, it seems the only way to stop what is happening is to use his shotgun but as he watches the storm an idea comes to him. Papa uses the weather to stop the ‘storm’. Without the lightening, T.J. would have almost certainly have been hanged.
Now that T.J. has been handed over to the law to be dealt with fairly the whole community, blacks and whites, must stop the fire from reaching the forest and burning too much cotton. As Jeremy Simms put it, “One thing would sure help though is if that ole rain would only come on down” and, as if on cue the rain arrives. The next morning, things have settled down and nothing drastic will happen, the weather is also settled, the fire is out and the storm has passed.
As you can probably see now, the whole book is based upon the weather. It is a key factor in many events and without it, this story would not be at all the same.