Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry: Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

The weather becomes rainier, making the walk to school muddier and tougher for the black children. The white school bus driver, however, purposefully tries to splash the Logan children on their walk to school. Little Man is especially upset because he’s so meticulous and clean, but Mama explains that the county doesn’t provide much for its black students—most of the money supporting the black schools comes from black churches, and their church cannot afford a bus.

One particularly rainy, miserable day, the children are walking to school, and they think that they hear the bus behind them. They climb onto the bank, but it turns out it’s just Harlan Granger’s car going past—Stacey suggests waiting for the bus to pass as well, since they’re already on the bank, and it will be difficult to get away farther up the road. T.J. convinces them that they should just keep walking so that they can get to school and get out of the rain. Once they start walking though, the school bus comes and narrowly misses hitting the Logans and T.J., who attempt to jump into the bank. However, they all miss and end up in the muddy gully instead. Stacey, furious, promises Little Man that this won’t happen again, at least not for a long time.

Jeremy Simms sees the Logans coming and tries to greet them, but Stacey takes his anger out on him. Jeremy stammers that he likes the Logans, but they all ignore him. Cassie realizes that Jeremy never rides the bus either, no matter how bad the weather is.

Stacey tells his siblings to meet him at the toolshed at noon, as he has a plan to make the bus stop splashing them. He doesn’t include T.J. or Claude though, since he doesn’t trust them to keep quiet. At lunchtime, the Logans grab shovels and buckets from the toolshed and head to the spot where the bus forced them off the road in the morning. They dig a huge ditch, making it look as though the rain washed away the road. After school, they run and hide near the ditch in order to see what happens. Sure enough, the bus gets stuck and the white kids have to walk to and from school for the next two weeks as the bus gets repairs done.

At home, Mama tells Big Ma about the bus incident. She’s glad no one was hurt, but she admits that she’s glad it happened. The entire family begins to laugh. The Logan children continue to giggle throughout the evening, unable to hold in their laughter and triumph. Mama separates them so that they can complete their assignments for school.

Someone knocks on the door, and Mama answers it to see Joe Avery, looking very nervous. He warns them that “They’s ridin’ t’night.” Mama and Big Ma look scared and send the children to bed, despite the children’s protests. Cassie sneaks into the boys’ room so that she can eavesdrop on the conversation with them. They hear that the “night men” are riding. One of the men Mr. Avery mentions is the white school’s bus driver, which convinces Cassie that the night men are coming after the Logans. Stacey tells the rest of them that they can’t ever tell anybody else about the bus incident.

Cassie returns to her room and pretends to sleep as Big Ma enters the room. Big Ma starts searching for something under the bed, and Cassie hears Stacey ask Mama if he can help with whatever’s the matter. Mama thanks Stacey but sends him back to bed. Big Ma soon joins Mama in the room outside, and she brings a rifle with her. Later, Big Ma returns and sits in the chair by the window. Cassie falls asleep and when she wakes again, Big Ma is gone. Cassie hears a noise on the porch and goes to investigate, but she falls off the porch. She sees a couple cars pull up onto their driveway, and she freezes, terrified. However, it looks as if they have the wrong house, and they pull out of the driveway again and leave. Cassie goes back to bed.