A Land More Kind than Home

“I knew that if I told the truth about how I’d gotten that splinter then I’d have to tell the truth about what I saw them doing to Stump, and then I might’ve found myself telling her about how the rain barrel got broken and about how pink and wrinkled Pastor Chambliss’s body looked when he came around the corner of the house with no shirt on. […] I wished I could go back and stop myself from seeing all the things that I’d seen in the past two days, but I knew there wasn’t no way that I could undo any of that now, no matter how bad I wanted to.”

In keeping with the theme of The Danger of Secrets and Silence, Jess recognizes that one secret begets another—he finds himself trapped in a series of secrets, each one serving the purpose of covering up the previous one. None of the information that Jess is hiding is his fault, but he fears the repercussions of possessing it.

“‘Maybe God doesn’t want Stump to say nothing else. You tell us all the time that nobody can ever know God’s will.’

‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘You can’t. But the Lord doesn’t play no tricks. Evil plays tricks, and there ain’t room for evil in this family.’

I kept my head back on the seat and swallowed hard even though I knew I wasn’t swallowing nothing but air, and I tried to keep myself from getting sick. I felt my forehead start sweating because I knew that Mama would tell me that I was evil for being the one who hollered out for her and then letting her believe that it was Stump. It didn’t matter whether she knew it was me or not, I felt evil just the same.”

Jess holds himself responsible for Stump’s safety, certain that any future harm that comes to Stump will be the result of Jess’s violation of his mother’s order not to spy on adults. Jess is too young to understand that the circumstances he finds himself in are not his fault and that he has accidentally obtained knowledge that the adults in his life are attempting to keep from one another.

“I was afraid because I knew that church, and I knew the man who ran it as if he thought he was Jesus Christ himself, and some of those people who went to that church believed Carson Chambliss just might be. People out in these parts can take hold of religion like it’s a drug, and they don’t want to give it up once they’ve got hold of it. It’s like it feeds them, and when they’re on it they’re likely to do anything these little backwoods churches tell them to do.”

Here, Sheriff Barefield speaks directly to the theme of The Influence of Religious Fervor. He recognizes the potential danger that comes with the power that the church’s pastor holds and implies the pastor’s inflated sense of self-importance through the allusion to Jesus. Throughout the novel, Barefield is careful to allow the church its freedom to practice but also seeks to keep his community safe.