Revenge
Stacey tells his siblings that he has a plan to get the school bus to stop splashing them. At lunch, they meet at the tool shed and grab shovels. They walk to where the bus ran them off the road and dig out a section to make it look like it was washed out. They fill up the hole with water level to the road. They are essentially creating a giant pothole that the bus driver will not be able to see, in hopes of messing up the bus.
The children return to school and wait for the afternoon. It continues to rain, and by the time school is out, there is water across the entire road, making the hole nearly impossible to see. The Logan children hide in the bushes beyond the road and wait for the bus. When the bus comes, it does hit the hole, and it cracks the axle and fills the engine with water. Much to the dismay of the white children, they have to walk home in the mud and the rain. Mr. Grimes, the bus driver, tells the students they may have to walk for weeks until the bus is fixed.
Later That Evening
At dinner that night, their mother discusses the bus getting stuck. Their mother admits she's glad it happened and the children attempt to control their laughter. Later in the evening, while the children are studying, there is a knock on the door. It is Joe Avery, T.J. and Claude's father. He warns them that, ''It's...it's them again. They's ridin' tonight.'' Mrs. Logan's face goes pale and sends the children to bed. The children are put in their rooms and in a desperate attempt to listen, they hear bits of Mr. Avery and their mother's conversation.
Mrs. Logan asks why they are riding, and Mr. Avery begins to talk about Mr. Grimes, and then the children can't hear anymore. The children are afraid that they started something by washing out the road. The children fake like they are sleeping when the adults come to check on them. Big Ma comes into Cassie's room and pulls up a chair to look out of the window.
A few hours later, Cassie wakes up and notices Big Ma is missing. She goes on the porch to look for her, slips, and lands on the family dog. After regaining her composure, she looks up and in the distance sees seven sets of headlights coming. The lead car stops, walks up the drive, and looks around. Determining that they are not in the right place, all of the cars leave and Cassie finally breathes again. Soon, she sees Mr. Morrison appear from the darkness with a shotgun. Cassie returns back to her room and eventually nods off to sleep at dawn.
Chapter 4: Cheating
Chapter Four opens with Cassie, her mother, and Big Ma together. Big Ma and her mother both know something is wrong with Cassie, but do not know it is because she saw the men outside. Cassie soon joins her brother in the living room with T.J.
T.J. is spinning a story, and the Logan children attempt to ignore him so he will get to the point faster. He states that a man named Mr. Tatum was tarred and feathered for calling a white store owner a liar. That was the reason the men were driving around the black section of town. Knowing the bus incident was not the cause greatly relieves the Logan children.
The next day, the Logans and the Averys are walking to the school. T.J. shows Stacey cheat notes he made for the test that day. Stacey tears them up and they go to school.
At the end of the day, T.J. sprints from the school building, and the Logans find out that Stacey was whipped in front of everyone by his mother for cheating. In reality, T.J. made another cheat sheet and Stacey took it from him to tear up, but the teacher saw the exchange and believed Stacey was cheating.
T.J. heads to the Wallace store and Stacey goes after him; the other Logan children reluctantly follow. Stacey finds T.J. and drags him outside, and they begin to fight. Suddenly, Mr. Morrison, a private man who currently lives on the Logan land, shows up, breaks up the fight, and takes the Logan children home. In a conversation between Mr. Morrison and Stacey, Stacey decides to tell his mother what happened.
Back at Home
When they arrive home, Mr. Granger is leaving, having asked Big Ma again for their land. She refuses, and she and Cassie go to a pond on the property, and Big Ma tells her how she met her husband and how they came to own the land. She also states she will never sell it.
When Stacey tells his mother about going to the Wallace store, she sends all of the children to their room. The next morning, she takes the children to see Mr. Berry. They see that he is severely burned and cannot talk; when they leave, Mrs. Logan reminds Stacey that the Wallaces did that to him. On the way home, Mrs. Logan stops at different farms and basically asks them to boycott the Wallace store.
Lesson Summary
In Chapters Three and Four of Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor, several things take place. The town had been without rain for two months and when it finally begins to rain, it rains for days. The Logan children dig a ditch in the road, causing the white children's bus to get stuck, another black man is tarred and feathered, and when Stacey and T.J. get in a fight, Mr. Morrison breaks it up. Cassie, the protagonist and narrator, has a really bad scare when a group of men stop outside Cassie's home while they search for someone. Stacey's mother takes him to see Mr. Berry, who has been badly burned, and on the way home asks other farmers to boycott the Wallace store.
