Uncle Tom's Children Study Guide

Wright begins with his childhood house, literally on the wrong side of the tracks. Next to the railroad, his yard lacked greenery, being filled instead with cinders that he and his friends threw at each other in play-wars. When they try to play war with a gang of white children, the whites throw broken milk bottles. One cuts Wright on the neck, and when he complains to his mother, she beats him until he has a fever of 102 so he will never again mess around with white people. This lesson teaches Wright to detest his cinder yard, which before he had not thought of as mean or poor. He also learns to think of well-kept, green yards as symbolic of the white people he now fears. (read more)