Section 1
- A well-dressed young African American man is sitting in a prison cell, smoking cigarettes and giving a census taker information about himself.
- He's Samuel Worsham Beauchamp, 26, from Jefferson, Mississippi. Beauchamp—now that sounds familiar.
- He says his grandmother, Molly Worsham Beauchamp, raised him, and that she lives on Carothers Edmonds's farm.
- Wait, does he mean Molly Beauchamp, Lucas Beauchamp's wife? Even though Lucas's wife's name was spelled "Molly" in "The Fire and the Hearth," and "Mollie" in this one, yes, they're the same person.
- We infer from the conversation that Samuel Beauchamp is going to be executed, possibly for killing a cop.
- The census taker leaves, and the man gets taken back to his cell.
- Sounds like we need to brace ourselves for a difficult final story.
Section 2
- The same hot July morning, in some unnamed place (which we later realize is Jefferson), county attorney and amateur bible scholar Gavin Stevens (Phi Beta Kappa, Harvard, and Ph.D. from Heidelberg, since we know you were dying to know his credentials, pronto) is sitting in his office.
- His visitor is Molly Worsham Beauchamp, tiny, withered, and very old.
- She tells Stevens that she knows her grandson's in trouble even though she hasn't heard from him in five years. A grandmother's intuition, not to be doubted.
- She also says, "Roth Edmonds sold my Benjamin. Sold him in Egypt. Pharaoh got him." This is something she'll keep repeating throughout the story.
- Molly plans to stay in town with her brother Hamp Worsham, and it turns out Stevens knows who Hamp is.
- Stevens thinks to himself that he's not surprised Molly and Hamp turn out to be related. After all, he thinks, "they," meaning all African Americans, "were like that."
- Like what? He means all related. Stevens sounds at best paternalistic and at worst racist.
- Stevens reminisces:
- Five, six years ago, "Butch" (i.e. Samuel) Beauchamp's papers had come to his desk.
- Butch is Molly's daughter's child, orphaned at birth and deserted by his father, raised by grandma. (This was probably not Nat, but another daughter.)
- At nineteen, Roth Edmonds threw Butch off the farm after being caught stealing.
- He got in trouble with the law, got in jail, broke out of jail, and disappeared until now.
- Stevens thinks, I'm supposed to find and save a guy like this?
- He drops by the county newspaper office to see if the editor has any news of Samuel. He does.
- News from Joliet, Illinois has just arrived: a Samuel Worsham Beauchamp of Mississippi is going to be executed for the murder of a Chicago policeman.
- Stevens goes back to the office.
- He has a new visitor: Miss Worsham, an old white lady, who lives by herself with the help of Hamp Worsham, who's actually the descendent of one of her father's slaves.
- She's concerned about Molly, who was born in the same month as her and grew up with her like sisters.
- Stevens says nothing can be done. Samuel Beauchamp had a fair trial, confessed to his crime, and will be executed that night.
- Miss Worsham says Molly must not find out from the newspaper, as she'll be devastated.
- Stevens replies that the newspaper editor promised to not print anything, and maybe if they send Molly home, they can break the bad news in a few months.
- Miss Worsham will have nothing of this idea. It sounds like she wants to tell Molly right away that Samuel's dead.
- They agree that Molly will want to take Samuel's body with her to the plantation.
- Miss Worsham wants to defray the cost of transporting the body from Illinois.
- Stevens decides to lie to her about how much it will actually cost (about $200), and says it will be about $10-12. She gives him $25, way more than she can afford.
- Miss Worsham says she'll tell Molly herself. Stevens asks if he should also talk to Molly that night, and she says yes, and leaves.
- Stevens goes over to the newspaper editor and says they're bringing the body home. They, as in, "Miss Worsham and you and me and some others" (7.2.42).
- He's saying, basically, that this has to be a community effort.
- The editor isn't thrilled with the idea, but he says he can't help himself, so he'll chip in. Stevens goes to other merchants, clerks, doctors, and lawyers, and collects donations.
- In case you're thinking what a nice communal effort this is, well, as always in this book, it's not as simple as that.
- Stevens asks for the money, saying, "It's to bring a dead n***** home. It's for Miss Worsham" (7.2.50). For the white lady, that is.
- That night, Stevens visits Miss Worsham's impoverished home at the outskirts of town, and ends up walking into Butch Beauchamp's wake.
- Molly and her brother Hamp are rocking and loudly chanting that the Pharaoh got her Benjamin, and that Roth sold her Benjamin in Egypt.
- A little freaked out, Stevens feels like he's suffocating and goes outside.
- When Miss Worsham comes out to see him off, he apologizes for interrupting.
- Miss Worsham explains that it's just the way they express their grief. "Our grief," she says.
- The next day, a hearse and two cars are waiting for the train.
- And then, a dozen cars appear. Unexpectedly, about fifty people, both black and white, show up.
- The train comes, the casket's loaded onto the hearse, and the funeral procession drives to the town square.
- They circle the Confederate monument at the square, as the people who paid for this look on, and start heading to the plantation.
- When they cross the town limits, Stevens and the editor turn around their car to head back to town.
- The editor tells Stevens that Molly asked the editor to put it all in the newspaper.
- Stevens thinks to himself: it doesn't matter to Molly how her grandson died, now that it's all over and she couldn't stop it.
- All she wanted was for his body to come home and ride through town behind the hearse, with the respect due anyone who's died, regardless of why or how they died.
- That's one way of looking at it.
- (More on that later.)