Sojourner
- Meridian and Anne-Marion are attempting to lead Wild Child's funeral procession to the campus chapel. Unfortunately, several guards are blocking entry.
- They're standing near the Sojourner, "the largest magnolia tree in the country" (1.3.28). This tree has one heck of a story—it begins with a slave named Louvinie.
- Louvinie was born in West Africa to a family of storytellers and soothsayers. After being kidnapped and brought to America, Louvinie used her family's scariest stories to entertain the slave master's kids.
- These stories are really scary. So scary, in fact, that they cause one of the owner's kids to have a heart attack and die. Whoops. Mr. Saxon (Louvinie's owner and namesake of the college) cuts out Louvinie's tongue in retribution.
- Louvinie performs a mystical ritual on the detached tongue, burying it "under a scrawny magnolia tree on the Saxon Plantation" (1.3.37). That little guy would someday become the mighty Sojourner.
- The Sojourner is legendary among the students. Some people say that the tree makes beautiful music; some say that it's a sanctuary for students worried about being pregnant; others say it's just a great spot to hook up with a local hunk.
- The funeral procession is still stalled at the chapel. By now, most of the non-students—working-class folks who lived near the Wild Child—have gone home embarrassed.
- Finally, after burying Wild Child in an off-campus, black-only cemetery, the students riot. Sadly, the only thing that is destroyed is "that might, ancient, sheltering music tree" called the Sojourner (1.3.55).