Barracoon

Cudjo can’t take any action against the man who kills his son, both because the man is a deputy sheriff and because he has recently been involved in a railroad accident.

On the morning of the accident, Cudjo decides to plant beans in his garden. He asks Seely to come and help him, instructing her to drop the seeds while he covers them with dirt. After some time, she says that he doesn’t actually need her to help, he just wants her company. He acknowledges that she’s right.

They don’t have enough seeds at home, so Cudjo decides to take his horse into Mobile to buy more. He asks Seely for some money and she gives him three dollars, more than he needs. He asks why she’s given so much, and she tells him to spend what’s necessary and bring home the rest. She knows he’s not going to do anything bad with the money.

After completing the errand, Cudjo turns toward home. However, just as he’s crossing the railroad track a train appears and hits his buggy. Cudjo is thrown onto the ground. Some bystanders take him to the doctor, and a white woman helps him get home and visits him later. She’s outraged by the accident and says the railroad has no right to rush through the town without ringing a bell or sounding a whistle. She visits the railroad company, but officials dismiss her complaints.

The woman suggests Cudjo hire a lawyer and sue the company. Cudjo visits a lawyer named Clarke in Mobile, telling him that if he sues the railroad on his behalf they can split the settlement. The lawyer mounts a lawsuit, arguing that Cudjo is crippled and unable to work, and that the railroad should pay him $5,000. Cudjo himself has to testify in court and display his scars.

After testifying, Cudjo is exhausted, so he goes to the market, planning to buy some meat and go home to Seely. His son David, who has stayed in the courthouse, comes to find him and announces that the railroad has given him $650. He can go to the lawyer’s office the next day and collect the money.

Cudjo sends David to collect the money, but Clarke tells him he doesn’t have it yet. For weeks Cudjo keeps asking the lawyer for his money, but he keeps stalling. That year an epidemic of yellow fever strikes Mobile, and the lawyer flees from the city with his family; however, he gets sick and dies on the way.

Cudjo never finds out where his settlement money went. He’s also still astonished and grateful that he wasn’t killed in the train crash. Now that he can no longer do physical labor, the people of Africatown appoint him as the church sexton.