The Water Dancer: Chapter 7 Summary & Analysis

The new year comes, and Hiram feels sure that his “days at Lockless [are] numbered.” Approving of the job Hiram did on the highboy, Howell sets him to work restoring more pieces of furniture. The documents of sale that accompany the furniture give Hiram insight into his own ancestry, to a heritage that will never truly be his. He keeps thinking about Georgie and “what he might know.” One Friday, Hiram drives Sophia to Nathaniel’s house as usual. Sophia used to work as a maid to Nathaniel’s wife, Helen. She tells Hiram that she and Helen were friends, and that she “loved her.”

Sophia and Helen grew up together and were best friends as children. Hiram thinks about how cruel it is to raise children as equals against the backdrop of slavery. Sophia explains that when Helen died in childbirth, she felt overcome with guilt. She still sees Helen in her dreams, and laments that once she gets a bit older, Nathaniel will discard her for a younger black woman who he will also treat like “jewelry.” With great sadness, she ponders over what it means to have a child who will be born into slavery.

Sophia explains that she is telling Hiram this because he knows about the wider world, and because something mysterious happened that enabled him to survive his fall into the Goose. Their conversation is interrupted by their arrival at Nathaniel’s house. As Hiram watches Sophia go inside, he knows that they must escape. Driving away, he feels more determined than ever to speak to Georgie. He understands that Georgie fears for him, particularly after having seen so many people be caught and sent to Natchez, yet he is determined to see him anyway.

The next day, Hiram goes to see Georgie, who has a grave air about him. Georgie emphasizes that he likes and admires Hiram, considering him a highly intelligent, respectable man. For this reason, he is baffled by the way Hiram is “looking for trouble.” He tells Hiram to “Go home. And get a wife. And get happy.” Hiram says that he is determined to escape and bring someone with him, Georgie warns him that taking “Nathaniel Walker’s girl” is a highly dangerous move. Hiram denies this, and gets increasingly angry as Georgie insists that Sophia, Hiram, and every enslaved person they know belongs to white people, urging Hiram to accept this fact. Hiram insists that he is going. Reluctantly, Georgie says to meet him in the same spot in one week.

Leaving his meeting with Georgie, Hiram passes Amy and Hawkins. Hawkins stops him, asking what brings him to town and then inquiring if he was going to see Georgie. Hiram is suspicious, and Hawkins says he doesn’t mean to pry. At that moment Hiram spots Mr. Fields walking over as if coming to meet Amy. Seeing Hiram, it seems as if Mr. Fields would rather change direction and avoid the encounter, but instead he tips his hat in greeting.

Hiram suspects that Hawkins has been lying about here he found him after he almost drowned, and that he has somehow caught Hawkins in that lie. He tips his hat at Hawkins, Amy, and Mr. Fields and walks off. Although he doesn’t know it at the time, the fact that these two enslaved people are meeting with “a learned man of the North” should prompt scrutiny. The next day, when Hiram is on his way to Nathaniel’s estate to collect Sophia, he is stopped by “Ryland’s Hounds,” slavecatchers looking for runaways. Although he has his proper documentation, the encounter makes him nervous, because in his heart he has already decided to leave. Hiram and Sophia ride in silence, but when they get back to Lockless, she tells him she has to escape. Hiram replies, “Then let’s get out.”