Summary

Hurston returned to Kossula’s home the day after she took him by car to get “a marvelous mess of blue crabs” (83). When she settled in to talk, Kossula started telling her about his son David. He told her about a spring evening, Easter Saturday, when he left home to go to Mobile to pick up his laundry. Shortly after he left, two men came and told Kossula that his boy had died. They told him that a train had killed him in Plateau, not far from their home. Kossula at first did not believe them, as he assumed David was in Mobile. He went with them to the site of the accident, and found a decapitated body. Kossula still didn’t believe the body was David’s. Finally, a group of men led Kossula home, and showed him David’s severed head...