The story opens with a description of the full moon rising as the women of the poor, African-American part of town—"factory town"—sing songs against its evil spell. Louisa, a black woman, is walking home from her job as a domestic servant for a white family, the Stones. She, too, sings as she thinks about Bob Stone, the younger son of her employers, with whom she has a clandestine relationship, and about Tom Burwell, a black man who works in the fields and has been showing an interest in her. The thought of the two men cause a "strange stir" within her, and she tries vaguely to determine which of the men is the cause of her agitation. Her song becomes "agitant and restless." Animals sense her agitation, and dogs begin to bark and yowl while chickens.....
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