Summary

“Promise” (269 – 284) takes place in 1871. Strangers were flocking to town to see the miraculous Bean and to hear Bruh Abel preach. Rue and Bruh Abel were lovers. A poor white family came to live on the neighboring plantation, and the woman asked Rue to keep her baby healthy. Rue suspected that Varina had had company. She also suspected that Bean had met someone mysterious. She realized she was pregnant. When the white woman returned, Rue performed some made-up magic, gave her a bogus charmed necklace and one of Bruh Abel’s vials of supposed holy water, then accepted payment. In 1864, during “Wartime” (285 – 292), Marse Charles harangued the slaves about the approaching Northerners, and Varina told Rue that she was engaged. Marse Charles formally gifted Rue and Sarah to Varina and her fiancé, at his daughter’s request.

In “Promise” (293 – 307), Rue worried about the correspondence with...