Ten-year-old David Logan lives in Mississippi in the early 20th century. slavery has been abolished, but prejudice remains. Logans have heard stories of blacks being hanged by whites for the smallest offences.
all the wells in the area are dry that year except the one in the logans. Mom and Dad think they should share the water that God has provided, so they let their neighbors draw it from the well. many of his white neighbors appreciate his generosity, but old simms and his children are anything but appreciative. they use the pit but still call logans the n-word. Brothers Charlie and Ed-Rose belittle and harass David and his 13-year-old brother, Hammer.
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Dad and other older members of the family have been gone for long periods, lumbering along the natchez trail. Mom takes care of the farm, the kids, and her old, confused grandmother, Rachel. One day, Hammer and David see Charlie trying to pull her car out of a ditch. she orders them to help him.
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hammer refuses, outraged at the way the simms family treats his family. David, who is on a crutch due to injury, tries to hold onto the cart but is not strong enough. He drops the car, sending Charlie to the ground. charlie backhands david and hammer rushes to defend his brother from him. The hammer hits Charlie repeatedly, so hard that Charlie stops moving. The boys run home, fearing that Charlie is dead. mom makes the hammer hide.
The logans soon find out that charlie isn’t dead, but the sheriff comes asking questions. Mom tells him the Hammer and David side of the story and sends his famous treacle loaf home with him to curry favor with her. before leaving, old simms and his boys arrive. simms demands that mom beat up her kids on the spot. Mom has no choice but to comply, and David and Hammer refuse to shed any tears. Simms also requires the boys to work on his property for a while.
ma rachel gets upset every time whites come to her land. she remembers the days of slavery and she remembers seeing her mother whipped. Charlie and Ed-Rose harass children while working on the Simms family estate. they have Hammer carry a sack containing a skunk. Hammer frees the skunk and sprays the simms. Charlie, Ed-Rose and her friend beat Hammer up later.
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Dad returns briefly from logging and tries to advise the kids on how to handle situations like this. he urges them to use their heads instead of fighting with their fists. Dad was the son of a slave and I love her white, so he has fought against racial injustice in a unique way all his life.
hammer knocks charlie down again when the two of them are alone. A few days later, the Logans discover a horrible stench coming from their well. The neighbors, including the Simms family, come to fetch water and learn that the well has been poisoned. Hammer and David can’t convince everyone that Charlie and Ed-Rose are to blame.
then an underachieving neighbor named jim walks by and mentions that he saw the simms boys hunting yesterday. he saw that they had bagged several smaller animals like a raccoon and a skunk. Mr. Simms realizes his boys are to blame and whips them out in front of everyone.
He makes them go to the well and retrieve the carcasses of severed animals. the polluted well is no longer useful to anyone that year, but the logans receive a small measure of justice. In future years, Logan’s Well often survives when other Wells do not. They continue to share their water freely with neighbors, but the Simms family never returns to Logan land.
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