Set in the late 1800’s, this short novel traces a white Carolina planter's trek through the deep South trying to fulfill the deathbed wish of his former slave: That he "take care of" her teen age daughter. With his brand spanking new law degree, his wife and his new charge, a young black orphan girl, he departs the plantation looking for a life and legal career in the South after the Civil War. Soon things start to fall apart.