- When Cassie and her bros get back home, Big Ma, Mama and Mr. Morrison are already up and about, waiting to hear the news.
- Papa charges into the room with a leather strap. Uh oh...we know what this means.
- Before Papa can whip the kids for running around in the dead of night, Cassie spills the beans (but not the crowder peas) on everything that went down during the night.
- Papa's response? He grabs the gun and gets ready to split. Yikes!
- Mama tells him that he has to force Harlan Granger to put a stop to this, since these men will listen to Mr. Granger.
- Soon, Cassie smells fire. The land and the cotton are burning. Big Ma thinks lightning started the blaze.
- Mama and Big Ma leave the house to help fight the fire, but the children are ordered to stay in the house.
- Near dawn, Jeremy Simms shows up at the Logans' house. He had been sleeping in his tree house when the fire started.
- The blaze has burned at least a quarter of the Logan cotton, and many people are still out fighting the fire.
- Rain starts to fall.
- At dawn, Cassie, Little Man and Christopher-John go out and survey the fire damage.
- They see many people from the town and surrounding farms working together in the fields to finish putting out spot fires. White men and black men work side by side. (Guess you don't want the fire to spread to everyone else's fields.)
- When the Logans return to their home, Mama tells the children what has happened.
- When the fire started, Mr. Granger stopped the Simmses and Wallaces from what they had been about to do (hang T.J.).
- But where had Papa been? Cassie is suspicious about something.
- She's also worried about how much of the cotton got burned—she is afraid they won't be able to pay the taxes now, but Mama assures her they can.
- Before she goes to bed, Cassie makes Stacey tell her the truth about what has happened.
- Mr. Jamison tried to stop the situation by blocking the Wallaces' car with his own, but the Wallaces just pushed Mr. Jamison's car off the road. They were about to take off with T.J., when smoke started coming from Mr. Granger's forest.
- Mr. Granger ordered the Wallaces to give T.J. to Mr. Jamison, and for everyone to go put out the fire.
- Okay, but Cassie still feels like there's some info missing. At this point in Stacey's story, Papa and Mr. Morrison show up at the house.
- Mr. Jamison drives up behind them. He tells Papa that he's just come from Strawberry, and has news for the Averys.
- Bad news: Mr. Barnett has died because of his injuries.
- Mr. Jamison repeats the theory that lightning started the fire, but then tells Papa that he should lie low and not give anyone a reason to think about him at all in relation to any of this.
- Oh! Papa started the fire!
- Cassie realizes that not even their own family can talk about this.
- Mr. Jamison leaves, and Papa tells Cassie and Stacey that T.J. is in jail right now. Papa mentions that he could end up on a chain gang, or worse.
- Cassie and Stacey are really upset. Stacey runs off, but Cassie goes to bed thinking that she'll never get over what happened last night.
- Cassie cries for T.J—and for the land.
- And on that cheerful note, we're done.