After the tragedy of TJ’s conviction, the winter proves quiet and rolls into spring, which is planting season. School is about to break in March, so that the children can help their parents put in the cotton crop. One day at school, Cassie and Stacey have a conversation with a sharecropper’s son named Moe Turner. He has high hopes of making enough money to free himself from dependency on the plantation system, where sharecroppers end up owing more to the landowners than they earn for themselves. The Turners farm for a rich white plantation owner named Mr. Montier.

At home one evening, the Logans are visited by the county extension agent, John Farnsworth. He wants David to sign up for the government’s crop reduction program. The Logans will be paid not to grow cotton because the federal government hopes to stabilize the plummeting price of cotton during the Great Depression. In the previous year, plantation owner Harlan Granger falsely claimed that he had a lien on the Logan property, and the government reimbursement check was signed over to him, leaving the Logans with no compensation for their diminished crop.