Sam is a black man in his early twenties who has an onion field on Green Lake. He has a beloved donkey named Mary Lou that pulls his cart full of onions through the streets of the community. Sam claims that his onions can cure anything and can even repel yellow-spotted lizards. Sam is quite skillful and soon begins making repairs on the schoolhouse for Katherine Barlow in exchange for her jarred peaches. They enjoy each other’s company and soon fall in love. Because a relationship between a black man and a white woman was illegal at that time, the community takes the law into their own hands. Sam and his donkey are killed and, immediately thereafter, rain stops falling on Green Lake and the community does not survive.
