Addie Timblin stands at her door watching the dark road for her husband, Nate, while the Pottstown Association of Negro Men meets noisily at her kitchen table. Rusty, Bags, and Reverend Ed “Snooks” Spriggs gossip, play cards, and trade ignorant ideas about Jewish death customs while discussing the fact that Chona Ludlow is dying nearby and that many in the room owe her money. Addie, disgusted by their hypocrisy and superstition, calls out how people will pretend to mourn while feeling relieved to be free of their debts.

Nate arrives from the theater and asks whether Chona has died; Addie says she has not, and Nate reports that Moshe Ludlow’s cousin has come from Philadelphia and is talking about placing Chona in a home. The room shifts to Nate’s quiet authority, and Snooks nervously tries to satisfy Nate’s request for a line from Revelation.

Addie then reveals the urgent news: Dodo is missing, and CJ and Callie claim they saw the deaf boy hanging onto a freight shuttle headed toward Berwyn—a route that could lead him toward Philadelphia. Addie explains why no one could call for help: Chona’s store has the only pay phone on the Hill that Black residents can freely use, and the children would not enter white businesses to ask for one.

Nate immediately looks for a way to search, first considering Fatty Davis and then Fabicelli’s bakery truck, only to learn Fabicelli has sold the bakery to a new Jewish owner, Mr. Malachi. Nate insists he will go alone because “one colored knocking at night is enough,” grabs a lamp, and heads out to retrieve his long coat from the shed.

Behind the house, Nate hears splashing at the creek and discovers Dodo building a low rock enclosure, trying to communicate that he is making a “garden” to grow sunflowers. Nate confirms Dodo was on the train and prepares to discipline him, but Dodo offers a wrinkled paper and explains he knows what it says: his mother is dead and the paper says he has to leave. Nate rejects that authority, crumples and tosses the paper into the creek, reassures Dodo that the paper “don’t mean nothing,” and leads the boy back toward the house.