"Ada promised herself she would never go back to the Trace, to her unbearable life on the swamp, and to her harsh father in Mississippi. But now, after running away to Baton Rouge and briefly knowing a different kind of life, she finds herself with nowhere to go but back home. And she knows there will be a price to pay with her father. Matilda, daughter of a sharecropper, is from the other side of the Trace. Doing what she can to protect her family...

The story of a black sharecropper family living in Louisiana during the Depression. The father steals food for his family and is sent to prison. While he is in jail the mother provides love, security and strength at home. The oldest son bravely becomes the man of the house until his father returns home.

A sharecropper's daughter describes her childhood in Texas in the early years of the twentieth century.