The Preacher convinces Elijah and Cooter that dangerous hoop snakes made mysterious tracks, sending Elijah running home terrified.

Ma hides a snake in the cookie jar to teach Elijah a lesson after he put a toad in her sewing basket.

The Preacher tricks Elijah into handing over four carefully caught fish using a false calculation he calls tithing by age.

Mr. Travis uses a student's informal greeting to teach the class about respecting elders and appreciating the freedom to learn.

Mr. Leroy strikes Elijah for nearly saying the n-word and shows his chest brand to explain the word's hateful meaning.

The Preacher secretly escorts Elijah to a traveling carnival in Chatham, where Elijah defeats the carnival's slingshot artist in a competition.

The Preacher spots hidden racist signage at the carnival and immediately walks away from a lucrative deal with Sir Charles.

The Preacher returns to the carnival alone, holds Sir Charles at gunpoint, and takes MaWee away to freedom in Buxton.

An escaped slave family arrives trembling at Buxton's clearing, and young Emma Collins uses her special skill to calm their fears.

Elijah reads a letter aloud to Mrs. Holton revealing that her husband John was killed attempting to escape slavery in Virginia.

Mrs. Holton gives Mr. Leroy her entire savings of gold coins so he finally has enough to buy his family's freedom.

Mr. Highgate returns to Buxton shot in the head, revealing that the Preacher stole Mr. Leroy's gold and fled with it.

Mr. Leroy kidnaps Elijah from outside the church and forces him to travel with him to Michigan to find the Preacher.

Mr. Leroy collapses and dies outside the East Lee stable, making Elijah promise to recover the gold or kill the Preacher.

Elijah carries baby Hope to the ferry at dawn and repeats Pa's words welcoming her to a new life of freedom.

Elijah Freeman is a clever, kind eleven-year-old growing up in Buxton, a Canadian settlement of escaped slaves, where community life and mutual support shape his world. His gullibility and fragility are tested early, but a series of encounters with neighbors — especially the complex and untrustworthy Preacher — begin shaping his judgment. When a neighbor named Mr. Leroy receives enough gold to buy his family's freedom, the Preacher volunteers to deliver the money to Michigan, and Elijah's misplaced trust in him sets a tragedy in motion. The Preacher steals the gold, shoots an escort named Mr. Highgate, and disappears, sending a grief-stricken Mr. Leroy into a desperate pursuit that pulls Elijah across the border into America. After Mr. Leroy dies outside a stable full of chained slaves, Elijah faces the realities of slavery alone and must summon every ounce of courage and maturity he has earned throughout the story. His ultimate act — carrying a baby named Hope to freedom — brings the novel to a deeply earned emotional resolution.

The headline events of Elijah's journey from Buxton to America and back.

Elijah and Cooter hide a large living toad in Ma's sewing basket to get back at her for calling him fragile.

Frederick Douglass visits Buxton and holds baby Elijah during a speech, and the infant vomits all over the famous abolitionist.

A rumor of slave catchers near Buxton reaches the school, causing Mrs. Guest to send the children of former slaves home under armed escort.

The Preacher returns to Buxton after the slave-catcher scare claiming he found a silver pistol and holster abandoned in the woods.

Mr. Travis punishes Cooter for greeting him informally at the sawmill and twists his ear in front of the whole class.

At the carnival mesmerist's tent, Elijah watches a hypnotized boy named Samuel be humiliated by being made to undress onstage.

MaWee tells Elijah that Sir Charles purchased him in Louisiana for one hundred dollars to play a tribal chief in the slingshot show.

MaWee arrives at Elijah's school the morning after the Preacher took him away from the carnival at gunpoint.

Cooter rings Buxton's Liberty Bell one hundred times to celebrate the safe arrival of five newly escaped slaves.

The Duncan sisters recognize the newly arrived escaped woman as their long-lost younger sister and quietly agree to wait before telling her.

At a picnic by Lake Erie, Ma tells Mrs. Holton that her own mother insisted she escape slavery even if they never met again.

Mr. Leroy carves Mrs. Holton's inscription into a wooden plank, and he and Elijah hang it above her front door.

Pa arranges for neighbor Theodore Highgate to accompany the Preacher to Michigan, and the Preacher gives his silver pistol to Mr. Leroy for safekeeping.

The Buxton Elders hold a formal meeting about the Preacher's theft of Mr. Leroy's gold while Elijah sneaks away to eavesdrop.

Elijah enters the East Lee stable, knocks out the guard dog, and brings water to the chained slaves inside.

Buxton is a community built on shared labor, mutual care, and hard-won freedom, and the secondary events of the novel reveal the texture of that world in vivid detail. From the legendary day Frederick Douglass visited and held baby Elijah, to the terrifying rumor of slave catchers near town, these events establish just how precious and fragile life in Buxton feels to its residents. The carnival visit introduces layers of exploitation and injustice — from the humiliation of a hypnotized boy to the discovery that MaWee is a purchased slave — that deepen Elijah's understanding of the world beyond Buxton. Back home, the joyful ringing of the Liberty Bell for escaped arrivals and the quiet discovery of a long-lost sister show the community's capacity for celebration and healing alongside grief. The inscription carved for Mrs. Holton's dead husband becomes the event that puts enough gold in Mr. Leroy's hands to change his fate. When the Elders gather in crisis and Elijah secretly slips away toward Michigan, the full weight of the community's bonds and the cost of broken trust come sharply into focus.

The community moments and supporting events that shape Elijah's world.

After Elijah runs home terrified of hoop snakes, Ma warns him he must learn to think carefully through what people tell him.

Elijah delivers fish and pie to Mr. Leroy, who teaches him never to be timid about anything he does in life.

After both lessons, Elijah decides that Mr. Leroy's real-life correction made a far deeper impression than Mr. Travis's classroom teaching.

At the carnival slingshot show, Elijah realizes the boy playing the tribal chief MaWee is actually his classmate Jimmy Blassingame.

The Preacher introduces Elijah to Sir Charles as Ahbo, an African prince whose rock-throwing skills can kill underwater fish.

Sir Charles offers to buy Elijah for the carnival, and the Preacher begins negotiating terms that would include himself.

Elijah recognizes that the fancy-script letter from America almost always means someone has died and immediately brings it to Ma.

Elijah spends a full week carefully revising Mrs. Holton's words and earns praise from Ma, Pa, and Mr. Travis for the inscription.

Mr. Leroy arrives at the Freeman home to ask Pa for help bringing his wife and children to freedom in Buxton.

When Mr. Leroy asks Elijah directly whether the Preacher can be trusted, Elijah considers carefully and says yes.

Elijah and Mr. Leroy arrive in Windsor and learn from Mr. Alston that the Preacher gambled there and headed to East Lee stable.

Inside the East Lee stable, Elijah discovers that the Preacher has been strangled to death by the slave patrollers.

Mrs. Chloe calmly disproves each of Elijah's plans to free the chained slaves and then asks to keep the silver pistol.

Elijah runs to Mr. Alston for help freeing the slaves, but the men refuse to act, and one of them strikes Elijah.

On the ride home Elijah suddenly understands what Mrs. Chloe was hinting at and turns back to the stable for baby Hope.

Elijah's growth from a gullible, fearful boy into a courageous young man is built on a series of pivotal moments that shift his understanding of himself and the world around him. Early lessons from Ma and Mr. Leroy teach him about critical thinking and deep respect, while the carnival forces him to confront exploitation, deception, and the reality of slavery up close. Back in Buxton, small moments of responsibility — recognizing a bad letter, perfecting an inscription — show him earning the trust of the adults around him. A single act of misplaced loyalty, when Elijah vouches for the Preacher's honesty, sets the novel's most painful chain of events in motion and fills him with guilt he cannot outrun. In America, each revelation — the Preacher's death, Mrs. Chloe's quiet strength, the refusal of the men to help — strips away every option except the right one. The story closes when Elijah finally deciphers the coded adult language he has spent the whole novel learning to read, and turns back toward the stable to give Hope a chance at freedom.

The key decisions, discoveries, and emotional shifts that transform Elijah from boy to young man.