The Girls in the Stilt House

It is spring 1922, and Matilda hates Virgil Morgan from the first moment she sees him. Curtis Creedle needs Dalton Patterson, a sharecropper and Matilda’s father, while Virgil is of no real value to him, so Virgil is cruel to Dalton whenever he can be. Matilda attends school when she isn’t working. Her mother, Teensy, is pregnant, and while Teensy tries to make the best of everything, Dalton is driven by the desire to own land. Dalton owes Creedle money, so he agrees to transport Creedle’s illegal liquor in a wagon with a false bottom and store it under his house for one year to erase the debt. One day, Peggy Creedle arrives with a letter for Matilda. It’s from Matilda’s friend, Lorraine Day—who goes by Rainy—whose family moved to Cleveland, Ohio. Rainy’s great-uncle runs a “Negro newspaper” in Cleveland, and Matilda is planning on joining Rainy’s family in Cleveland shortly after the baby is born. Rainy earns more money doing laundry in a day than Matilda earns picking cotton for a week.