Content Warning: The following chapter summaries and analyses discuss the source material’s allusions to racist attitudes and use of racial epithets.

The novel’s opening scene, set in the mid-19th century, introduces Silas Hawkins, a man in his early thirties who lives in a small town in Tennessee with his wife Nancy and two children. As postmaster of the fifteen-household town, Silas is deemed the most important citizen and honored with the title Squire. The Hawkins family and their neighbors all live in poverty. Silas receives a letter from Beriah Sellers, a friend, encouraging him to move his family to Missouri to invest in Beriah’s latest speculation. Nancy’s inner thoughts reveal that Beriah’s get-rich-quick schemes that never pan out and have led the family into poverty in three different states already.

When Silas tells Nancy they’re going to Missouri, he also reveals that he has purchased 75,000 acres of land in Tennessee, which he claims is rife with coal, copper, and iron ore and will someday make their children incredibly rich. The family gets their affairs in order in four months and leaves for Missouri.