With the help and company of her master's clerk, a young slave girl runs away; however, her search for a habitable town is long and arduous, and she slowly begins to lose hope.

When a woman meets her striking neighbor, the two engage in a forbidden love affair filled with longing and heartache.

Two elderly women, one a white woman and the other her former slave, spend their time sewing and reflecting on their lives together.

An old man recounts the story of how he met his wife while traveling to Birmingham to look for work. Though they are initially strangers, the man is determined to win over his future-wife, despite her parents' hesitations.

An older white man in the South agrees to hide a Black fugitive on the same night his old lover visits with her husband and son. When a mob arrives at his house in pursuit of the fugitive, the older man inadvertently causes the death of his newfound kin.

An amateur innkeeper struggles to demonstrate her knowledge of urban sophistication to her important guests and fails to grasp the benefits of authenticity to one’s heritage, leading to her mother being better-received by the guests.

During a violent snowstorm in Iowa, a train carrying a traveling salesman, a railroad worker, and a family of five takes a desperate detour to Carthage. When the passengers arrive, the station is a mess and the agent is dead, but they must work together to welcome a new life amidst the deathly circumstances.

A young man and his widowed mother move to the Midwestern countryside, where the mother runs a deadly get-rich-quick scheme.

A middle-aged man’s trip into the Irish countryside causes him to reflect on the dreams he gave up for his now-failing marriage.

A rambunctious teenager with an inquisitive mind causes much grief for all his New England family and neighbors when he visits them in the summer of 1914, on the eve of World War I.