Lida is a young girl living in the American South. She leaves the house of her friend, Annie Byrd, so that she can return home on time, as her mother had asked her to do. On the way home, she passes a group of Black convicts, chained together and marching down the street. One of them asks Lida for a piece of bread. Scared, she says she will go into the shop and get it for him, but instead, she runs home. When she gets home, she does not tell her mother or her grandmother about what happened. She takes a bath and greets her father when he comes home. At the dinner table that night, Lida can no longer keep her secret: she admits to having been asked for bread by one of the convicts. Her parents say she did the right thing by running away, but she still feels uneasy. Later that night, she senses someone moving in the darkness, waiting for a piece of bread that never came.