payment page
The family gets back in the car and continues on down the road. Once they are outside Toombsboro, the grandmother suddenly remembers an old plantation that she once visited in the area and starts describing it at length. She desperately wants to take a detour to see the house but knows that Bailey will refuse, so she lies and says that the house has a secret panel behind which the family’s silver hides. This detail piques John Wesley’s interest, and he immediately starts begging his father to taken them there. June Star perks up as well, but despite their entreaties, Bailey adamantly says no. The children in the back seat begin to scream and throw tantrums, behavior which eventually drives Bailey to change his mind. The grandmother instructs him to turn down a dirt road, and as they continue, the mother tells the children that everyone will stay in the car upon arriving to avoid disturbing the plantation’s residents.
With the dirt road still stretching long ahead of them, the grandmother has a sudden, horrible realization that makes her jump. This movement causes her valise to fall over, Pitty Sing to jump out of his basket on to Bailey’s shoulder, and the car to flip over and crash. The family scrambles out of the car to safety, and as they do, the narrator reveals that the grandmother had been remembering a plantation not in Georgia, but in Tennessee. The mother’s shoulder is broken and the brim of the grandmother’s hat has bent, but everyone else escaped unharmed. The grandmother decides that she will not reveal her mistake to Bailey.
The family sits in the ditch next to the road with the tall trees of the dark woods surrounding them on both sides. Soon, a car slowly approaches and the grandmother stands up to flag the driver down. The car, which is large, black, and almost hearse-like, eventually stops and the driver spends a few moments looking down at the family sitting in the ditch. This man turns to the other two in the car, says a few words to them, and all three get out silently. The driver, who appears older than the other two men, looks scholarly except for the fact that he has no shirt. He does, however, have a gun just like those of his companions.
The grandmother feels as if she recognizes the shirtless man, but she cannot quite place him. He walks down into the ditch and observes that the family has had an accident, a comment which leads the grandmother to exclaim that their car flipped over twice. As the man instructs one of his companions, Hiram, to see if the family’s car will run, John Wesley boldly asks why the men have guns. The man asks the children’s mother to call them over and keep them under control, and June Star sassily challenges his authority. As Bailey begins to explain their predicament, the grandmother screams as she realizes that the man in front of them is none other than The Misfit himself.
