The story begins in the house of Amy and Ned Crittenden where violence is nothing unusual. The couple fights almost constantly mostly because of Amy’s oldest son John who has been born during the time of slavery on the property of the slave owner Alf Pearson. John is a mulatto and his stepfather despises him for that. So, John decides to leave home and seek his luck on the other side of the Big Creek.
After crossing the Big Creek, John arrives almost immediately at Alf Pearson’s mansion. After mentioning who his mother was, he’s offered a job and starts helping around the house. Alf Pearson provides him with clean clothes and advices him to go to school. During the time at Alf Pearson’s, many of the girls working there show their interest for John, however, he cannot stop thinking about Lucy Potts, who he only meets in school and in church. She is much younger than him, charming, intelligent, and she sings beautifully, but doesn’t seem to be charmed as easily as the girls at Pearson’s mansion. One day, John finally decides to act and walks her home. On the way, he kills the snake which Lucy has been afraid of for a long time and wins thereby her affection.
For a short period, John goes back home to help his mother. However, once again, he gets into a fight with Ned and returns to Alf Pearson’s. Mehaley, one of the girls working there, constantly flirts with John who eventually has to face her boyfriend Duke, which results in him leaving the place for a couple of months with his brother.
On his return, John marries Lucy Potts and they move together in the servants’ quarters at Alf Pearson’s house. Soon after the birth of their children, John starts having an affair with Big ‘Oman, another girl working on the plantation. After one of their rendezvous, he almost drowns in the Alabama River, but continues seeing her. In the meantime, Lucy’s brother Bud asks for the money Lucy has previously borrowed from him and as she cannot give the three dollars back, he takes the couple’s wedding bed instead. Later, John confronts him, gets sent to jail and has to leave town again.
So, John and Lucy move to Sanford where he first starts working as a carpenter. Lucy is quite satisfied with the life over there, but soon begins to notice that John sees other women. He becomes a preacher in the town and a baby girl is born in the family. Shortly after her birth, the daughter becomes sick. John cannot bear the thought of losing her and fleas, but she gets better and he returns home with a new dress and a pineapple for Lucy.
John becomes a huge success as a pastor, but the people also start noticing his numerous affairs. One of the women he’s engaging with, Hattie Tyson, casts a hoodoo spell on Lucy whereby Lucy becomes ill and dies without John on her side. Soon afterward, he marries Hattie, but almost immediately regrets his decision and the newlyweds start fighting heavily. Meanwhile, some of the people in town try to replace him with a new preacher as they are no longer fond of the “Rev’und”. John and Hattie divorce and after one last heavenly sermon, John leaves his job as a preacher. He stays at home for days and reminisces about the past. After a dream with Lucy, he decides to leave town and start anew.
Soon, John arrives in Plant City and begins to work for a woman named Sally. They fall in love, marry, and she offers to take care of him financially. John starts working as a preacher again and regains his good reputation. The couple doesn’t separate even for a day until Sally advices John to visit his brother. So, he returns to Sanford where Ora, a much younger woman, manages to seduce him. On his way back to Sally, he regrets the incident and crashes his car into a train. There is a beautiful memorial service for him which ends with the word of the preacher that “nobody knowed ‘im but God.”
