Miss Debbie and Miss Mary Ellen start asking Moore to sing in their chapel service, and he would do it if they were smart enough to catch him. Moore would sing some spirituals which he keeps locked in his heart from his time on the plantation, and he would sing some songs he has made up on his own. He also knows plenty of Scripture.

Now Miss Debbie is getting bossy again and trying to organize something she calls a “retreat.” She and some of her Christian friends are going to go up into the woods to “hear from God.” Whenever she sees him, Miss Debbie tells Moore that she has been praying and God has told her that he should go on the retreat.

Moore asks some of the men at the mission of they know what a retreat is, but none of them have any idea except for Mr. Shisler. He tells Moore a retreat is some kind of religious event where people cry and talk and pray all weekend. Moore certainly wants nothing to do with that, but Miss Debbie is persistent. Moore leads her to believe he might go, but of course he has no intention of driving into the woods with a carload of white women.

Now Mr. Ron also starts to talk about the retreat and says both men and women will be there. Hall tells Moore he will meet many nice people and there will be plenty of good food. Moore is adamant and says he “ain’t goin nowhere to no retreat to meet nobody!” He is especially not going with a lady that is someone else’s wife. To add emphasis to his point, Moore looks at Hall as if he is crazy.

Moore does not know what Hall told his wife, but the next time Miss Debbie sees Moore, she jumps from behind the serving line and puts her skinny finger in Moore’s face. She assures Moore that he is going with her to the retreat and does not want to hear any argument from him. Moore is six feet tall and weighs two hundred and thirty pounds, is a mean sixty-two-year-old black man, and this little white woman thinks she can make him do what she wants. “There was fixin to be a problem—a big problem.”

On the day of the retreat, Deborah drives to the mission looking for Moore. He is hidden, but someone tells her where he is and she convinces him at least to come over to the car and see who else is going on the retreat. Moore does not want to be unkind to her since they are becoming friends, so he agrees to look and walks to the front of the mission.

Inside the Land Cruiser are four other white women sitting inside, smiling at him and waving for him to join them. Moore had a bad enough experience with just one white lady once, and now there are five of them waiting for him to get into the car. Just then, one of the street men sitting on the mission steps urges Moore to go and starts to laugh. Another man starts singing “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” before he joins in the laughter.

Moore does not think any of this is funny, but he has to make a decision: the white ladies in the car being nice to him or the men sitting on the steps and making fun of him by singing a funeral song. Moore knows he is risking his life as he gets in the car.