Summary

Medora’s father is a wealthy tobacco planter and horse dealer who conceived her by a Shawnee Indian field hand. When Medora was a toddler, her father tore her away from her mother to be raised under his roof by his housekeeper, Calley. Medora’s mother continued to visit her in secret for years against her father’s will, but the first time he caught them together, he expelled her mother violently, and the second time, he left the woman either unconscious or dead, after which Medora never saw her again.

Over the course of Medora’s childhood, her father attempted, with limited success, to cultivate her into a proper Southern lady. He frequently lost his temper with her and she spent much of the time shut in her room or banished to the kitchen. She learned about medicine from Calley, who had some...