#The grass is singing pdf free download trial#

She agrees, and they marry two weeks later. He works to the point of exhaustion over the next few months, and eventually appears at MaryвЂ™s door asking to marry her. Dick is a poor farmer whose bad luck has led his neighbors to nickname him вЂњJonah.вЂќ He is resistant to the idea of getting married due to his poverty, but cannot stop thinking of Mary. Soon after this, Mary meets Dick briefly at the cinema, during one of DickвЂ™s brief visits to town. After this point, she briefly became engaged to a 55-year-old widower, but called it off when he tried to have sex with her. She was in denial about aging, and still dressed in вЂњlittle-girl fashion.вЂќ She felt no desire to get married, but one day overheard some married friends of hers gossiping cruelly about the fact that she was not married, and was horrified to realize that this was what people thought of her. She lived in a club for young women and worked as a personal secretary at an office.ДЄs the years passed, MaryвЂ™s friends got married and had children, but Mary herself remained single, happy, and carefree. Between the ages of 20 and 25, both MaryвЂ™s parents died, and she was thrilled to be left completely alone.

Mary was eventually sent to boarding school and decided to leave home at 16. MaryвЂ™s older brother and sister died of dysentery when she was a child, and the period of grief that followed was вЂњthe happiest time of her childhood,вЂќ when her parents briefly stopped squabbling. MaryвЂ™s father, an alcoholic, would spend their familyвЂ™s little money on liquor at the store, a fact that always caused arguments between MaryвЂ™s parents. They are simple establishments that sell food, clothes, and other necessities, operate as local post offices, and usually house a bar. Tony, meanwhile, briefly takes a job in copper mining, before reluctantly ending up in an office job.Д¬hapter 2 begins with a description of the stores that are distributed throughout southern Africa.

#The grass is singing pdf free download trial#

The trial takes place and it is decided that Moses murdered Mary while drunk and hoped to steal valuables from her. Moses will be hanged no matter what happens, but Tony wonders if by staying silent he is complicit in a вЂњmonstrous injustice.вЂќ The next day, Tony packs his things and leaves the farming district. The policemen take MaryвЂ™s body to the car, and Tony is left wondering whether he should insist on telling Charlie and Sergeant Denham his theory about why Mary was killed. However, Tony begins to feel that they are not actually interested in his testimony, and the interview ends abruptly. Sergeant Denham arrives, and he and Charlie question Tony. Inside the house, CharlieвЂ™s assistant Tony Marston explains that he found MaryвЂ™s body on the veranda. Charlie drives to the TurnersвЂ™ farm to find Moses in handcuffs, and puts Dick in the back of his car.

Denham then sends six native policemen to the TurnersвЂ™ farm, and shortly after they arrive the houseboy, Moses, turns himself in.

When MaryвЂ™s body is discovered, the TurnersвЂ™ neighbor, Charlie Slatter, sends a note to the local police sergeant, Sergeant Denham. Dick and Mary are poor and do not socialize with the other white settlers in their farming district. Mary Turner, the wife of Dick Turner, has been murdered, and a вЂњhouseboyвЂќ has confessed to the crime. The Grass is Singing is set in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) during the 1940s.