Welcome to Grassy Creek, North Carolina. The year is 1919 and a pandemic is sweeping through this small Appalachian farming town. Doc Waddell rides horseback from sickbed to sickbed while the townspeople crowd into church for a revival. Dread Cox seeks the aid of a midwife because he "cain't afford a real doctor". Crystal befriends Georgia, a "colored" girl, despite the prejudices of her dad. The deputy sheriff makes a prisoner give his word that he won't run off, and Florence Porter refuses to let her eleven-year-old deceased daughter be buried. While often "stranger than fiction", these are the true accounts of the author's grandparents who abided by the eighth commandment, "You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another", as well as the other nine.