- The story starts with a narrator, so far nameless, musing about what Jefferson is like these days. No, not that Jefferson, but what we soon will learn is the narrator's hometown.
- He's faintly disapproving of recent changes, especially the way "even the Negro women" fetch and deliver "white people's washing" via automobiles rather than carry it balanced on their heads as they did fifteen years ago.
- Wait, hold up. He just tosses out that complaint like it's no big deal! He sounds like a big fat racist. He certainly doesn't mention that he has any problem with this racial divide of labor. At least not yet.
- We gather that the setting is probably about 1930 or thereabouts, well before the civil rights movement. Faulkner's not going to spare your ears anything, so get ready for a brutal depiction of race relations back then, the n-word and all.
- The narrator focuses his memories on a specific black woman. He recalls that he and some others would watch Nancy carry laundry steadily balanced on her head from their house, across a ditch, and to Negro Hollow, where the black residents lived.
- Now we get a brief mention of a new character, whose name is (no joke) Jesus. Jesus is Nancy's husband. He's a short black man with a razor scar down his face, probably from fighting.
- The narrator relates how he and others—we'll soon learn he means his siblings, Caddy and Jason—would head toward Nancy's cabin, going no farther than the ditch in order to avoid Jesus, and throw rocks at her house to tell her to come cook breakfast. Nancy would say she needed to sleep, and the kids would ask her if she was drunk.
- The narrator tells us about an incident involving Nancy and a Mr. Stovall, a bank cashier and a Baptist deacon. In short, while Nancy was getting arrested—arrested again, we're told—she yelled at him, asking when he'd pay her. He knocked her down and kicked out her teeth. Jerk.
- Although the narrator doesn't say it outright, we understand that Nancy was a prostitute and he was one of her customers.
- Next we're told how that day and night, Nancy—who we learn is pregnant—was yelling from the jail and eventually tried to hang herself, but failed since she couldn't make herself let go of the window. The jailer cut her down and whipped her. He concluded the "n*****" did cocaine, not alcohol, so that was the view the narrator and his siblings took as children.
- Now the narrator completes his transition from remembering to simply telling the story from the perspective of his younger self. With little exception, the bulk of the story from roughly this point forward takes place fifteen years ago. Heads up: we will use the present tense to describe that action so we stay in the moment.
- From time to time, Faulkner subtly reminds us we're in the narrator's mind fifteen years forward. But don't worry, we'll point out when you need to buckle your seat belt to mentally time-travel into the future. For the most part, we're simply in the fifteen years ago, period. Got it? Good.
- A black woman named Dilsey is too ill to cook for the children (the narrator and his siblings), so Nancy is cooking instead. This is before their father tells Jesus to stay away, so Jesus is in the picture—the only time he shows up in the story. Jesus says that Nancy has a watermelon under her dress (referring to the fact that Nancy's Eggo is prego).
- Nancy says the watermelon didn't come off his "vine," and that means exactly what you think it does. Jesus says he can cut off the vine the "watermelon" did come from. Yikes. Meanwhile, the narrator's sister Caddy is all like, What? Huh? She tries to understand, asking, "What vine?" but is ignored.
- Jesus complains that white men can hang around his kitchen, which is a subtle reference to Nancy. By this time we get the picture that she's pregnant from her prostitution, either by Mr. Stovall or some other white john.
- Father tells Jesus to stay away. Dilsey is still sick, and the narrator hones in on a specific memory. His parents ask him—we learn his name is Quentin, finally—to tell Nancy to go home if she's through doing the dishes.
- When he goes into the kitchen to tell her, he notices she's somehow uncomfortable. When he basically asks what's bothering her, she says she's nothing but a "n*****," and something isn't her fault. She's referring to her pregnancy. We understand, but throughout the story, the kids don't.
- Quentin returns from the kitchen and his family theorizes about why Nancy hasn't gone home yet. Caddy suggests she's waiting for Jesus to come and take her home. Jason says she's afraid of the dark. Quentin and the children's father say Jesus is gone without a trace and should stay gone. But the father points out that some "Negro" sent Nancy word that Jesus was back in town.
- Father says he'll walk Nancy home, which causes the children's mother to ask why Nancy's safety trumps hers. She says she's also at risk due to the dangerous Jesus.
- The children ask to go with their father to take Nancy home. Probably more interesting than sitting at home, right?
- Quentin observes his parents arguing over whether the kids should go with him to take Nancy home. In a quick zoom fifteen years forward, Quentin notes he was nine, Caddy was seven, and Jason was five at the fifteen-years-ago time. Thanks for clarifying, Quentin!
- Now we're back to his nine-year-old perspective. The father and children walk Nancy home. Caddy says Jason was scared walking this lane before, but the youngest child denies it. Father asks Nancy if Aunt Rachel can do anything about Jesus. She's an elderly black woman who sometimes says she's related to Jesus and sometimes says she's not.
- Nancy says nobody can do anything about Jesus because she, Nancy, woke up the devil inside him and only one thing—her death, we realize—will calm the devil back down again.
- Father says Jesus is gone from town now and tells Nancy to leave white men alone. This causes Caddy once again to ask what the heck the adults are talking about. Nancy insists she can feel Jesus' presence nearby.
- Father insists that if Nancy would behave herself, her problems wouldn't have started in the first place. But he says not to worry about it, since, he tells her, Jesus is long gone.
- The section concludes with Caddy and Jason arguing. Caddy says he's afraid to walk the lane, and Jason says he isn't. Oh, kids.