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The Story takes place in 1946 in a province of South Afrika. Although the uplands of Ndotsheni are still fertile more and more young people move to Johannesburg and very few return. The Reverend Stephen Kumalo is worried. Also his son Absalom, his sister Gertrude and his brother John went there. None of them wrote him a letter.
One day Reverend Theophilus Msimangu , a Zulu and an Anglican priest like him, writes Kumalo that he has to come to Johannesburg immediately because Gertrude is ill. Taking all his money with him he enjoys the trip and being there Msimangu tells him Gertrude is a prostiute. Next day he goes to her and she agrees to go back with him Ndotsheni and give up her life. He also takes them to the house where he stays. Kumalo´s brother John owns a shop and is everbody knows him. His son is the best friend of Kumalo´ s son, nevertheless John doesn´t exactely know where Absalom was. He gets a few adresses, but each of them is in a worse neighbourhood and finds out that Absalom wants to marry a girl he made pregnant. Absaolm kills Athur Jarvis, a white, who was the son of James Jarvis, who als lived in Ndotsheni and is sentenced to be hanged, his compains, the son Kumalo´s brother not. So Kumalo also wants to take the pregnant girl with him. On the day of return Gertrude leaves without taking her boy with her.
Being back there isn´t enough milk, so Mr Jarvis who has enough, brings them milk. He also provides more lasting help of a new dam and advice of an agricultural expert and the money for a new church.
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