The Bean Trees

The Bean Trees Summary | Chapter 1 Summary

The novel opens with a brief anecdote about Newt Harbine's father exploding a tractor tire by over inflating it. He is thrown on top of the service station sign. Mr. Harbine is not killed, but he is never the same. The Harbine family is poor and prolific. The parents do not value education and Newt leaves school, marries Jolene Shanks because she is pregnant, and toils beside his father in the tobacco fields.

The narrator, Marietta Greer, nicknamed Missy, tells the story of how she obtains a job in the lab at the local hospital. A new science teacher, Mr. Hughes Walter, announces that his wife, who is a head nurse at the hospital, needs a student to do odd jobs. Missy wants to apply for the position, but figures he will give it to a cheerleader or one of the better students. She talks it over with her mom, who encourages her to apply. Marietta's mother is a single woman, who cooks and cleans other people's homes. Marietta's mother is always supportive of Marietta, telling her she can do anything she sets her mind to. With the encouragement of her mother, Marietta tells Mr. Walter that she would like the job. He tells her to show up at the hospital the next day. Marietta asks Mr. Walter why he picked her for the job and he replies that she was the first student to ask.

Less than a week after Marietta started her new job, there is a crisis at the hospital. Jolene Shanks Harbine is wheeled in on a stretcher mumbling about guns and shooting. Marietta learns that Newt's father has shot Jolene and her husband, Newt. Newt is brought into the x-ray room next, but he is already dead. After looking at Newt, Marietta goes to the restroom, throws up twice, and goes back to her work in the lab. Later that evening, Marietta tells her mom about the incident. Her mom asks if Marietta is going to quit. Marietta says that she probably will not see anything worse than what she saw today, so she may as well stick with the job.

Marietta holds the lab job for five and a half years, saving enough money to buy a '55 Volkswagen, which Marietta sees as her ticket out of this tiny Kentucky town. Her mother, being wise, realizes as soon as Marietta buys the car that Marietta will be leaving. Marietta's mother ensures that her daughter knows enough about the car to get out of a jam if it breaks down, and then gives Marietta her blessings as Marietta gets in and points the car west. There are two things Marietta vows to do on her trip: Choose a new name, and drive until the car dies, settling wherever that may be. She chooses her name by driving until she is out of gas. At that point, there is a sign that says Taylorville, which Marietta shortens to Taylor.

The second promise, to drive until the car fails, Marietta breaks because she is certain no one could possibly live in central Oklahoma where her rocker arm assembly comes apart. The desolate, treeless and flat terrain is too depressing. Marietta spends most of her savings to repair the vehicle, but decides to continue west. Before leaving the predominantly Cherokee town, she goes into a diner for coffee and a cheap hamburger. Inside, Marietta notices an Indian woman, who keeps eyeing two semi-drunk Indian men as if she were afraid of them. Marietta prudently decides to leave, goes out to her car, and sits, trying to find the energy to push start the car. The woman she had noticed inside walks up and taps on the windshield, opens a blanket to reveal a baby and tells her to take it. The woman tells her that it is her dead sister's child and places the child on the passenger seat. Taylor protests, but the woman walks away and leaves in a pick-up truck. Taylor decides to continue driving while she figures out what to do with the child.

Taylor keeps a running string of conversation with the child as she drives along the highway that night. Taylor cannot tell if the child is awake, asleep, or dead and suddenly fears that maybe the woman had killed this child and placed it in her car to escape the rap. When Taylor smells the need for a diaper change she realizes the child is alive. Taylor pulls off at a small motel, the Broken Arrow, and asks the elderly desk clerk to put them up for free since she did not have enough money. The woman vacillates, but decides to let Taylor stay when she promises to clean rooms in the morning to pay the motel bill. When Taylor is in the motel room, she strips the child to give it a bath and discovers someone has abused the child, as evidenced by a multitude of bruises. Taylor suspects the child may have also been sexually abused. Although Taylor is horrified, she bathes the toddler, and puts her to bed. The chapter ends with her adding a postscript to a postcard she had been writing to her mother, "I found my head rights, Mama. They're coming with me."