Tulips for Evening

In Springfield, Arkansas in the late 1800s, the lives of a community of poor white southerners have been turned upside down by the Civil War.  They are dealing with more than just death and loss - their laws have been changed, catapulting them against their will into the new era of freedom for Negroes.   

When two powerful wealthy landowners, H.G. and his brother Grove, are murdered, and then their widows die of scarlet fever, Southern gossip swirls with rumors of patricide, betrayal, and suicide. But nothing rankles the white southerners more than the rumor that five formerly enslaved Negro women are living in the old plantation house, Culver Tusk.  Why and how did the women come to live there?  Tensions grow in the small community, and nothing short of a confrontation will satisfy them. The final straw comes when thousands of foreign birds appear followed by a winter snow storm in August.  Among trees hanging with icicles they decide it is time to take over Culver Tusk and make right what is wrong law or no law.  And just as their plans to go kill if need be the five Negro women a song arrives brushing against their anger and cooling the fire.