"My Father's House"

"My Father's House"   1929 US Farming Family Drama by Tony Breeze   3f + 3m + 2 juvs  ISBN 1-872758-23-1 £7.00 each  Royalties £50pp   
Set in the American Dustbowl in 1929, we see one family's struggle to cope with grinding poverty as Fate throws everything at them.  The Macdonald's landlord is chasing them for the rent and his spoilt son plays with their two boys.  They find a black hobo hiding in their woodshed who is unable to speak and take him in.  The racist landlord doesn't like this and while the latter can pay for his son to have a minor operation, the same can't be said for the Macdonald's, whose youngest son is soon seriously injured in a fall from a nearby tree.  Joe Macdonald is told that to encourage his son to get better he needs to think of something for him to aim for so he decides to build him a tree house.  This doesn't seem to work until the black hobo points out a phrase from the Bible "My Father's house has many rooms" and Joe begins extending the tree house until people come from far and wide to see it.  This prompts the landlord to want to use it as a moneymaking venture and he asks Joe to help him with promises of becoming a member of an organization that he's in (the KKK).  Joe isn't sure what to do and then the hobo is arrested for a crime he didn't commit.  The family goes to a Speaking Competition and while there, Joe learns that the hobo has been lynched by the local KKK.  He then finally finds the courage to make a stand.