Elijah is the first child to be born free in Buxton. Buxton is a settlement of runaway slaves in Canada. Elijah has heard the stories of the significance of his birth. How Frederick Douglass came to town to celebrate the birth of the first free black man. But his "normal" life at school and at home still buggers him. There is the preacher who is always getting him in trouble even though he is supposed to be a man of God, and his best friend Cooter who has to be kept from doing stupid things. Elijah hears the stories of the runaway slaves from his parents and the elders, but he doesn't fully understand them until he slips across the border to Detroit to help a friend retrieve his stolen money.