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About Po' Sandy

"Po' Sandy" is a second short story from The Conjure Woman, was published in The Atlantic in 1888. It follows the same frame narrative as the previous one with Julius McAdoo advising John against following through with his plans of demolishing a schoolhouse to build a kitchen. In this short story, Sandy is an enslaved man owned by Mars Marrabo McSwayne, who sends Sandy to travel to help friends and families. During one of Sandy's trips, McSwayne sells Sandy's wife and replaces her for another woman named Tenie. Over time, Sandy and Tenie develop a relationship, at which point Tenie reveals to Sandy that she was a conjure woman for some time in her life. With this information, the couple decides that they will turn Sandy into a tree so that he no longer has to travel and turn him back into a person from time to time. However, as McAdoo relates, one day McSwayne decides to have the tree cut down to build floorboards in his kitchen, ending the life of Sandy. Afterwards, other enslaved people claimed that they heard groans and moans coming from the floor, resulting in the belief that the building was haunted. This led to the kitchen being demolished, of which lumber was used to build the schoolhouse that John wishes to dismantle to build a kitchen in its place. After hearing the haunted story from McAdoo, Annie dissuades John from dismantling the schoolhouse to build the kitchen and leaves it alone.