Peter Wolfe tells us, "Like any good American, Seth has goals for himself, which he's willing to work hard to attain" (86). The bank will not give him a loan to start a new business, without offer the boarding house as collateral. Seth finds very unreasonable, yet he continues to search for that one opportunity that will change his economic status.
Selig's blessing is financial and entrepreneurial success, a condition that Seth wishes to share. The mercantile obsession of Selig is not only focused on the sales of products made by Seth, but he is known as the "People Finder" (Wilson 2042). He travels from town to town selling his products door to door. Selig, like Seth, is after that magical thing called success. He offers his services to search for lost people; he is by his own admission associated with those who made it their business to separate black families. His great-grandfather transported slaves for their owners, and Selig himself locates displaced people for a fee. Selig's salvation is his own exclusion from racial oppression and his financial independence. Selig's "control over this human exchange, however is more extensive in that he represents the institutions and practices that have initially reduced blacks to the property whose properties he trades upon" (Nadel 99). His efforts are thus another manifestation of Joe Turner's chain gang. .
Bynum, "conjures man," is devoted to the reunion of lost people whom he "binds" physically and spiritually, who makes little money casting spells and practicing divination by sprinkling the blood of pigeons on the ground. Seth feels Bynum is down-to -earth, but all that divining is weird behavior. In a conversation with his wife, Seth tells her, "Look at him [ ] all that old mumbo jumbo nonsense. I don't know why I put up with it" (Wilson 2040). One of Bynum's experiences is a religious one, which occurs on the road near Johnstown where he encounters a hungry-man whom he offers food and subsequently, promises to teach him the meaning of life.
