Budddddy!

Though the novel does not begin here, the story beings when Bud has runs away from his abusive foster family the Amos. The biological child of the Amos, Todd, bullies and beats Bud until he can no longer stand it. One trip to the barn for a night's rest became Bud's motivator and he runs away, but not before getting even.

He's sleeping outside the library and can't find enough to eat. There's nothing left to do but find Herman E. Calloway, the man whose picture used to make Momma upset. The only man Bud believes could possibly be his father. Orphaned Bud, not Buddy, Caldwell carries a ratty suitcase full of all his possessions wherever he goes. Inside the suitcase he keeps the picture of his mom as a little girl, an old pouch, full of smooth rocks with strange coded messages written on them, and most importantly a flyer advertising "Herman E. Calloway and the Dusky Devastators of the Depression." Sure that this Herman E. Calloway is his father, Bud sets out to find him. When he finally finds who he has been looking for, Calloway turns out to be a grumpy old man. Miss Thomas, the Dusky Devastator's kind "vocal stylist," convinces him to give the ten-year-old a place to stay. Bud moves into the big house known as Grand Calloway Station and, with the help of Momma's rocks, soon discovers that Herman E. Calloway isn't his father. In a moment of total shock, Bud discovers that Calloway is his grandfather.