One day, the whole town leaves to attend a baseball game in Winter Park, including Hezekiah. Janie tends to the store by herself.
In the evening, a man walks in and they immediately hit it off. He’s charming and claims to have come to the wrong town looking for the ball game.
Then he invites Janie to play checkers. Since she doesn’t know how to play, he teaches her and she’s delighted that a man thinks it natural for a woman to play as his equal.
Janie gets excited about him. He’s everything a girl could want – tall, dark, handsome, not-misogynistic – so different than her old, fat, dominating husbands on every point.
They joke around for the whole evening and we learn that this man has a high opinion of women, saying they can do the same things as men – play checkers, walk far, ride a train.
Eventually we learn the stranger’s name is Vergible Woods, but he goes by Tea Cake.
He ends up helping her close up the store and walks her home.
Though Janie is cautious, she finds herself very comfortable around him, as if she has known him her whole life.
Janie worries about the kind of man Tea Cake is. She thinks he’s too young for her, probably just wants to take her money, and other thoughts like that. Janie is determined not to get sucked into another marriage without love so she determines to treat Tea Cake coldly if he ever comes back.
He comes back after a week, and Janie can’t keep from being friendly to him. Janie and Tea Cake end up joking around again.
They play checkers, and while the store’s other customers are surprised, they don’t seem to disapprove.
Tea Cake walks Janie home again, and this time ends up sitting with her on the porch – something Janie didn’t allow any of her other suitors to do. The end up chatting the night away and eating pound cake and drinking lemonade (freshly squeezed by Tea Cake).
After the late night snack, Tea Cake takes Janie fishing and she feels like a child gleefully breaking the rules. She doesn’t get back home until early in the morning.
The next day in the store, Hezekiah warns Janie that she shouldn’t be walking with Tea Cake at night. Janie asks if Tea Cake is a bad guy or a thief…or married. It seems that Hezekiah’s objection is that Tea Cake never has any money, so he has no place cozying up to a rich widow.
The next night when she gets home from work, Tea Cake is waiting for her on her porch with some fish he’s just caught. They go inside and Janie cooks up the fish.
After dinner, Tea Cake starts playing the piano and singing, which lulls Janie to sleep. She awakes to find Tea Cake combing her hair. This apparently isn’t sketchy, but romantic. She really likes it and it makes her even more comfortable.
He compliments her aspects – hair, lips, eyes. But she points out that he’s probably said the same things to other women, which he says is true.
So Janie says she’s going to go to bed. But Tea Cake knows she’s just trying to get rid of him because she’s worried he’s "uh rounder and uh pimp." He’s pretty perceptive.
At this point, Janie walks away from him. Tea Cake all but admits he is in love with her.
Janie, however, plays it safe. She’s worried that he’s going to make fun of her later for being an "old fool" (she’s twelve years older than him). Janie says he only thinks he cares for her; this is just his "night thought." Essentially, she says she’s too old for him and he’ll change his mind about her by tomorrow morning.
Tea Cake leaves.
She goes to bed, but not before she checks out her hair, eyes, and mouth in the mirror. Maybe she’s checking to see if he was being honest in his compliments.
For one full day, he does not come and Janie tries to console herself by convincing herself that he is trash anyway, spending his time with some other woman.
The next morning, Tea Cake returns with the intention of telling Janie his "daytime thoughts." In other words, he hasn’t changed his mind about loving her.
That night when Janie gets back from the store, she finds Tea Cake on the porch. They snuggle on the hammock for a little while. Next we know, they’re waking up in the morning and Tea Cake is kissing Janie all over.
After Tea Cake leaves to go to work, Janie lies in bed, incredibly happy.
After four days, Tea Cake comes back. In this interval, Janie has begun to doubt his love.
But he comes back with a car and tells her they are going to town to buy groceries. He wants to take her to the Sunday School picnic on the morrow and he re-declares his love for her when she questions him. fter the picnic, Janie begins spending more time with Tea Cake and the town notices. They disapprove of her accompanying such a young man around with her husband only nine months in the grave.
Sam Watson discusses the matter with Pheoby. Pheoby still believes Janie will marry the undertaker from Sanford, but she doesn’t disapprove of Tea Cake as much as the men do. She points out that Janie is her own woman and can do what she wants. But she agrees to talk to Janie nonetheless.
Pheoby goes to see Janie the next morning. Pheoby tells Janie that people are talking, saying that Tea Cake is dragging her off to low-class entertainment like baseball games. Janie admits she always wanted to do that kind of stuff before, it was just that Joe wouldn’t let her.
Pheoby wants to know if Janie thinks Tea Cake is just after her money. Janie assures Pheoby that Tea Cake has never asked her to pay for anything. And if Tea Cake does want her money, then he’s no different than the other suitors that the townspeople approve of.
Pheoby also cautions Janie about seeing a younger man – they’re usually in the relationship for money.
Janie says she intends to marry Tea Cake, sell the store, and start a new life far from Eatonville. She doesn’t want to stick around and have everyone comparing Tea Cake to Joe Starks.
Janie explains that Nanny wanted her to live the leisurely life of a white woman, which is what she obtained with Joe, but she felt she was being suffocated. Now that she’s done what her grandma wanted her to, she can go off and live her life the way she chooses.
Janie asks Pheoby not to tell everyone her plans to sell the store and go off with Tea Cake. She’ll make it public when she’s ready to.
JJanie receives a letter from Tea Cake telling her to come to Jacksonville; she leaves the next morning in her wedding clothes – blue satin picked out by Tea Cake. There are few awake to witness her leaving.
She and Tea Cake get married. Janie doesn’t tell Tea Cake about the two hundred dollars she has brought with her, at Pheoby’s urging, just in case things don’t go well.
After being married for a week, Janie wakes up to find Tea Cake gone. This doesn’t alarm her terribly because he had said earlier that he was planning on going fishing. Hours pass and Tea Cake doesn’t return. Then Janie discovers her secret stash of $200 is missing.
The image of an Eatonville widow named Mrs. Tyler jumps to Janie’s mind. Mrs. Tyler was courted by a young tramp named Who Flung who promised to marry her, then left her penniless in a strange town.
Tea Cake eventually comes home that night, serenading her with a guitar and his voice. He assures her that he’s very much in love with her. He’s know plenty of women, but she’s the only woman he ever even considered marrying.
He tells a relieved Janie that he did indeed take her two hundred dollars. He had never had so much money in his life before and decided to put on a party. He partied with all the railroad hands and spent all but twelve dollars of the two hundred. In his defense, he says he wanted to come back and bring Janie, too, but was scared that she wouldn’t want to mingle with such common people. Janie assures him otherwise and demands that she’s not left out of the action in the future.
Tea Cake tries to win back the two hundred dollars gambling. He is gone almost all night and Janie begins to worry. To distract herself, she comes up with arguments about how Tea Cake is a better man, despite his gambling habit, than all sorts of "so-called Christians" who might criticize him.
When Tea Cake finally shows up at dawn, he looks like he is asleep. Janie discovers it is from blood loss.
Tea Cake got into a fight with another gambler named Double-Ugly who had lost all his money and accused Tea Cake of cheating. Tea Cake got away with his winnings and two wounds from Double-Ugly’s razor.
Janie cries as she cleans her husband’s wounds and listens to his story.
He has won back more than just the two hundred. He has a total of three hundred and twenty-two dollars and he tells Janie to take her two hundred back.
He vows that they’ll live off his earnings and not depend on her cash or the money she has saved up in her bank account.
Tea Cake assures his wife that they’ll go try their luck farming in the Everglades once he recovers. As he falls asleep, Janie feels a "self-crushing love" for him.anie is determined to try for a new life with Tea Cake.
Janie and Tea Cake arrive in the Everglades and Tea Cake immediately finds employment with the "right folks" – those who plan to plant a lot of beans. Then they acquire a house, which is really a shack for migrant workers, but Janie makes it a home.
Because there is nothing else to do, Tea Cake and Janie go hunting. Tea Cake teaches Janie to shoot and she eventually becomes a better shot than he.
Migrant workers finally begin arriving in hordes. Though they don’t have housing and camp out by fires, the workers make a lively scene with their banjos and jook houses (see Hurston’s definition of a jook joint). They all make good money, farming out in the fertile muck of the bean fields.
Janie stays at home cooking beans and keeping house while Tea Cake works in the fields. Eventually, Tea Cake starts coming back at strange hours of the day when he should be working. Janie asks him about it, suspecting that he doesn’t trust her being alone all day and he refutes it, saying he comes home because he misses her badly. He asks her to come work with him and relieve his loneliness.
Janie agrees and it turns out well. It shows the rest of the people that Janie is not too stuck up to work with the rest of them. And everyone enjoys the capers Janie and Tea Cake pull behind the boss’s back. They become great favorites in the little community.
Now that Janie’s working during the day, Tea Cake even helps her make supper in the evenings.
Janie reflects happily on her situation and considers what Eatonville would think of her now, mucking around in the fields with Tea Cake and all the migrant workers. She laughs at the thought and rejoices in her freedom.
The chapter closes with a scene of three of the migrant workers playing cards, illustrating all of the fun that all of the workers have together, and Janie’s contentment. anie becomes jealous of a "little chunky girl" named Nunkie who keeps flirting with Tea Cake. Tea Cake allows himself to be drawn in to the game.
One day in the field, Tea Cake and chunky Nunkie go missing. When Janie finds them in the cane field, they are "struggling." Nunkie takes off running at the sight of Janie. Irate, Janie tries to catch the younger woman, but Nunkie is too quick.
At home that evening, Janie and Tea Cake fight; Janie tries to physically strike him, accusing him of "messin’ round" with Nunkie, but he denies it.
They continue fighting but eventually they tear each other’s clothes off and their aggression turns into desire. As you might predict, they end up having great sex.
In the morning, Tea Cake again denies that he ever wanted Nunkie, saying, "Whut would Ah do wid dat lil chunk of a woman wid you around? She ain’t good for nothin’ exceptin’ tuh set up in uh corner by de kitchen stove and break wood over her head. You’se something tuh make uh man forgit tuh git old and forgit tuh die."
Janie celebrates her victory.