Clara’s daughter, Sally, tells her that someone is coming. They live twenty miles outside of Ogallala and don’t get much company. Her husband, Bob, has been kicked in the head by a horse and is an invalid. A Frenchman named Jules teaches her girls piano. Her son, Jim, died when he was one. Two other sons died of pneumonia, one month apart, when they were six and seven.

They have a helper named Cholo. Clara has money from the sale of her parents’ home, and the money is for the girls’ education. She is ashamed that sometimes she hopes Bob will die. She reads a lot and wanted to write at one time.

Elmira, Luke, and Zwey are on the approaching wagon. Elmira gives birth, but she won’t look at the baby. She won’t answer Clara’s questions and just thinks about finding Dee. She plans on killing herself if she can’t find him. She leaves with the men in the middle of the night, leaving the baby with Clara. She feeds the baby, then Bob. She shows him the baby, hoping the boy might change him, but it doesn’t.