Tom, Roxy's real child, is a difficult baby. Roxy indulges him as he grows up, and he is thoroughly spopiled. Chambers, on the other hand, is "meek and docile" (27), receiving no affection and very little attention from Roxy. Roxy's reverence for Tom, which was designed to fool others into believing that Tom is the Driscoll's baby, backfires on Roxy as Tom learns to treats her with contempt. "He was her darling, her master, and her deity all in one, and in her worship of him she forgot who she was and what he had been,” Twain writes. (28)

Tom also treats Chambers, who accepts the mistreatment without complaint, terribly. Despite this, Chambers defends Tom from the town's boys, and even saves his life. Rather than being grateful, however, Tom resents Chambers and tries to humiliate him, even stabbing Chambers at one point.

In the fall of 1845, Colonel Cecil Essex, who will later be revealed as Tom's biological father, and Percy Northumberland Driscoll both die. On his deathbed, Driscoll frees Roxy and puts Tom in the care of his brother, Judge Driscoll, who had purchased Chambers a month earlier.

This means that Tom and Chambers continue to occupy the same household.