Doig uses Paul Milliron as a first-person narrator to provide a personal insight into the narrative and create a sense of intimacy. In the novel’s present day, 1957, Paul is the 61-year-old Superintendent of Public Instruction for Montana. Paul recounts events from his childhood, which take place during the 1909-10 school year when the narrator was a seventh grader. Periodically, Paul reminds his readers he is reminiscing by making comments about the two different eras, comparing and contrasting them. For example, in the opening paragraph of Chapter 14, the adult Paul reflects on what current governmental officers might learn from his one-room school experience: “If I could bodily pick up the appropriations chairman and deposit him somewhere enlightening, it would be at our schoolhouse those culminating weeks of 1909” (182).

The realities of the earlier narrative are touchstones of the current narrative. His brother Damon knew that Paul thrashed in his sleep; Paul’s wife makes the same observation. Paul’s father once farmed land that belonged to Aunt Eunice, and now an old classmate farms shares on the family acreage for him. As educators questioned the worthiness of the one-room school in his childhood, a new generation of leaders also question it five decades later.