Chapter 2 Summary

At the beginning of this chapter Robert comes to. He reveals that he cannot really see clearly, as if he were in a fog. He hears someone calling his papa's name, Haven Peck, and feels a rough woolen blanket wrapped around him. Someone is saying that he can hardly recognize the boy, who is covered with so much "blood and dirt and Satan." Robert is taken in hand by his mama and aunt, who wash him up with water that smells of lilac, which Robert finds calming.

It turns out that Robert has never let go of the goiter he'd wrestled from the cow's throat, even when he passed out. The reader sees the generous and funny nature of Shaker morality when Papa notes that he must cut away part of the farmer's blanket in order to hold Robert together. The farmer tells...