Summary

For more than a year, Robert collects the plants on William's list. By spring, Robert has collected, packed, and shipped three sets of “specimens” (124). He spends a lot of time alone, which he does not mind, and sometimes goes to visit Mrs. Bienenstock just for the company. One day he encounters a woman named Molly Jones. She had taught Robert about sex five years earlier on a Texas ranch. She had never pushed Robert to talk about his past, which he liked, but she had talked freely about her own. When they meet up in California, Molly says she has decided to make her living by providing food for the miners.

Robert tells her about his job and she is amazed that people in England are willing to pay for the trees that Robert ships halfway around the world. Robert...