Summary

The chapter "Light of the Gathering Day" follows a handful of formative years in Jane's life, as she moves from a mostly happy-go-lucky toddler into a young girl who is increasingly self-conscious about her incontinence and other related differences about herself. For instance, when she plays a game of checkers with Mister when she is five years old, Mister bluntly tells Jane that "'you stink'" (64), referencing an accident that Jane had not noticed herself. Although Hattie gently scolds Mister for his rudeness, in defense of Jane, Jane is still self-conscious about the incident.

Jane soon realizes that, although she is of the age to begin going to school, she is likely not going to do so as a result of her incontinence. When Jane brings up the issue with her mother, Ida responds, sympathetically, "'I don't see the sense of...