Chapters 15 through 19 Summary and Analysis

Chapters fifteen through nineteen cover their stops at a café and shrines.

Chapter 15 Shiny Soup describes the "white" or "homestead" town where Nerburn could make a phone call and they could get something to eat. The town was orderly and different from the disorderly reservation towns. Grover passed a sign that said "Business District" and they stopped at a café. The waitress brought coffee and soup that looked barely edible to those gathered at the table. A drunken Indian couple with no money for coffee gave a table of white men an excuse to criticize Indians. Dan and Grover commented on alcohol use, but Dan got agitated about these and other cultural differences. Grover calmed him from causing a scene. Dan said the author Henry David Thoreau was a hero for living like an Indian but would have been...