Chapters 19 and 20 Summary

It is sundown in the future and Wilbur listens to the sound of a whippoorwill, or whip poor will as he calls it. He remembers listening to the bird cry with his sister and calling it "the cry of the Nocturnal Goatsucker." They listen to the bird on their last night before being separated into Bobby and Betty Brown. They take all their best writing and put it into an empty funerary urn in a mausoleum originally intended for Professor Swain's ashes, though he chose to be buried in New York instead. Wilbur tells Eliza he loves her but it doesn't quite sound right. He asks if she loves him but she questions what there is to love about Bobby Brown.

Eliza does not see her brother off in the morning. Wilbur gets so involved in the structured school program, that...