Chapter 2 Summary

Ruth is sent, unwillingly, to a girls' boarding school in Delaware rather than to Rockland, where most island children attend high school. Mary, who lives in Concord, NH, wants Ruth to broaden her horizons, but Ruth does no more than necessary and returns home every summer, to where she feels, despite its discomforts and boredom, that she belongs. She works as a sternman for her father, each getting on each other's nerves. Islanders shun her because of her education. She graduates in 1976 with no plans for college and finds that all of the lobstermen have hired sternmen. Ruth grimly looks forward to hanging around with Rhonda and Simon, but writes Mary about the relief of being able to breath again, being home.

At age 73, Simon sets out to search the mud flats at Potter Beach for the legendary tusks of a circus elephant...