Chapter 4 Summary

Chapter Four opens with Doris and Hagar sitting in the waiting room before Hagar's stomach x-rays. She is told to drink the barium, which she does until she feels she is going to be sick, and in riling against the doctor, she hears the doctor's gentleness and stops being difficult, waiting for whatever the doctors will do to her.

The act of waiting is something Hagar has done multiple times before, and she begins to remember the many times she waited at the Shipley place. After her marriage, she kept thinking that there would be something more than just work. She didn't' even know what she was waiting for. She remembers Marvin standing around the kitchen after he had finished his chores, questioning her and calling attention to his accomplishments.

Thinking of work, Hagar recalls that Bram would usually work during the harvest...