Summary

The narrator opens Chapter Four from Nan’s point of view. The winter Nan was six, and Elma ten, they contracted diptheria, prompting their parents to quarantine them alone in a shack. This strengthened their bond and their ability to understand each other. During that time, Elma taught Nan, who wasn’t allowed to go to school, how to read and write. Nan never revealed this education to anyone else.

Shortly after Ketty died, Juke came into her room and took her out to the still where he illegally made gin, and got her drunk. He began to take her to the still more and more. Once, he showed her a gun that he said her father gave to him, and promised her that he would never leave her like her father did. Another time, he gave her a pearl he said belonged...