Chapter 5: National Proportions Summary

A man named Ovid Byron appears one morning as Dellarobia puts Preston on the bus for school. A friend sent him the Cleary Courier article about the butterflies and he has flown from New Mexico to see for himself. Ovid is tall, dark, and handsome, with a slightly foreign accent, and Dellarobia, showing him the road up onto the mountain, can't stop herself from inviting him for dinner later that day.

After a brief call to Dovey to review the strange encounter with this attractive stranger, Dellarobia spends the day cleaning and preparing for their out-of-town guest, preparing an inoffensive macaroni and tuna casserole. Cub is unenthusiastic about having a stranger in the house after a full day of laying gravel, his side job, but Dellarobia quotes the Bible to guilt him into acceptance. She is shocked that Ovid...