Chapter 6 Summary

Mary and Dick pay one of their monthly shopping visits to the local store. Mary fights down her childhood-old repugnance towards the store and everything it represents as she and Dick shop. Later, she idly flips through a pamphlet about raising bees as she listens to one of Dick's neighbors teasing him, with something like contempt in his voice, about whether he's having a good or bad year. She listens with more attention as Dick tells him, with a false pleasure in his voice, that the year has been good, and listens as he later swears with what seems like unreasonable anger after accidentally bumping his knee. As they drive back to the farm, Mary considers the neighbor's attitude, Dick's answer, and her own hitherto unquestioned belief that Dick was a good farmer.

Back at the farm, Mary has cause to question this...