Chapter 6 Summary and Analysis

Salesman Uncle Allen has worked himself up from job to better job from fourteen. In 1931, with bad economic times beginning, he is still optimistic and welcomes his sister's family, chastising her for giving up Audrey. Depression firings open up opportunities, and Allen ups his income $5 a week with a new job. Russell loves his boisterous Aunt Pat, a city girl who instills a love of newspapers in Russell. Once, a newsboy tantalizes her to buy a paper, saying a comic strip character shot his horse. She laughs when she finds she's been tricked.

Newark is an adjustment. Five-year-old Russell is lured by a local girl who takes off both her pants and his, and afterwards he is not allowed out alone, except in the hateful backyard. He hates the cod liver oil his mother gives him, and comes down with whooping...