Peggy and Maude, who are twins, walk to work hearing the news that Great Britain has declared war on Germany over the invasion of Belgium. Maude repeats phrases she hears. As she folds proof pages from Shakespeare’s England, Peggy sneaks a peek at the text. She uses the bonefolder once used by her mother, who has since passed away.

The bindery girls attend a parade for men from the Press who have volunteered for military service. Their neighbor, Jack Rowntree, is among them. Maude repeats the calls to the men to “come home safe” (17) and blows kisses like she sees other girls doing.

Peggy and Maude walk through the part of town called Jericho to the canal where their narrowboat, Calliope, is anchored next to the Rowntree’s boat, Staying Put. Rosie Rowntree is shaken that Jack, her son, has enlisted in the army.

Peggy and Maude’s Ma, who also worked at the bindery, filled the boat with books gleaned from the Press. Peggy feels that her world shrank when Ma died. Maude folds a fan while Peggy prepares their meal. Their conversation is familiar, with Maude repeating fragments she’s overheard. Peggy receives a letter from Tilda, Ma’s friend, who reports on what the suffragettes are doing.

One Saturday, Peggy and Maude take a motorbus that passes the barracks where the men, whom the papers call “Kitchener’s army,” are training. The men expect adventure and predict that the war will be over by Christmas.

The next week, Peggy works on gathering sections for The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. She likes how the gathering is like a dance. While Peggy is busy, Maude folds one of the sections into a fan. Peggy hides the ruined section in her bag. She asks Ma’s friend Ebeneezer, who works in the book repair room, to trim the pages.

Later, on Calliope, Peggy looks through the section, then joins Rosie and Rosie’s mother-in-law, Mrs. Rowntree, for tea. As she kisses Maude goodnight, Peggy thinks of her sister, “You are my toil” (34).

Their neighbor, Oberon Rowntree, makes his monthly stop to visit his family, bringing coal for Calliope. Even though the girls are 21, Peggy has to remind Maude to wash her hands.

Rosie had once worked the waterways with Oberon but decided to stay in one place to raise their babies. Oberon brings the papers and reads the headlines, which are all, in some way, about the war. Jack returns from the barracks for a visit, and everyone is happy to see him.

Tilda writes that someone gave a white feather (a symbol of cowardice meant to shame men into enlisting) to her brother, Bill, and he signed up for the army the next day. Tilda recalls meeting the girls’ mother, Helen, at a suffragette meeting in Jericho when they were 15. Tilda has now signed up for the Voluntary Aid Detachment and will learn nursing. She sends papers for Maude to fold. Tilda will have a new life, but Peggy knows that she herself won’t. She has to take care of Maude.

Peggy is approached by Mr. Owen, a compositor at the Press. He asks her to help him bind a book he is making as a gift. It’s a collection of “women’s words,” which were collected by Esme, the girl he is in a relationship with. Peggy is thrilled.

Later, she watches Ebeneezer put a new binding on an old book, and they reflect on how long books can outlive people. Ebeneezer says he doesn’t need readers to know who worked on their books, but Peggy wants to be known.

Mr. Owen is curious about the folding and binding part of the book-making process, which takes place in the women’s section or the bindery, while men run the machines. Peggy looks at the dictionary of women’s words and sees a quote from Tilda using the word “sisters.” Usually, Peggy dislikes that word because most people cannot tell her and Maude apart, but she likes Tilda’s usage.

Peggy shows Mr. Owen how to fold the sections and sew the sections together. Peggy likes this process of seeing something made whole, of “[b]inding one idea to the next, one word to another, reuniting sentences with their beginnings and ends” (60). Peggy is frustrated that Mr. Owen only wants there to be one unique copy of this book, but he tells her he kept the formes, which means copies might be made later.

Tilda visits, and they have a picnic. Peggy thinks, “Tilda was like a storm. She blew in and churned things up and exposed what I tried to keep submerged” (63). Peggy feels restless and that nothing will change for her.

Mr. Owen invites Peggy and Maude to join him to watch Ebeneezer gild the cover of Women’s Words. Tilda writes that there are class divides in the VAD, too, and Tilda is relegated to the lower class.

Peggy puts on makeup and tries to see her own image, not Maude’s, in the mirror. They are preparing to welcome the train arriving with Belgian refugees. The papers have reported the horrors that the German army committed on unarmed citizens, including women and children. Peggy “imagined each Belgian as a section of a book and wondered what story they would tell if they were all sewn together” (71). Peggy has buns that Rosie made and a fan folded by Maude.

The train arrives, and Peggy spots a woman wearing extra clothing who looks tired and bewildered. Maude holds out the fan. The woman puts her arms around Maude and sobs, and Peggy feels “a moment of separation from [her] sister, a rare sense that she was unfamiliar” (73).

Peggy stays to help clean up after. Mrs. Stoddard introduces her to Miss Pamela Bruce, who is in charge of the refugee committee. Pamela’s sister, Miss Alice Bruce, is a vice-principal at Somerville College. The Belgian woman is Lotte Goossens, and she will work at the bindery.