While Emmett is gone, Duchess travels into the town of Morgen on his own where he witnesses the altercation between Emmett and Jake Snyder. Duchess is impressed by Emmett’s stoicism, “For his part, Emmett looked fantastic,” and immediately takes a dislike to the “cowboy” in Jake Snyder’s company, disapproving of the “cowboy’s” instigating and the way Jake has cornered Emmett and outnumbered him (86). Duchess watches with admiration as Emmett tells Jake that if they have unfinished business, they should finish it, and thinks, “That sort of level-headedness isn’t the product of upbringing or practice. You’re either born with it or you’re not. And mostly, you’re not (87).” As Emmett continues to take multiple blows from Jake Snyder, Duchess notes that Emmett could easily beat the other young man in a fair fight.

The restraint and composure that Emmett demonstrates has a profound impact on Duchess, “The willingness to take a beating: That’s how you can tell you’re dealing with a man of substance (88).” After Sherriff Petersen breaks up the altercation, Duchess follows the “cowboy” as he walks around the side of the courthouse. Duchess pauses to justify his thought process, harkening back to his time at St. Nicholas’s Home for Boys. Duchess recalls what Sister Agnes called the “chain of wrongdoing,” through which “[t]he wrongs you have done unto others will be bound to you in the form of guilt, and the wrongs that others have done unto you in the form of indigitation (91),” a value system that made an impression upon Duchess and was further informed and instilled in him during his time at Salina.

The replacement of the harsh and punitive Warden Ackerly with Warden Williams brought improved education for the boys at Salina. A guest lecture by an accountant explaining debts and credits and the “balancing of accounts” constituted an epiphany for Duchess wherein he felt he finally understood what Sister Agnes had meant. Duchess decides to enact revenge on the “cowboy” for inserting himself into the conflict with Emmett where he had no business interfering. Duchess attempts to explain this perspective to him, but he is dismissed and insulted by this dismissal. Duchess continues to pursue him, picking up a board from a dumpster, catching the attention of the “cowboy” and hitting him in the head. Duchess claims he has never hit anyone before that moment, and he is mostly concerned with how much his own hand hurts. Feeling better, Duchess returns to the Watson farm. 

Left by themselves back at the farmhouse, Billy and Woolly take the opportunity to socialize. Pausing from reading aloud from Billy’s favorite book, Professor Abernathe’s Compendium of Heroes, Adventurers, and Other Intrepid Travelers, Billy asks Woolly if it was hard to be at Salina. Woolly says it wasn’t hard, but “that every day at Salina was an every-day day,” explaining to Billy that the regimented daily routine to which they all adhered rendered all of their days much the same (97). Woolly makes the decision not to tell Billy it is not only institutions like Salina where one’s days are monotonous and dull, thinking of his time at the three boarding schools he attended. Woolly ruminates on why it is that people choose to make their days so routine, why they would choose such repetition as their way of life. He recalls a time when he spontaneously decided to take a taxi the three hours from St. Mark’s school in Massachusetts to his sister Sarah’s home in Hastings-on-Hudson.

His sister welcomed him, but her husband, who Woolly always refers to as “Dennis” in quotation marks, returned home and was upset that Sarah had not had dinner prepared. When “Dennis” asks to speak to Sarah in private, Woolly was reminded of the awkwardness he always feels when someone asks to speak to another in private. Overhearing their conversation, wherein “Dennis” recounts the multiple requirements of him outside their home, much of them on a timetable, it occurred to Woolly that the reason boarding schools are as structured as they are is to prepare men for the structure they would come to expect in their future lives. Turning back to Billy after this private recollection, Woolly suggests that “a one-of-a-kind day” would be a truly magnificent thing.

Sally’s ongoing frustration with her circumstances is presented in her first chapter. She identifies herself as a Christian and likens herself to Martha in the Bible, who toiled to serve Jesus and was told her sister, who chose not to help and instead sit by his feet, had made the better choice. Sally attributes this depiction to the male authors of the scriptures, “[i]f you ever need proof the Bible was written by a man […] ” (101) and states that men truly do expect women to sit at their feet and attend to them constantly without any regard for the effort or work that is associated with keeping and tending a household. She believes that men have no concept of the time and patience required to cook and care for a home; those things simply appear for a man to benefit from, and they do not consider the tedium and processes through which their comforts are achieved. She defends her decisions to cook from scratch, to make her preserves and pies by more labor intensive “old fashioned” methods, because she believes in taking pride in the quality of what she produces. She embraces traditional values and enjoys her role as housekeeper, but she cannot bear feeling unappreciated. She believes that the exertion of greater effort separates the “idle” from the “industrious” in God’s eyes and wishes only that her efforts were valued not just for the final product but for the philosophy behind her approach. She enjoys the sense of tradition she feels in creating from scratch and feels closer to God through the mediations of her efforts. Her only resentments stem from the lack of appreciation that the men in her life show for her diligence. Having cared for her father for so long, who expects it of her and who she believes does not appreciate her, she is similarly frustrated when Emmett seems to lack appreciation himself.

Duchess is impressed by the way that Sally has re-made his bed, even though he made it himself earlier that day. He lies awake, waiting for everyone else to go to sleep. Earlier that day, he had arrived back at the Watson farm before Emmett, and he wondered whether Emmett would lie about what had happened with Jake when everyone notices his injuries. Perpetually dishonest himself, Duchess marvels at the fact that Emmett tells Billy exactly what happened. Billy smiles with approval when Emmett tells his younger brother that he did not hit Jake back but instead counted to 10. Duchess confirms the rest of the boys are asleep and checks to make sure Woolly isn’t too incapacitated by his dose of medication, as he plans to wake him up shortly. Duchess searches for Emmett’s car keys in his pocket and is discouraged to not find them there. He had spent some time looking for Emmett’s keys beforehand and had been unsuccessful in finding them. Though he does not explicitly state it, his actions indicate he was intending to steal Emmett’s car and depart with Woolly in tow while the boys were asleep. He is interrupted in his search when headlights appear in the driveway. Sally arrives and departs, dropping a shoebox full of her homemade preserves on the porch with Duchess’s name written on the lid.