Study Questions
1. What writer does Mr. Norton talk about with the narrator?

2. Does the narrator tell Mr. Norton when the cabins were built?

3. What are Jim Trueblood and his family doing when the college car arrives?

4. Is there any point at which the narrator can avoid bringing Mr. Norton and Jim Trueblood together?

5. Who most wants to meet Jim Trueblood, the narrator or Mr. Norton?

6. Does Jim Trueblood say that he and his family have been mistreated by the local whites?

7. What does Jim Trueblood say the college has done for them?

8. Does Mr. Norton give Jim Trueblood any money?

9. What game are Jim Trueblood’s little children playing?

10. What does Mr. Norton ask the narrator for at the end of the chapter?

Answers
1. Mr. Norton talks about Ralph Waldo Emerson with the narrator.

2. Yes, the narrator tells Mr. Norton that the cabins were built in the time of slavery.

3. When the college car arrives, Jim Trueblood and his family are washing clothes in a large pot over a fire.

4. Yes, there were several moments in which the narrator, by simply not telling Mr. Norton the whole story about Jim Trueblood, could have avoided the meeting.

5. Mr. Norton insists on getting out of the car to meet Jim Trueblood. The narrator is not at all happy about the idea.

6. No, Jim Trueblood does not say that he and his family have been mistreated by the local whites. In fact, they have been helped out quite a bit by white people recently.

7. Jim Trueblood tells Mr. Norton and the narrator that the college has tried to push them off their land, and make them move away.

8. Mr. Norton gives Jim Trueblood a hundred-dollar bill.

9. Jim Trueblood’s little children are playing “London Bridge is Falling Down.”

10. Mr. Norton asks the narrator to get him “a little stimulant,” meaning alcohol, at the end of the chapter.