Summary

Granston experiences a “nor’easter” storm, which causes the harbor to freeze several feet deep. Ren re-reads The Deerslayer while Benjamin and Tom play cards or go to the saloon. Tom contracts the chickenpox in the middle of January, so Benjamin takes Ren to the saloon instead. Ren learns how to smoke a pipe and drinks beer while listening to Benjamin’s stories. Even the other men, who are mostly fishermen, gather around to hear about Benjamin’s supposed adventures. Whenever anyone else tries to tell a story, Benjamin instructs Ren to show everyone his missing hand so he can tell wild stories about how he lost it. The fishermen are not horrified; instead, they celebrate Ren’s scar and cheer when he holds up his arm. Some of them have missing limbs, too, and an old sailor lets Ren try on his wooden hand.

Money runs out by the time winter ends, and Benjamin says that it is time to leave Granston. Tom asks Ren what he wants to be when he grows up. He thinks that Ren needs a real profession, saying that “maybe he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life living in a basement.” Tom does not like relying on small, petty crimes to survive—instead, he wants to find something to “tide us over for a few years instead of a couple of months.” Benjamin looks at his old, half-polished shoes and then at Ren and seems troubled. He disappears until the next evening, when he announces that he has changed his mind about going to North Umbrage. They follow the river out of Granston, carried by the wagon and the horse that Benjamin and Ren had stolen from the farmer. One day before reaching North Umbrage, they enter a valley of pastures full of white, brown, and black sheep. They stop in a small town nearby and use the last of their money to stay in a dilapidated inn.

Benjamin says that there will be a crowd gathered to watch a sheep-shearing the next day. He has a plan for Ren to make them money. Tom does not want Ren involved because he is too inexperienced, but Ren agrees to help. That afternoon, while Benjamin is away to find food, Ren and Tom change the bottle labels from “Doctor Faust’s Medical Salts for Pleasant Dreams” to “Mother Jones’s Elixir for Misbehaving Children.” Ren notices Tom’s excellent handwriting, learns Tom was a teacher, and asks why he stopped teaching. Tom tells Ren about his childhood friend Christian. Though they were close, Tom and Christian loved the same woman. Christian had land and an inheritance, whereas Tom was only a teacher—so the woman chose Christian but continued meeting with Tom in secret. Tom drunkenly confronted Christian one night and taunted him about the affair. Christian told him to stop, pulling out a pistol and holding it to his own head. Tom told him to pull the trigger, and he did. After that, Tom stopped being a teacher.

The next morning, Tom and Ren attend the sheepshearing. Ren approaches a group of children and punches one of the boys in the neck. Ren feels “surprisingly good” but is promptly attacked by the other boys. A farmer intervenes, pulling Ren to his feet. Ren reveals his scarred wrist, and Tom approaches to say that Ren has been starting fights ever since losing his hand in a thresher. Benjamin suddenly appears, saying that Ren only needs some tonic. He presents a bottle of “Mother Jones’s Elixir for Misbehaving Children,” and Ren drinks the entire thing. He makes a show of kneeling...