Foster

Time passes in the Kinsellas’ routine. Though the narrator “keep[s] waiting for something to happen, for the ease [she] feel[s] to end” (37), her days stay the same: breakfast with all three together, Kinsella heading to work on the farm, Edna and the girl cleaning and cooking and gardening, a walk to the well, dinner, the nine o’clock news, and bedtime.

The girl notes that once she’s in bed, the Kinsellas occasionally receive visitors. She overhears chatting and raucous card games. One night, she hears a sound that resembles a donkey’s bray, and Edna comes up to get her and bring her downstairs, explaining that “nobody could get a wink of sleep with the Ass Carey in the house” (38). Two men come by to sell raffle tickets benefiting the local school and are surprised when Kinsella buys some despite having no children of his own. Edna challenges her generation’s ability to play cards properly except when the rules benefit them, and the gathering devolves into laughter.

While the woman and the narrator are making gooseberry jam, Kinsella comes in and says that the girl needs clothing of her own. She is wearing another set of pants and a shirt that Edna brought out of a drawer, and the woman asks why she needs a change.