47 pages • 1 hour read
A Year Down Yonder
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Chapters 4-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary: “Away in a Manger”
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of animal death.
With the approach of Christmas, Miss Butler assigns Mary Alice’s home economics class to make hot pads (to protect surfaces from hot pots and pans) out of crocheted yarn and bottlecaps. Her partner is her closest friend, Ina-Rae Gage. For the upcoming Christmas program, Miss Butler has given Mary Alice the role of the Virgin Mary, which sparks some disdain among the student body since she’s from Chicago. Though excited, Mary Alice wonders how she’ll afford a proper costume. Now more than ever, she wonders where Grandma gets her money.
With the first snow, Mary Alice notices that Grandma bundles up in her late husband’s coat, boots, and rubber waders and spends long hours outside. Part of her work, it seems, has been gathering walnut husks. That night, at 10 o’clock, Grandma jerks awake in her chair and tells Mary Alice to bundle up.
Grabbing a strange miscellany of objects—picture wire, wooden stakes, rabbit fur, a .22 pistol, and a vial of pungent-smelling, amber liquid—Grandma takes her on a long ramble over the snow-covered fields. Hearing a humanlike scream, Grandma fires the pistol. Mary Alice almost faints to see that she has killed a trapped fox. Replacing the trap with a fresh one, Grandma baits the new trap with a tuft of rabbit fur and a few drops of the amber liquid, which turns out to be fox urine.
Late into the night, showing no fatigue, Grandma harvests three more foxes from her traps before turning homeward, explaining to Mary Alice that the foxes’ tracks in the snow show her where to set the traps. At home, Grandma skins the foxes to sell the pelts to a fur broker. Now, Mary Alice understands her secret source of money.
As December continues, Mary Alice worries more and more about Grandma, who treks for hours through the frozen fields every night, working harder than many people half her age. She tries to accompany her grandmother whenever she can to help keep her safe.
Meanwhile, rehearsals continue for the school’s nativity play. The props are homemade, including a tinfoil Star of Bethlehem, a crudely fashioned manger, and a “battered doll” of Ina-Rae’s standing in for Baby Jesus. Mary Alice worries that her costume, a shawl made from a sheet, won’t compare to lead angel Carleen Lovejoy’s tinsel halo and satin gown, but Grandma seems unconcerned.
One evening, Grandma takes Mary Alice into the woods to find a Christmas tree, which she cuts down with Augie Fluke’s folding knife. On the night of the Christmas program, as Mary Alice models her costume, Grandma pulls something shiny from her apron pocket: a halo fashioned out of baling wire and festooned with little stars cut out of tin cans. Now, Mary Alice thinks, Carleen won’t outshine her in the play.
The program begins with Christmas carols sung by the choir, and then Mary Alice and the other actors crawl under the curtains to take their places. As the stage lights come on, Mary Alice sees Grandma enter the church and push her way to a seat. At the play’s climax, when a beam from the “Star of Bethlehem” shines down to illuminate the manger, “Baby Jesus” emits a piercing wail: A real baby has taken the place of Ina-Rae’s doll in the manger.
The audience leaps to its feet, the choir stops, and the whole evening descends into pandemonium. Grandma mounts the stage and lifts the baby in her arms. Seeing its telltale blue and green eyes, she shouts to the crowd, “It’s all right […] It’s a Burdick!” (72). The mother, presumably, is Mildred Burdick, who has been out of school for months. The Christmas program, though “in ruins,” will never be forgotten.
In the aftermath, Mary Alice sees a tall figure looming behind Grandma. It is another “miracle”: her brother, Joey, who has come to visit her as a surprise, his ticket paid for with Grandma’s fox fur money. As they share hugs onstage, two other girls swoon over Joey, whom they compare to Tyrone Power.
For a crowning surprise, Grandma has bought Mary Alice and Joey round-trip tickets to Chicago to spend part of the holidays with their parents. It must, Mary Alice thinks, have cost Grandma her “last skin” to arrange this reunion. Before they go, however, they will celebrate Christmas with Grandma in her warm living room with its popcorn-trimmed tree. It will be just the three of them, as in summers past.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Hearts and Flour”
Late January brings a knock on Grandma Dowdel’s front door. Wilhemina Weidenbach, wife of the banker L. J. Weidenbach and president of the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), insists that Grandma bake the traditional cherry tarts for the DAR’s tea party on George Washington’s birthday. Wilhelmina boasts that her bloodline, as with all DAR members, goes back to the American Revolutionary War, where (she says) her ancestor Captain Crow fought at the Battle of Yorktown. Charging Grandma to do her part and come through with the tarts, even though she isn’t a DAR member, Wilhemina leaves. Grandma shakes her head at Wilhemina’s effrontery.
A brief notice in the local newspaper heralds the approach of Valentine’s Day and Washington’s birthday, noting that the DAR still has no volunteer to make the cherry tarts for its tea party. It also refers to a “valentine exchange” at Mary Alice’s school, which raises some eyebrows, as there are few male students. However, a new student arrives, a tall, handsome boy named Royce McNabb. His corduroy pants and argyle sweater signal his “citified” background, and Carleen Lovejoy instantly develops a crush on him.
At home after school, Mary Alice opens the door again for Wilhelmina, who is now desperate. Grandma finally agrees to make the tarts on the condition that the DAR tea be held at her house. Wilhemina reluctantly agrees.
On Valentine’s Day, the students all find a single valentine from Miss Butler on their desk. The shocking exception is Ina-Rae Gage, who has been gifted with three more: one apparently from a classmate named Elmo Leaper; a second seemingly from the Johnson brothers; and a fancy one made of satin and fringed with paper lace, signed with Royce’s initials. In a jealous rage, Carleen screams at Ina-Rae and stalks out of the room. The other girls, in awe of Ina-Rae’s romantic success, vie to sit next to her all day. Afterward, Ina-Rae congratulates Mary Alice on her clever forgery of the three valentines, which Mary Alice says was for a “good cause.”
On Washington’s birthday, Grandma puts on her finest clothes. They set out the jewel-like cherry tarts she made and wait for the arrival of the DAR ladies at four o’clock. Entering the room with a pitcher of lemonade, Mary Alice is shocked to see two early arrivals, neither of them DAR ladies: Grandma’s old acquaintance Effie Wilcox, who has taken the best chair, and a very old-looking lady she has never seen before sleeping by the stove. Grandma identifies her as Mae Griswold, whom her family brought over at Grandma’s request.
Wilhelmina and four other prominent women, two of them the wives of the town preacher and undertaker, arrive on time. They are shocked to see Effie and Mae at this exclusive tea. They sit as far from the other women as possible.
As Mrs. Lutz delivers the invocation, Mae wakes suddenly and shouts, “Amen, sister!” as if at church. She then scoffs at Wilhemina’s claims to be descended from the illustrious Captain Crow. To everyone’s astonishment, Mae says that she remembers the Roaches adopting Wilhelmina from the Burdicks back in 1883, when she was two years old. Effie then springs from her chair, blurting that the Schultzes adopted her from the Burdicks that same year. Calling Wilhelmina her “long-lost sister,” she tries to embrace the other woman.
The tea party descends into chaos as the ladies quickly leave. Afterward, Mary Alice discovers that the punch that Grandma served the ladies was heavily spiked with Kentucky straight bourbon. Soon, a new notice appears in the local newspaper, reporting the DAR tea party’s change in venue and the two additional guests. Mary Alice, it turns out, is the author of these newspaper notices.
Chapters 4-5 Analysis
Three months into her stay, Mary Alice is still experiencing The Challenges of Feeling Out of Place. She is still an outsider at school, stymied by Carleen Lovejoy, daughter of the town’s grain merchant, who still has not forgiven her for being from Chicago; this dynamic is exacerbated when Mary Alice is cast as the Virgin Mary in the upcoming nativity play, setting up a highly public competition between the two girls. Typical for her character, Grandma pretends not to have noticed Mary Alice’s stage jitters about the upcoming nativity play and her lack of a proper costume. On the very evening of the Christmas program, Grandma casually presents her with a halo that she has crafted out of baling wire and cut-out stars, the work of many hours. Closer to a “crown of thorns,” it is tough and sharp edged, a bit like Grandma herself; however, like Jesus’ crown, it is a symbol of sacrifice and selfless love. With it, Mary Alice outshines the haughty Carleen in all her store-bought satin and tinsel.
In February, Mary Alice still has only one companion at school: the “starved-looking” Ina-Rae Gage, who seems starved for affection as well as for food. Things look up, however, with the arrival of newcomer Royce McNabb, who is “citified,” like Mary Alice herself. Since Carleen has also “set her cap” for Royce, another competition looms in the wings. For the school’s Valentine’s Day card exchange, which Mary Alice has orchestrated by way of an anonymous “news” item in a local paper, she forges Royce’s initials on a luxurious valentine but generously slips it onto Ina-Rae’s desk instead of her own. Like her grandmother, Mary Alice backs the meek and powerless against the privileged and entitled, though she sometimes blurs the lines of strict honesty. With her actions, she shows how Grandma has affected her life and changed her outlook.
Contrary to her continued outsider status at school, Mary Alice’s relationship with Grandma Dowdel grows deeper in these chapters as well, highlighting The Power of Intergenerational Relationships. Their developing intimacy is highlighted by how Grandma lets Mary Alice in on the secret of her financial stability: a grueling, nightly fox hunt. More and more, Mary Alice marvels at Grandma’s boundless energy, savvy, and rugged knowledge of the natural world, as well as the risks she takes for someone her age. Though undemonstrative by habit, Grandma nevertheless has deep reserves of feeling, which she refuses to make a show of. Only after living with her for months does Mary Alice sense the full depth of her love and sacrifice. Once a remote, larger-than-life figure, Grandma now draws Mary Alice’s worry and concern, which binds them closer as Mary Alice becomes her devoted helper. Their closer relationship and Grandma’s care are highlighted with the revelation that she has spent her fox-pelt savings on train tickets for Mary Alice and her brother to see their parents at Christmas. On the walk home from the church, the hug-eschewing Grandma, always hiding her warmth, tells her grandchildren that she’s “like a hog on ice” (74), encouraging them to wrap their arms around her as they go. Mary Alice can now see this as true affection, as she is accustomed to Grandma’s gruff affection.
In a subplot that echoes Mary Alice’s social troubles at school, Grandma grapples with an exclusionary clique of her own: the local chapter of the DAR. This group of “patriotic” ladies offers a stark contrast to the Legion Auxiliary ladies at the turkey shoot, who unostentatiously gave their time and labor to help the poor and wounded. The DAR ladies’ tea parties are little more than an excuse to tout their “aristocratic” superiority over people like Grandma, whom they casually exclude from their party. The scene that ensues again illustrates Grandma’s mischievous approach to social justice. She invites non-DAR members to the party, who then reveal that Wilhelmina Weidenbach, the chapter’s president, is a Burdick and a fraud. On top of all this, Grandma has spiked the ladies’ punch with bourbon and, to ensure that it will be hastily consumed, has turned the furnace way up. Like Mary Alice at the valentine exchange, Grandma brings some unexpected excitement to a yearly tradition. In both cases, a snobbish queen bee storms out in tears, and the town’s social misfits go from wallflowers to the stars of the party. As on Halloween and Armistice Day, Grandma’s “vengeance” shows more compassion than vindictiveness; as Mary Alice notes, it seems closer to social “justice” than to personal revenge.
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