Summary of Chapter 6 in the book, A Year Down Yonder.

• March comes, and Mary Alice turns sixteen.

• Mary Alice had hardly seen Bootsie all winter. When spring comes, Bootsie returns to occasionally snuggle with her in bed and to bring little knick-knacks.

• One day in April, when Mary Alice and Grandma are helping each other wash their hair, a man with a strange accent comes calling.

• He explains he was sent to Grandma by Maxine Patch, the postmistress. He is in town to paint a mural on the post office wall.
• The man was sent by the government as part of the Roosevelt administration's ambitious public works project.

• The artist, Arnold Green, explains that he is from the East, and no one has had room in the entire town for him. Taking advantage of Arnold's desperation, Grandma charges him two and a half dollars a day for rent, based upon his confession that he was earning four dollars a day.

• Knowing it is too much, Arnold reluctantly agrees, and he moves into the attic.
• Grandma discovers Arnold is a single man, and she knows that man-hungry Maxine Patch will be trying to seduce him.

• Final exams are coming up at school, and Mary Alice is struggling with math.

• Royce shows himself to be very good at math. Partly to romance him, Mary Alice invites him over to Grandma's house to have him tutor her.

• Royce and Mary Alice awkwardly meet, and there is obvious chemistry.
• An ear-rending scream from the attic fills the air. Maxine Patch bounds down the stairs, naked except for a long black snake wrapped around her neck.

• Grandma kept a snake in the attic to keep the birds away. Arnold Green was painting a nude portrait of Maxine when the snake fell from the rafters.

• Mary Alice figures all chances with Royce are ruined, and it takes Grandma playing matchmaker between Arnold and Miss Butler to change the town's opinion of him.