Chapter 4 Summary

Macon's boss, Julian, does not waste time calling him after his return from England. Macon is still asleep when the phone rings yet somehow he is able to negotiate another two weeks longer than Julian had requested to get his manuscript. Macon tells Julian that he will try to do better than that though and hangs up still in a fog.

Instead of working on his book, Macon spends the next week or so organizing the household, room by room. Macon rearranges all the kitchen cupboards; he weeds and prunes in the yard, and stretches a clothesline across the basement so he wouldn't have to use the dryer. Then he disconnects the dryer's exhaust tube and teaches the cat to go in and out the windowpane where the tube had been. It is only a pity that the dog cannot do the same...