The Pound Party and The Census Summary

"The Pound Party": Rawlings takes an invitation from the large Townsend family as a welcome to the area. A family of "countless" children, they invite her to a "pound party," at which she is the only guest. They play harmonica and dance, serve her crackers and peanut butter, and proceed to enjoy the cake she brought. Some of the children suffer from hookworm, for which their parents mostly refuse treatment. Rawlings makes dresses for the children if they will agree to go to school. They attend school for a while but eventually drop out. They grow up to be as active and prosperous as their neighbors, which makes Rawlings question whether it was she who could have learned from them.

"The Census": In order to get to know the area and her neighbors...