Section 8 (pages 116-131) Summary

A visit to Boughton, who seems happily preoccupied with listening to and watching his son and daughter (Jack and Glory) working in the garden, leads John to recall his years of happy friendship with him, Boughton's uneasy relationship with his own minister father, and also his (John's) years of bachelorhood. The latter causes him to read a book his wife loves, Trail of the Lonesome Pine, about a young woman who marries a much older man. He also considers writing a sermon inspired by the Biblical story of Hagar and Ishmael, the moral of which is that a man's responsibility is to protect his wife as well as his children. Meanwhile, as his wife and son become more and more engaged with Jack, John recalls a time when Boughton came calling while they sat in the dark and prayed...