Chapter 4 Summary

In 1948, Marie Kashpaw is married with too many children to feed and not enough food to go around. The last thing she wants is another child to care for, but that is what she is about to get. When the drunken woman she once called her mother comes to her door, she brings nine-year-old June Morrissey with her. Lucille, Marie's sister, has died in a drunken stupor out in the woods. Somehow, June survived on her own by drinking pine sap and eating grass. June's father, "the no-good Morrissey," is uselessly drunk himself and cannot care for his daughter.

The former family members on Marie's doorstep do their best to stay composed, but they lose themselves in laughter while telling about the beads around June's neck. The Cree Indians who found June couldn't figure out where she sprang from and decided she must...