Part 1 Chapter 2 Summary

This chapter is about John Bergson, Alexandra's father. As he lies dying at age forty-six, he reminisces about his life as a Nebraska farmer. He has been working the land for eleven years and getting nowhere. He goes over his many setbacks: cattle dying in a blizzard, cholera killing his cows, failed crops, two dead children. He spent five years in debt and now owns six hundred forty acres. He was never much of a farmer.

Bergson's father had been a successful shipbuilder of wealth in the Old Country, but he died in disgrace after making a bad marriage and wasting his money. Bergson, like many of the immigrants he came to America with, was not trained in farming when he took up his homestead. He had worked in a shipyard.

As he lies in bed, John Bergson thinks about what...