Chapters 5-7 Summary

Tom is smothered with affection from his uncle and aunts until he goes off to school at Yale. Tom quits after a short time, however, and comes home without a career or any aspirations for one. Tom lives off the kindness of his uncle, collecting an allowance that comes nowhere near covering the debts he incurs from a gambling habit. Tom has grown to be generally unpleasant, leaving him with no friends and acquaintances that put up with him only because of his uncle. During this same time, a local widow, Widow Cooper, or Aunt Patsy as many in town affectionately call her, learns that the room she rents out in her house is to be occupied by a set of twins. Much excitement follows this announcement because the twins are foreigners, originally from Italy, who have traveled to many wild...