Chapter Seventeen Summary

Rondal arrives at Carrie's tent and tells her of a problem. Rondal found an Italian woman inside Lytton Davidson's house who lost all of her sons in the mine explosion that killed the Davidson baseball team and hundreds of others. The woman would not leave the house before Rondal helped her break the glass jars containing the butterfly specimens. Rondal took the woman to a safe place beside the river and then went for help. Carrie goes to the woman. She calls Rosa's daughter-in-law who will help get Rosa into the state hospital. Rondal walks Rosa to the train, and all the while she calls him Francesco.

Thousands of miners and their families live in tents through the summer. Occasionally they shoot at the scabs that the mining companies have brought in to replace the miners. In the fall many of...