Chapter Two, Ben Summary

Mat Feltner, now sixty-nine years old, goes into his house after some morning chores and sees Old Jack staring off of his hotel porch wistfully. Mat's wife, Margaret, suggests that Jack live with them, but Mat refuses, saying Jack would be offended and would not want to do it anyway, recalling that Jack has always been there for him when he needed it, but never when he did not.

Mat leaves the house and goes to meet one of his hired workers, a man named Lightning Berlew. Mat does not like Lightning or his wife, who goes by Smoothbore. They are not hard working people and have made no effort to integrate themselves into the community of Port Williams. Lightning and his wife had moved into the house of a black family that lived there and moved out after...