Chapters 27-28 Summary

One day in September, the Old Man is complaining about how things are not the way they used to be. These new-fangled flappers and kids in their cars, dancing the Charleston, smarting off to their elders, remind him of the way things used to be. He hates Prohibition, and thinks that the bootleg liquor and moonshine have a more negative effect on people than real wine and good alcohol. He especially talks about all kinds of foods that people used to be able to get for cheap, which now are unavailable or illegal due to over-hunting. As an example, the Old Man points out how terrapins used to cost five cents apiece back in the day, and so every important dinner party and political event had terrapin stew as the main course. As a result, terrapins are rare in the area...