Chapters 4 and 5 Summary

In the first part of Chapter 4, Queenie is out in the fields having a picnic lunch with Grover when Zepha Massie runs across the fields with a message - Rita is giving birth, and she's having a hard time. As the members of the Persian Pickle Club gather to offer their support, Queenie recalls how the club supported her both when she was pregnant and after she lost the baby, and reveals that Rita has only been pregnant for seven months. Queenie also describes, in narration, the occasionally sharp tongued conversations going on between the women, and reveals that the married man Forest Ann spends time with is Dr. Sipes, the town physician who is upstairs with Rita. Queenie is present when Rita gives birth to a too-small baby named Wanda, who dies two days later. Some time afterwards, Grover comments...