Chapter 5 Summary

Toward the end of the summer, the news arrives that Jonathan Eltwing and his wife would be moving to town so that Jonathan could work on his next book. Julie had heard Jonathan's name periodically through the years at Aunt Cordelia's house and finally learns from Laura that Aunt Cordelia had fallen in love with Jonathan, when she had been a very young teacher and had helped Jonathan prepare for college entrance exams.

Jonathan had come from a farming family in which the father needed his sons for labor and discouraged education. Fortunately, Jonathan's mother had been intellectual herself and found a way to provide the best education possible for all her children. Aunt Cordelia was only slightly older than Jonathan was, and their late night tutoring sessions created rumors of impropriety in the town, but Aunt Cordelia's father squelched the rumors and...