Godliness, Part 1 Summary

One can always expect to see several old people either on the Bentleys' front porch or in their farm's garden. Three are Jesse's sisters, and the fourth is his uncle. In addition to the sisters and the uncle, four hired men, Aunt Callie Beebe, Eliza Stoughton, the stable boy and the owner, Jesse Bentley, also live on the farm. Aunt Beebe is in charge of the housekeeping. Eliza Stoughton, a slow girl, makes beds and assists with the milking. Twenty years after the Civil War, Northern Ohio (where the Bentley farms are located) has started to develop and modernize. When this land was first settled, it was farmland, and clearing trees and stumps was backbreaking labor. When Jesse's father and brothers came to work on the farm, the harder work had been done, but they clung to old traditions and worked...