Jeannette explains as this section opens that none of the kids in her family received allowances, so they make money by collecting beer cans and bottles to redeem for two cents each. They then go to the drugstore next to the Owl Club to buy penny candy. Jeannette remembers how they handle all the candy while trying to decide what they want. Finally, the druggist throws them out for destroying his candy inventory. Jeannette's favorite is a Sugar Daddy, because it lasts so long. She also likes that it always has a funny poem written on the stick.
On their way back from the drugstore, they have to pass the Green Lantern
- a big dark green house with a sagging porch right near the highway.
Mom calls it a cat house, but Jeannette never sees any cats, only women
wearing bathing suits or short dresses who sit or lay all over the porch
and wave to the kids as they go by. Mom won't explain the place, only
saying that bad things go on there. But Jeannette needs her curiosity
satisfied, so she double-dares Brian to go talk to a woman lying on the
porch. Brian takes the challenge and talks to her. Jeannette watches the
woman ruffle his hair, which he usually never allows anyone to do. When
he returns to Jeannette, she asks him what they do in there, and he says
that the woman told him that men came in and the women were nice to them.
He insists that the woman was kinda nice.
This section reflects the natural curiosity of a child who is being
exposed to the sexual side of life. It's supposed to be such a bad place,
but neither Jeannette nor Brian finds anything bad about it. This contrasts
vividly with their childish search for pennies to buy candy.
The Walls have many animals that have the run of the depot where they live. They even have an injured buzzard for a while, which they name Buster. He is a hateful bird, and Jeannette is glad when his broken wing is healed and he is allowed to fly away. Because they can't afford dog food, the animals eat the family's leftovers, which are never much. Mom sees this as encouraging self-sufficiency in the animals that can leave at any time to find better food sources. She also believes in allowing nature to take its course. So the kids are not allowed to kill the flies. They are food for the lizards and birds, which in turn are food for the cats. She says, Kill the flies and starve the cats.
Dad buys a souped-up Ford Fairlane and then packs up the kids to go
swimming at the Hot Pot. The Hot Pot is a natural sulfur spring in the
desert. A couple of drunks and wild teenagers had drowned there, and Jeannette
is afraid, because she doesn't know how to swim. However, Dad is determined
that she'll learn how at the Hot Pot. He takes her out into the middle
and lets her go and every time she tries to grab on to him, he throws
her back into the middle again. She finally realizes she can't depend
on him and kicks and flails her way away from him and to the side of the
water. Dad is elated, because Jeannette is swimming and tries to hug her.
However, she won't allow him or Mom, who had been floating on her back,
ignoring what was happening to Jeannette. Dad keeps insisting that he
wouldn't have allowed her to drown. He tells her that he was trying to
teach her that, If you don't want to sink, you better figure out how
to swim. What other reason, he insists, would he have done this? Jeannette
gives in to his logic and forgives. There is no other way to explain it.
This section reinforces the attitude of Jeannette's parents: their child will either sink or swim. They treat their animals in much the same way as they treat their children. Nature must take its course.
Clapsaddle, Diane. "TheBestNotes on A Long Way Gone".
TheBestNotes.com.
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