Chapter 2 — Teaching Companion

What it asks It asks what lived in Samuel’s talk that his listeners could not take with them. The men “loved to hear Samuel talk of the world and its thinking”. He had “a rich deep voice, good both in song and in speech”, and “a rise and a lilt and a cadence to his talk that made it sound sweet in the ears of the taciturn farmers from the valley bottom.” Then: “They called him a comical genius and carried his stories carefully home, and they wondered at how the stories spilled out on the way, for they never sounded the same repeated in their own kitchens.” The student names what was lost between the forge and the kitchen. The question sits close to the hinge: other men “took Samuel’s tricks and sold them”, but this gift could not even be carried down the road.

One reading

The voice. The words got home; the music did not. The narrator spends more on how Samuel sounded than on anything he said, and taciturn men cannot carry a lilt in their pockets. What spilled was Samuel himself, the one part of the story that belonged to the teller.

• He had a rich deep voice, good both in song and in speech
• they never sounded the same repeated in their own kitchens

Another reading

The place. At the forge there was whisky, the hammer, other men, and no one watching. At home the stories had to be told in a kitchen, the very room the men hid their bottle from. The stories belonged to a place apart, where men “dropped their cursing” without trying. What spilled was the company and the freedom.

• out of sight of the kitchen window and the disapproving eye of Mrs. Hamilton
• listening to Samuel’s hammer and his talk

Listen for

• Notices that “carefully” and “spilled” pull against each other: the men tried to keep the stories and still lost them.
• Sets the stories beside Samuel’s tricks, which other men “took” and “sold”: one gift could be lifted from him, the other could not leave the forge.
• Notices “taciturn”: men of few words carrying home a talker’s stories.
• Asks whether a gift that cannot be passed on is worth more for it, or less.

If stuck

• What did Samuel sound like when he talked?
• Where were the men when they heard the stories, and where were they when they told them again?
• Have you ever retold a story that fell flat when you told it? What was missing?

A strong answer A strong response names what spilled and finds it on the page. One reader says it was the voice: the narrator lingers on Samuel’s “rich deep voice” and the “cadence” of his talk, and the men’s kitchens had the words without the music. Another says it was the forge itself, the whisky drunk “out of sight of the kitchen window”, the hammer, and a place where men changed without meaning to. The best answers see that this is the one gift of Samuel’s that no one could take and sell, and ask what that says about where his worth lay.

What it asks It asks what Samuel’s silence about money was keeping safe. “Samuel should have been rich from his well rig and his threshing machine and his shop, but he had no gift for business. His customers, always pressed for money, promised payment after harvest, and then after Christmas, and then after—until at last they forgot it. Samuel had no gift for reminding them. And so the Hamiltons stayed poor.” The same chapter shows what he had with these men: they brought him “tools to mend and to improve”, “It was a bad day when three or four men were not standing around the forge”, and men and women told him “things they would not tell to relatives or close friends.” The student pictures the one scene the chapter never shows and weighs what asking would cost. The card must not make the customers cheats beyond what the page says: they were “pressed for money”, they “promised”, and they “forgot”.

One reading

The part of him the valley loved. A man at the door with a bill is a tradesman, and the forge was never a shop to these men. They came to listen, they hid their whisky there, they dropped their cursing without trying, and they told him their secrets. Asking would have turned the talker into a creditor. His silence about money belongs with the open hand that made him who he was.

• It was a bad day when three or four men were not standing around the forge
• tell him things they would not tell to relatives or close friends

Another reading

Very little, except his own comfort. The narrator does not praise the silence. He lists it beside “no gift for business” as one more thing Samuel lacked, and he says what it cost in one short sentence. The bill went unpaid, but someone still paid it: Liza and their nine sons and daughters, on land that would not feed them.

• Samuel had no gift for reminding them.
• And so the Hamiltons stayed poor.

Listen for

• Hears “gift” used for what Samuel lacks as well as for what he has: “no gift for business”, “no gift for reminding them”.
• Hears the sentence trail off, “and then after—until at last they forgot it”, the way the debt does.
• Notices that the customers were “always pressed for money”: asking might have brought in nothing anyway.
• Asks who paid for the silence, and whether Samuel was the one who chose that.

If stuck

• What did the customers promise, and what happened to the promise?
• What did men bring to the forge besides their tools?
• Have you ever not asked for something you were owed? What were you protecting?

A strong answer A strong response pictures the scene at the door and says what it would cost, from the page. One reader says Samuel would lose what the valley loved in him: the forge as a place to listen, the trust that brought him secrets, the man who was a friend rather than a tradesman. Another says he would lose little but his own ease, since the narrator calls the silence a missing “gift” and ends the paragraph “And so the Hamiltons stayed poor.” The best answers see that the question is the hinge in small: if the silence kept something worth keeping, the poverty was its price, and the family paid it with him.

What it asks It asks the student to take the narrator’s half-joke seriously. “Liza had a finely developed sense of sin. Idleness was a sin, and card playing, which was a kind of idleness to her. She was suspicious of fun whether it involved dancing or singing or even laughter. She felt that people having a good time were wide open to the devil. And this was a shame, for Samuel was a laughing man, but I guess Samuel was wide open to the devil. His wife protected him whenever she could.” The student says what Samuel needed guarding from, by Liza’s lights and by the chapter’s. The card must not reduce Liza to a killjoy, which the hinge names as a risk, and must not say what becomes of the family later.

One reading

From fun, as she counted it: the laughing, the singing, the whisky at the forge. Read this way the protection is the narrator’s joke at her expense. She guards Samuel against the very things that made the valley love him, and the men hide their bottle from her for it. The word “protected” is said with a smile.

• She was suspicious of fun whether it involved dancing or singing or even laughter.
• out of sight of the kitchen window and the disapproving eye of Mrs. Hamilton

Another reading

From his own openness. The words “wide open” fit Samuel in more ways than Liza meant: open to every neighbor’s need, to every secret, to every man who took his tricks. A man that open needs someone closed beside him. Her hard jaw and her house that was “always her house” are the wall around him. The narrator calls her outlook “a shame” and still chooses the word “protected”.

• His wife protected him whenever she could.
• She frightened her grandchildren because she had no weakness.

Listen for

• Hears “I guess”: the narrator half jokes, and the joke still names something true about Samuel.
• Notices “wide open” said twice, first as Liza’s belief about everyone, then as the narrator’s own guess about Samuel.
• Notices “whenever she could”: the guarding had limits, and the whisky went on out of sight of the kitchen window.
• Keeps to the page: nothing shows Liza dealing with the unpaid bills.

If stuck

• What did Liza count as sin?
• Where did the men drink their whisky, and who were they hiding it from?
• In what other ways is Samuel open to people?

A strong answer A strong response names what Liza protected Samuel from and finds it in her pages. One reader says it was fun as she counted it, laughter and song and whisky, so the line is the narrator’s joke, and she guarded him against what made him loved. Another says it was his own openness, the same openness that let others take his work for nothing, and that her hardness was the wall around him. The best answers hear both the smile in “I guess” and the weight in “protected”, and refuse to make Liza only a killjoy.

What it asks It asks the student to catch the narrator making his portrait. The chapter opens: “I must depend on hearsay, on old photographs, on stories told, and on memories which are hazy and mixed with fable in trying to tell you about the Hamiltons.” He fills gaps out loud all through it: “It is hard to imagine that any country Irish girl refused him”; “I think there must have been some other girl printed somewhere in his heart”; Liza “must have had a pelvic arch of whalebone”; the Hamiltons “must have been either lucky or moral”; and “since I can’t remember how she dressed, it must have been that she wore clothes that matched herself exactly.” The student finds what the guesses have in common. The card must keep each guess a guess: the chapter does not know why Samuel left Ireland, and it says “there was no hint that Samuel ever went to any other woman.”

One reading

He fills it with feeling. Each guess tells how the family felt, not what happened: Samuel too charming to be refused, Liza’s clothes as hard as she was. The family even picks the story it likes best. The gaps get filled with love for Samuel and a grandchild’s fear of Liza, so the portrait is true to feeling, and that is its limit.

• We always preferred to think it was the former.
• She frightened her grandchildren because she had no weakness.

Another reading

He fills it with reasons. Each guess is worked out from something he does know: a man of love must have loved someone; a woman with no weakness must have dressed like it. And he marks his guesses, “must have”, “I think”, “I guess”, so the reader can tell them from the rest. A guesser who shows his seams may deserve more trust than a bare record.

• it must have been that she wore clothes that matched herself exactly
• for he was a man of love

Listen for

• Gathers the “must have” and “I think” lines and notices how many fall on Samuel and Liza.
• Notices that the guesses about Samuel run warm and the guesses about Liza run hard.
• Separates what the records could show, “birth, marriage, land ownership, and death”, from what the narrator adds.
• Keeps the “other girl” a guess and never states it as fact.

If stuck

• In the first sentence, what does the narrator say his account rests on?
• Find another place where he says “must have” or “I think”.
• What could the old papers on “birth, marriage, land ownership, and death” not tell him?

A strong answer A strong response finds several of the narrator’s guesses and says what fills them. One reader says feeling does: the family’s love for Samuel and the grandchildren’s fear of Liza shape every gap, and the family even says which story it “preferred”. Another says reasoning does: each guess is worked out from a known trait and openly marked, which makes the portrait more honest, not less. The best answers carry the point forward: any verdict on Samuel’s life rests partly on stories the family chose to keep.

What it asks It asks the student to set Samuel beside the narrator’s essay on land-greed, which never names him. “He followed the usual practice.” He took a quarter-section for himself, one for his wife and one for the baby on the way, and “with each birth another quarter-section was added to the ranch,” until “that makes eleven quarter-sections, or seventeen hundred and sixty acres.” Yet “He found quite soon that even if he had ten thousand acres of hill country he could not make a living on the bony soil without water.” In part 2 the settlers feel “an itching land-greed”: “They wanted more and more land—good land if possible, but land anyway,” and “A man who might have been well-to-do on ten acres in Europe was rat-poor on two thousand in California.” The student weighs whether the narrator’s explanation fits Samuel or whether his reasons lie elsewhere. The card must not say the narrator calls Samuel greedy: the link is the student’s to make or refuse.

One reading

The land-greed the narrator describes. Samuel’s people had held “one landhold” in “one stone house for many hundreds of years.” To a man from that house, a family is the land it owns. He keeps taking land he cannot use because owning it is what a family does, and he ends rat-poor on seventeen hundred and sixty acres. Read this way, part of the poverty is his own choice.

• who had lived on one landhold and in one stone house for many hundreds of years
• Perhaps they had filaments of memory of feudal Europe where great families became and remained great because they owned things.

Another reading

Something for each new life. Each quarter-section is taken for a person: himself, his wife, the baby on the way. The land cost only a signature and a foundation, so taking it cost little, and it gave each son and daughter a share, however poor. That is less greed than the venture the narrator says is nearly gone from the world.

• with each birth another quarter-section was added to the ranch
• Surely such venture is nearly gone from the world.

Listen for

• Notices that the essay never names Samuel: the student, not the narrator, makes the link.
• Hears “the usual practice”: Samuel did what everyone did, which may excuse him or may be the point.
• Sets “rat-poor on two thousand” beside Samuel’s “seventeen hundred and sixty acres”.
• Notices that the land could be had “for the signing of a paper and the building of a foundation”, so taking more cost little.

If stuck

• How did Samuel’s ranch grow to seventeen hundred and sixty acres?
• What did he find out “quite soon” about the hill land?
• In part 2, what does the narrator think made settlers want land they could not use?

A strong answer A strong response sets Samuel’s quarter-sections beside the essay on land-greed and gives a reason from the page. One reader says the essay fits him: the son of a family that held “one landhold” for hundreds of years kept taking land because owning it meant being a family, and he ended “rat-poor” on seventeen hundred and sixty acres. Another says each quarter-section was a share for a new life, cheap to take, and a sign of the venture the narrator says is “nearly gone from the world”. The best answers notice that the narrator never names Samuel in the essay, and ask how much of the poverty the last question weighs was Samuel’s choice and how much was the land’s.

What it asks It asks the student to test the narrator’s argument on the person in the chapter who seems made to test it, by asking where her strength comes from. He grants that “It is argued that because they believed thoroughly in a just, moral God they could put their faith there and let the smaller securities take care of themselves.” Then he gives his own view: “But I think that because they trusted themselves and respected themselves as individuals”, they “could give God their own courage and dignity and then receive it back.” Liza had “a dour Presbyterian mind” and “a finely developed sense of sin”; she “suffered bravely and uncomplainingly through life, convinced that that was the way her God wanted everyone to live. She felt that rewards came later.” Yet she also had “a gripping jaw set on its course even though the angels of God argued against it”. The student builds a thesis, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must treat the self-trust argument as the narrator’s real account of how such families lived, not an aside, and must not reduce Liza to a killjoy.

One reading

From her God. Liza is the chapter’s believer. She lives by a sense of sin, suffers without complaint because she thinks God wants it, and looks for her pay later. Her strength is faith, the reason the narrator sets aside, and she lasts on it all the same.

• convinced that that was the way her God wanted everyone to live
• She felt that rewards came later.

Another reading

From herself. Liza’s faith runs on her own will. Her jaw keeps its course even against the angels, she has no weakness, and her house is always her house. She gives God her own courage and gets it back, just as the narrator says. She follows no one, least of all a strong sure man.

• a gripping jaw set on its course even though the angels of God argued against it
• She frightened her grandchildren because she had no weakness.

Listen for

• Catches the two “even though” lines: Liza’s jaw holds “even though the angels of God argued against it”, and the strong sure man is followed “even though he may be wrong”.
• Notices “It is argued” set against “But I think”: the narrator names a view he does not hold before giving his own.
• Revises by asking whether the two reasons can be pulled apart in one person, and whether Liza fits both, or neither.
• Tries Samuel as a check: which reason fits a man who never asks to be paid?

If stuck

• What did Liza believe about sin, and about rewards?
• For a family on barren land, what might “the smaller securities” be?
• Does Liza seem like someone who would follow a strong sure man?

A strong answer A strong response says where Liza’s strength comes from, answers the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says it comes from her God: she suffers because she believes God wants it and trusts that “rewards came later”, which is the reason the narrator sets aside. The strongest objection is her jaw, “set on its course even though the angels of God argued against it”, and a will so firm she “had no weakness”: that is self-trust, the narrator’s own reason. A good revision might hold that in Liza the two cannot be pulled apart, since she gives God her own iron and takes it back as His will. Another might argue that the narrator’s line between the two reasons is less clean than he claims, and that Liza is the proof.

What it asks It asks the chapter’s whole question: by what measure to weigh a life. Samuel “was forever inventing a new way of doing an old thing and doing it better and quicker, but he never in his whole life had any talent for making money.” He bored wells “on the lands of luckier men” and threshed “the grain his own farm would not raise.” “Other men who had the talent took Samuel’s tricks and sold them and grew rich”; his customers “forgot”; “And so the Hamiltons stayed poor.” Yet he breathed his own son back to life, neighbors “from twenty miles away” called him to their births, men told him things “they would not tell to relatives or close friends”, and his family lived on land where “Even the sagebrush struggled to exist.” The narrator then argues that such families “did survive and grow” because “they trusted themselves and respected themselves as individuals”. The student builds a thesis, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The card must not say what becomes of Samuel or his sons and daughters, and must not treat a portrait built on “hearsay” and “fable” as documented fact.

One reading

A failure, by the measure the chapter keeps raising. The narrator says Samuel should have been rich and was not. Other men grew rich on his ideas, his customers forgot what they owed, and he worked the harvests of luckier men while his own land gave nothing. A gift that makes everyone rich but its owner is a gift handled badly.

• Samuel should have been rich from his well rig and his threshing machine and his shop, but he had no gift for business.
• And so the Hamiltons stayed poor.

Another reading

A success, by the measure the chapter ends on. He breathed life into his son, delivered his neighbors’ babies, and was trusted with secrets no one else heard. His family lasted on land where even the sagebrush struggled. The narrator says families like his lived on self-respect, not security, and Samuel had it to spare.

• put his mouth against the baby’s mouth and blew air in and sucked it out until the baby could take over for himself
• And the families did survive and grow.

Listen for

• Names the measure being used, money, family, neighbors or self-respect, and notices that the narrator never settles on one.
• Notices “rat-poor on two thousand”: the narrator blames the land and the times, not only Samuel’s lack of business sense.
• Remembers that the portrait rests on “hearsay” and “fable”, and asks which measure the family’s own stories favor.
• Revises toward a life that succeeds and fails by different measures, and says which measure the chapter itself seems to trust.

If stuck

• List what Samuel gave his neighbors. Then list what came back to him.
• What does the narrator say kept families like the Hamiltons going?
• Which of Samuel’s gifts could money have paid for, and which could it not?

A strong answer A strong response states a thesis on whether Samuel’s life is a success, answers the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis calls it a failure by the chapter’s own plain words: he “should have been rich”, others “grew rich” on his tricks, and “the Hamiltons stayed poor”. The strongest objection is everything that flowed out of his hands for free, a son breathed back to life, births twenty miles off, secrets kept, and a family that “did survive and grow” on land where even sagebrush struggled. A good revision might hold that the chapter measures him twice, and that the narrator’s argument about self-trust is his case for the second measure. Another might note that the whole portrait comes from a family that loved him, and ask how far its verdict can be trusted.