- Tom and Joe Hemphill have to give their testimonies one more time at the formal inquest.
- Mr. Lambert, the banker, also speaks at the inquest, saying that the Breens never had an account at his bank or at any banks in the surrounding county.
- Tom asks for time off to go to Mrs. Breen's burial. He and Birdy are the only ones there, along with the gravedigger and the priest.
- Tom begins to wonder what will happen to the Breen property. Some people say that the house is now haunted, with Mr. Breen's ghost returned to get his money. Other people trek to the house to look for the money themselves. They did some damage to the house, but the barn was mostly left alone, since there didn't seem to be likely places to hide money in there.
- Tom tells Birdy he still wants to buy the barn one day. Birdy says it doesn't seem likely that someone will buy the land because it's too small for a farm. He explains that if no one buys the property, the County will "put it up for taxes."
- Huh?
- That means that whoever pays the taxes due on the land and continues paying them for two more years will own it if no one comes forward to make a claim on it.
- Birdy says the taxes would come to around eight or ten dollars. Not bad for a whole property. Tom begins to think maybe he could afford to get the land after all, though he only wants the barn, not the land itself.
- Tom asks if he would be able to move the barn in the first year of paying taxes. Birdy says he better ask Billy-Bab Baxter, the lawyer, about that.