Building Grandmother's Hogan: Early 1930s
- This chapter opens with young Chester (not so young anymore) hanging out with his dad and uncle on one of his school holidays. They're sawing down a huge piñon tree in preparation for building a "hogan," a traditional Navajo dwelling, for Grandmother.
- Chester and his father, grandfather, and uncle work for several days building the hogan.
- When the hogan is finished, Grandmother and Grandfather send for a medicine man, who comes to bless the new home.
- Once the medicine man completes his blessing, life can begin in the new home. But Grandmother loves her new home so much, that she does a ritual of blessing to protect the new home each morning.
- One day, Chester comes home to the yummy smell of Grandma's cooking.
- Chester helps Grandmother prepare for dinner by "setting the table," spreading flour sacks on the floor.
- Everyone sits around the flour sacks, where the food is placed, and chows down on the food. Chester asks Grandmother to tell them a story, and Grandma tells them about her childhood.
- As he listens, Chester begins dozing off. He wishes he could stay home for the winter.
- He remembers how when he was very little he and his brothers sometimes stripped naked in the snow and his dad rolled them in a snow bank (that sounds freezing). This was a way of toughening the children against the winter cold.
- Chester wakes up from a dream about his family and neighbors getting together for a big feast in the autumn.
- But he realizes that by the autumn he will be back in school, and he'll miss all the feasting and storytelling. Does he have to go back to that horrible school? He hates it. He's already dreading going back.