- Although the townsfolk try to pin Mrs. Grimes' death on Jake and his son, the pair skip town before any charges stick. Good riddance!
- The brothers return home. The narrator's brother tells the family what happened, but the narrator is "not satisfied with the way he told it" (5.4).
- He claims that he was only able to understand the story by picking up background details over the years.
- He once worked at a farm run by a German who would harass his female servant. He once almost died in the woods, surrounded by wild dogs. He even once visited the Grimes house years after it was abandoned. Wait—so how much of the story is actually true ?
- To the narrator, this story is about how "the woman who died was one destined to feed animal life" (5.14). That's what she did with her life and that's what she did through her death.