How we cite our quotes: (Section.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
But then the two drunk ones told me how the girl had survived—by eating pine sap in the woods. (5.1.1)
The "two drunk ones" here are Marie's mother and June's father, who was a Morrissey (and, apparently, a drunk). As you can tell from the way she refers to them here, Marie doesn't have a ton of respect or family feeling for them…
Quote #5
With each stroke of my dasher I progressed in thinking what to make of Nector. I had plans, and there was no use him trying to get out of them. I'd known from the beginning I had married a man with brains. But the brains wouldn't matter unless I kept him from the bottle. He would pour them down the drain, where his liquor went, unless I stopped the holes, wore him out, dragged him back each time he drank, and tied him to the bed with strong ropes. (5.1.27)
Marie apparently spent a lot of her time churning butter and fretting about Nector's future and behavior. Apparently, he was a little too fond of the bottle, and she worked really hard to try to keep him from letting that fondness bring him down entirely. She was ultimately successful, but apparently it was quite the struggle.
Quote #6
Drunk, he had started driving the old Northern Pacific tracks and either fallen asleep or passed out, his car straddling the rails. As he'd left the bar that night everyone who had been there remembered his words.
"She comes barreling through, you'll never see me again."At first they had thought he was talking about Lulu. But even at the time they knew she didn't lose her temper over drinking. It was the train Henry had been talking about. They realized that later when the news came and his casket was sealed. (6.1.6-8)
Here, the narrator is describing the unfortunate end Henry Lamartine Senior met when he decided to drive drunk on the train tracks. From his comment to his drinking buddies, it appears that the death was suicide—and that drinking heavily was probably a standard activity, given that the first interpretation of his statement was that Lulu would be mad about his alcohol use.