- The next time Will comes home, Carol asks to hear all about his cases. Will doesn't have anything interesting to tell her, though: it's just been a few people with stomachaches lately.
- Four days after Carol's first meeting with the Jolly Seventeen, Vida Sherwin comes to visit and tells Carol that the women of the town keep talking about Carol behind her back.
- Vida advises Carol to tone down her rebellious side if she wants to fit in with the town.
- Carol learns that there's basically nothing creative she can do without setting off gossip among these women. She despairs and starts to cry, but Vida comforts her.
- Later on, Carol asks Will if any of the men around Gopher Prairie say things about her behind her back. Will admits that some of them do.
- Carol hates the way that people are constantly judging her.
- Will asks Carol to give more of her household business to merchants who are patients of his.