- John Bergson has been dead for six months. Carl Linstrum is at home, daydreaming in the kitchen, when he sees the Bergson children coming over the hill in their horse-drawn wagon.
- When Carl runs up to them, Lou calls out, saying they're heading over to Crazy Ivar's to buy a hammock. Carl climbs aboard.
- Lou tries to scare Emil, asking him what he'd do if he were alone on the prairie and saw Ivar coming for him.
- Carl comforts him by telling him that Ivar is harmless, and knows how to cure animals by talking to them.
- Oscar doubts he knows anything about doctoring animals. He probably takes the medicine himself and leaves the rest to God.
- Alexandra doesn't see it that way. She thinks Ivar's mind is cloudy sometimes, sure, but on the other hand, he definitely knows a lot about helping animals.
- Ivar's homestead is in one of the roughest, most inaccessible parts of the whole region. Almost no one else lives there, which is just the way Ivar likes it—that way, there are no "temptations" (1.3.16).
- When their wagon startles some ducks and they take to flight, Lou mentions that he wishes he'd brought his gun to hunt them. Alexandra remarks that then Ivar would get angry and they'd never sell them the hammock.
- Lou is indignant, but Emil is frightened of angering Ivar.
- The group makes it up the road to Ivar's, and glimpse the rough country where he lives. Only the toughest plants can make it here.
- Ivar lives in a sod house, dug out in the hillside. The dwelling is barely noticeable, until you see the light reflecting on the windows and a little rusty stovepipe sticking out.
- Ivar himself is about as strange as his house. It's Sunday, so he's wearing a clean shirt, but he never actually goes to church, since he can't agree with any of the denominations. His shaggy hair and sunburnt face make him look much older than he is. He prefers to live out here on his own, because he dislikes all the clutter associated with living around other human beings. Out in nature, he feels all the more connected to the Bible, which he reads and memorizes while he works.
- Just before he glimpses the troop coming up the hill, he sets aside his Bible and recites a passage from the psalms. (Check out "Shout Outs" for more on this.)
- When he sees them, he runs to them, shouting at them to put away their guns.
- Once he's been reassured they don't have their guns with them this time, he's happy to see them.
- Ivar starts talking about the different waterfowl that have been to his pond lately. Carl tells Alexandra to ask Ivar, who doesn't speak English, whether it's true that a seagull once made it to their part of the country. Ivar remembers the seagull, and how it used to cry out in the night.
- Lou and Oscar tie up and water their horses, while Ivar leads Emil and Alexandra into his house to look at hammocks.
- Ivar's home, for being little more than a dugout cave, is nice and tidy. He sleeps in one of his own hammocks.
- Emil's fascinated by Ivar and his home, and starts asking him all sorts of questions about the birds that come to his pond.
- Meanwhile, Alexandra picks out a hammock, and while Lou and Oscar wait outside, she sits and continues to talk with Ivar. She admits that she actually came to speak with him, and not just to buy a hammock.
- Alexandra wants to know whether her family should sell their hogs, since a lot of the other families have been losing theirs to disease.
- Ivar is pretty darn enthusiastic when it comes to hogs, and he tells her that the best way to make sure they survive is to give them a better stall with fresh water and grains to eat.
- Lou and Oscar overhear what Ivar has to say about the hogs, and get annoyed. Though they work hard, the narrator tells us, they're not into innovation or trying new things. The last thing they want to do is stand out.
- On the way home, the boys joke about Ivar and laugh at his poor prospects. Privately, Alexandra decides to encourage Ivar to work his land, so he can make a living.
- Later, Alexandra sits on the kitchen doorstep with her mother, watching the boys swim in the pond and thinking about the new pig stall she wants to build.