Unsheltered: Chapter 2: Beginners Summary & Analysis

The narrative flashes back to 1874. Thatcher Greenwood walks to the house on the corner of Sixth and Plum—the same lot Willa will one day inhabit. Thatcher is returning from the builder’s office with bad news. Inside, Rose, Thatcher’s wife of six months, spies on their neighbor through the window. Mrs. Treat—whose husband recently abandoned her for another woman—is lying face down in her yard, apparently counting bugs. The window, like the rest of the house Rose’s father built, is unstable, but she loves it anyway. Thatcher jokes that Mrs. Treat might be grieving Dr. Treat’s return, causing Rose to scold him.

Rose’s 12-year-old sister, Polly, bursts into the house. She and Rose’s mother (Aurelia) just witnessed an out-of-control carriage on Landis Avenue. Polly’s excitement amuses Thatcher, who appreciates her forthright attitude. Rose sternly instructs Polly to check on their mother, who seems traumatized by the whole ordeal. Before she goes, Polly informs the couple that President Grant will visit the new school during its dedication, where Thatcher will be the new science teacher. Privately, Thatcher thinks of his wife’s similarity to the delicate flower she is named after. As a Greenwood, he thinks of himself as an overly pliable tree.

Rose believes they should have left Polly at her finishing in school in Boston where her social niceties would have improved. Thatcher disagrees—though he is new to Vineland’s transcendentalist principles, he believes Polly should learn about the world’s “wonderments” rather than social custom. When Rose asks about the builder’s report, Thatcher thinks of his time dissecting pigs at university. He has always preferred investigators to those who would “sweeten” unpleasant truths, but he hates giving Rose bad news. The entire house her father built is slowly splitting down the middle. Upset, Rose fiddles with her collection of porcelain animals, recently returned to the house after her family’s years living in Boston.

Thatcher suggests beginning again in a new house in Vineland. Angry now, Rose rants about how her family had to move to Boston after her father’s death. She blames the uncultured city for Polly’s wild behavior and Rose's mother’s weariness. Rose thinks of the Vineland house and her father as one entity, and she regrets ever leaving it. But Thatcher spent his best years at university in Boston and feels Rose’s contempt includes him. Thatcher married above his social class but still identifies with working-class people over men like Rose’s father, who surely didn’t plant the trees outside like Rose claims. He watches Mrs. Treat, still observing the grass, and recognizes his own investigative personality.