Earl Roberts, known as Doc, hears rumors that Chona Malachi is hiding a Black child from the state. He learns details from his distant cousin Carl Boydkins, and the chapter traces how both men grew up in Pottstown with a proud but largely mythic family story, while industry and immigration transformed the town and fueled Doc’s bitterness about losing an older, “cleaner” Pottstown.

Doc’s personal resentment is rooted in childhood polio that left his left foot deformed and painful. Humiliated at school and rejected after a date with Della Burnheimer when she sees his foot, Doc’s mother takes him to Chicken Hill’s shoemaker, Norman Skrupskelis. Norman speaks little, handles Doc’s foot roughly, and produces an expertly crafted custom shoe that eases Doc’s pain and hides his limp—yet Doc feels insulted by Norman’s silence and “arrogance,” a grudge he carries for years.

In high school Doc notices Chona also wears a “Skrup Shoe” and later becomes captivated when she grows into a confident beauty. He awkwardly invites Chona to join the debate team, but Chona declines and walks away with a tall Black girl who shadows her. Doc reframes the rejection as an offense—convincing himself he “reached down” to her—and links Chona to his resentments about Jews and outsiders.

Doc returns from medical school to a Pottstown he feels has been overtaken by immigrants and Black residents. Disillusioned in his marriage and angry at social change, he joins what he thinks is a civic group but is actually the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, finding their ideology aligns with his grievances. He also remembers treating Chona once for fainting spells; he stays professional but remains personally offended when she does not return and later criticizes his Klan parade participation in the newspaper.

Carl comes to Doc’s office with a proposal: the state wants the hidden deaf twelve-year-old Black boy examined so he can be sent to Pennhurst, and Doc will be paid to sign off on the report. Though Doc recognizes Pennhurst as grim, Carl insists it will “solve” the problem and complains that Chicken Hill residents protect the boy. After resisting police involvement, Doc agrees to go see about the child himself and to proceed quietly, setting him on a direct path toward Chona and Dodo.