The rector, Reverend Libertus Van Bokkelen, comes from New York and is a secret abolitionist. The students are none of the above, proud Southerners one and all, many from prominent families. One of Johnny’s classmates is the nephew of Robert E. Lee. St. Timothy’s has everything Mother wants for her highest- and her lowest-spirited son—a good education, military discipline, and social connections. She doesn’t care that these connections are with slavers.

Johnny makes friends quickly. He will do so all his life. And yet, he hates the school. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, he writes in his first letter home. The classes are too hard for him, the rules too strict, the conditions too punishing. Only socially does he excel.

Meanwhile:

Off in California, Edwin is recovering his vim and his vitality.

He’s moved in with a friend of his father’s, an actor named Dave Anderson. Anderson is an older man, but not the parental sort. He doesn’t provide the guidance or guardianship that Old Spudge did. After his grim and isolated adolescence, Edwin is finally having fun.

Using only boxes and tree boughs, Edwin and Anderson have knocked up a small, rickety house out in the dunes towards the end of Mission Road. Edwin refers to this house as the rancho and himself as a ranchero. His letters home are filled with those amusing adventures that won’t distress his mother—pranks and pratfalls.

He’s having plenty of the distressing sort as well. Once, up in Sacramento, he wanders off drunk, falls into the river, and nearly drowns. A passerby almost doesn’t stop, mistaking him for a pile of laundry washing about in the current. Then he sees a hand floating at the end of a sleeve. He dives in, drags Edwin to the riverbank, and runs to a nearby saloon for help. Edwin’s missing caul comes to the rescue. After an anxious interval, he’s revived with slaps and shouts and brandy. More brandy is purchased to toast his narrow escape.

He’s working now in a new company June has formed. Mother is solaced to think of them taking care of each other. In fact, they’re seriously at odds. June has no patience with Edwin’s drinking. Having always been careful himself around alcohol, he has no intention of continually rescuing Edwin if he won’t be the same. June takes small roles, or no roles at all, in order to avoid comparisons, let his unseasoned little brother shine. When Edwin repays this by showing up late, unprepared, unsure of his lines, and unconcerned about any of it, June demotes him back to bit parts.

Edwin has a lot to learn, June thinks. June is very full of himself, thinks Edwin. How happy they are, think Asia, Johnny, and Joe. Those deserters. What lives they are leading!

Asia

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