Homecoming Part Two, Chapters 5–6 Summary & Analysis

Summary

Chapter 5

The next day, Dicey decides that they must earn money picking tomatoes, despite the fact that she has money stored away. When the Tillermans see a sign, they walk up a long and dusty driveway to a run-down farmhouse, beside which a vicious dog is snarling and slobbering. When the owner, Rudyard, emerges, the dog cringes and cowers. The man agrees to hire the children as pickers, and asks only for their surname (Dicey gives him their father's name, Verricker). He looks at the children and his eyes linger on Maybeth. The children sense something is wrong, but set out to pick for the afternoon and earn money. Halfway through the morning, Sammy and Maybeth stop picking and go to explore, reporting back to Dicey that they can easily cross the nearby river by swimming it. Rudyard returns with lunch, which the children are too anxious to eat. Although Dicey informs him that they cannot pick anymore, he drives off, leaving the dog chained to a tree, and does not return until nightfall.

By this time, the children are sure he means them harm, and Dicey concocts a plan. Once he fetches the dog, Dicey will set the truck running and jump out, while the children will run as quickly as they can for the river. When Rudyard arrives and Dicey sets the truck in motion, he releases the dog, which, fortunately for the children, is so hungry he ignores the children in favor of the lunch they have abandoned. The children dive into the river and begin making their way downstream in the water. They hear Rudyard shuffling around in the brush upstream, but finally he disappears, and the frightened children climb up on the opposite bank and sleep.

Chapter 6

When they wake, the children set out for Hurlock, and Dicey finds herself suspiciously inspecting each house, wondering what threats it might hold within them. When they reach the town, they are petrified by the sight of Rudyard in his pickup truck. Panicked, they run for the circus, which has just arrived in town, reasoning that they can disappear into the crowd. However, Rudyard has anticipated them and is hot on their heels by the time they reach the tents. When Sammy trips, Dicey turns to face the approaching man. He threatens to release the dog on her, but before he can, Claire appears from the tent, cracking her whip at him angrily. Will appears beside the children as well, and Rudyard explains gruffly that the Tillermans are his foster children. When Dicey protests, Will insists on seeing papers before releasing the children. Rudyard bitterly calls Will a name, and Claire snaps her whip at him viciously until he retreats.

Will takes the children aside, and Dicey tells him that they are trying to find their grandmother in Crisfield. Will offers to let the children stay with the circus, which is traveling to Salisbury the next week, and says he will drive them down to Crisfield while in Salisbury. That night, Dicey treats her siblings to rides and the circus, finally giving up her worries about money. She determines that she must spend the money now to take care of them, and if she finds herself wanting money in Crisfield, she will earn it then. The children sleep in Claire's trailer, and when she wakes, Dicey finds herself wondering if their grandmother, like Rudyard, is a bad person, and what they will do then. Finally, Dicey relinquishes her worrying and planning, and decides that she will take things as they come.

That day, Will takes them into town to buy them clothes, and also has Dicey tell a pastor about Rudyard. The pastor asks her to talk to the police, but she declines. Later, Dicey decides that she is glad she remembers Momma and wants Sammy and Maybeth to remember her, too. That night, Dicey begins to notice that the circus acts are contrived and pre-planned, down to the smallest mishaps and clowning, and Dicey is slightly bothered by this. The days pass in a blur, and soon they are in Salisbury.

Analysis

Rudyard demonstrates to the children more than any other character in the book just how vulnerable they are on their own. Rudyard has a place in which he could hold them if he wanted, he has money which tempted the children onto his land in the first place, he has an angry dog and a car to pursue them, and he has the credibility and legal power of an adult, which he tries to abuse when he tells Will and Claire that he is the Tillermans' foster father. After their encounter with the man, fears crowd Dicey's mind, as she envisions the possible evil lurking inside every house they pass. She worries that their grandmother may not be a good person either. Rudyard has broken the illusion that they are independent and self-sufficient, and now worries for their safety consume Dicey as worries about money once did.

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