- Father returns to a New Rochelle that's changed greatly in his absence. He's been gone a long time, too long, he and Mother both think.
- For starters, the housemaid (who's cleaning the house with an "electric suction device") doesn't really know her place anymore. Then there's the colored woman and her baby. And Mother is not as shy about sex as she was. She's also more capable, having run the business in Father's absence.
- The Arctic has aged and changed Father. He's always cold. Plus he feels the shame of having slept with an Eskimo woman while he was away.
- Meanwhile, Little Boy is not so little now, having grown out of his baby fat. Mother's Younger Brother is stranger than ever, spending all his time designing fireworks. These fireworks include the new Cherry Bomb, which frightens Father.
- Mother's Younger Brother has also been left by Evelyn Nesbit and is crazy with grief. One morning he throws away all his mementos of her, including a bunch of silhouette portraits, which Little Boy rescues.