Two men and one farm

The brothers settle Cyrus's money at interest, stand together at his grave in Washington, and then find they cannot live together. Charles still fears the fortune will have to be given back, and notes that a man who made that much money would have left papers behind. Their quarrels come over jam on a butter knife and the hour of getting up; Adam walks out and spends eight months in Boston, comes back, and after two guarded years starts talking about California, where "things grow so fast you have to plant and step back quick". Charles wants none of it and orders him off the place again. Adam sends postcards from Rio and Buenos Aires, promises a book that never arrives, and returns brown and foreign-looking. At thirty-seven he proposes a new house with a bathtub; Charles threatens to burn it down, then asks for his hundred dollars back, and Adam finally tells him about the Florida chain gang and the escape.

A chapter of repetition on purpose: the same argument runs three times, and Charles can predict its shape before it starts. The money buys them nothing they want, and the farm they keep improving has no one to inherit it. The debt Charles has been waiting years for Adam to mention is what finally gets the truth out.