Learning to start a Ford

Adam waits impatiently for a reply from Charles, forgetting how long a letter takes, and busies himself bungling fatherhood — quizzing the twins about school, taking back his pocketknife to teach them willow whistles Lee taught them three years ago, and failing to get a note out of one. Then Will Hamilton bumps up the road in a new Ford with the brass polished blinding, explains the workings of a machine he does not understand himself three times over, gives up, and drives home in a borrowed buggy. Next day a nineteen-year-old mechanic arrives, contemptuous, chewing tobacco, three months out of automobile school in Chicago, and expecting a hot dinner. He tells them to call him Joe, forgives Lee for being a good Chink, and drills all four of them through the litany of starting a Model T: spark up, gas down, switch to Bat, crank to compression, thumb down, easy over, choke out, spin her, switch to Mag. Will comes back for him, and Cal discovers his name is Roy — which is exactly why he tells people to call him Joe.

Pure comedy, placed where the book needs air after Lee's mother and before the letter from Connecticut. The joke is the ceremony of the new machine: a boy of nineteen holds four people in awe by reciting words none of them understand, and the lecture is printed verbatim so the reader is baffled alongside them. Lee's pidgin comes back out for the occasion, used as a weapon.