Beans and Kermit hang out on the covered front porch in the hottest part of the day; the “haint blue” (79) paint color of the porch’s ceiling is a cool blue shade meant to keep ghosts from haunting. Kermit says he has a sore throat just as Pork Chop yells for Beans to take a call from Poppy. Poppy says to tell Ma he is in the same situation and that Beans should remember that he (Beans) is the “man of the house” (80). On the party line, Beans hears Dot listening in and laughing.

Ma gets a job offer to sew a custom dress for Mrs. Higgs for nine dollars. She wants Beans to go to Nana Philly to ask for a loan of 25 dollars for a second-hand sewing machine. Beans takes Kermit with him, not expecting success. He reveals that Nana Philly lives in a house filled with oil paintings, heavy furniture, silks and silver, and other procurements from Beans’s grandfather’s days as a wrecker (someone who salvages the goods from wrecked ships). Nana Philly says no to the loan in no uncertain terms, telling Beans that his father will never get a job up north; she told Ma not to marry a Curry.