"I don't see what father wants another barn for," said the girl, in her sweet slow voice. She turned again to the window, and stared out at the digging men in the field. Her tender sweet face was full of a gentle distress.”
“The girl” is on her mother’s line-up as she does not see the essence of another barn. The issue of the barn generates the females versus males conflict in the household for the reason that Sammy, seems to be covertly defending his father’s plans as he does not bother to apprise his sister and mother about what his father had intimated him, three months before, as regards the new barn.
“I don't believe George is anything like that, anyhow,"
Nanny adulates herself by way of positive illusions when she declares that her prospective husband will be better than her father. Her mother’s generalization about the menfolk does not change Nanny’s view of George because she is besotted.
"You wait an' see. I guess George Eastman ain't no better than other men. You hadn't ought to judge father, though. He can't help it, 'cause he don't look at things jest the way we do. An' we've been pretty comfortable here, after all. The roof don't leak -- 'ain't never but once -- that's one thing. Father kept it shingled right up."
Sarah Penn exploits damage control to obstruct Nanny from having a prejudicial impression of her father. She emboldens Nanny to focus on the affirmative side of her father by arguing that father's actions are attributed to his philosophy which is divergent from the women’s thinking.
“She had pleaded her little cause like a Webster; she had ranged from severity to pathos; but her opponent employed that obstinate silence which makes eloquence futile with mocking echoes. Adoniram arose clumsily.”
Father is apathetic towards his wife’s disquiets. His muteness infers that he does not see indigence to explicate himself to his wife ,in any case, he is the man. Seemingly, the pathos that mother puts to use throughout her argument is not persuasive for father. Besides, his quietness represents him as an unassertive man.
“When Joe Dagget was outside he drew in the sweet evening air with a sigh, and felt much as an innocent and perfectly well-intentioned bear might after his exit from a china shop. Louisa, on her part, felt much as the kind-hearted, long- suffering owner of the china shop might have done after the exit of the bear.”
The China shop generates an ambiance of nervousness. Both Louisa and Joe are not at ease with each other’s companionship as lovers would. Joe feels that his presence at Louisa’s house is incommodious. Correspondingly, Louisa reacts like Joe’s presence is meddlesome in her space.
“In that length of time much had happened. Louisa's mother and brother had died, and she was all alone in the world. But greatest happening of all a subtle happening which both were too simple to understand Louisa's feet had turned into a path, smooth maybe under a calm, serene sky, but so straight and unswerving that it cold only meet a check at her grave, and so narrow that there was no room for anyone at her side.”
Louisa’s cold feet allude to her unsuitability for marriage. Following the demise of her family, she engrossed in an introverted life to the degree that it becomes unmanageable for her to accommodate another person. Louisa is gratified with leading a secluded life.
“She never mentioned Lily Dyer. She simply said that while she had no cause of complaint against him, she had lived so long in one way that she shrank from making a change”
Louisa espouses civility because she comprehends that pointing the finger at Lily Dyer would not sort out their situation. The civil break up sanctions that they have a reciprocal comprehension. Lily Dyer is an intervening variable that forestalls a disaster-prone marriage.
