As Billie Jo rides the train, a man jumps onto the same boxcar that she's in. He starts to tell her about his wife and two kids. Billie Jo tells him about her mother and her relationship with her father and why she ran away. Billie Jo falls asleep and when she wakes up, her food is gone as well as the man. In the food's place is a picture of the man with his family. Their address is on the back of the picture. Billie Jo decides at the moment to come home. She gets off in a town in Arizona. She also decides to mail the picture to the man's family. The man reminds Billie Jo of her parents. The lines below indicate how she views her parents.
"He was like a tumblewee. Ma had been tumbleweed too, holding on for as long as she could, then blowing away on the wind. My father was more like sod. Steady, silent and deep. Holding on to life, with reserves underneath to sustain him and me, and anyone who came near. My father stayed rooted, even with my tests and my temper, even with the double sorrow of his grief and my own, he had kept a home until I borke it." Summer 1935 Page 202
These lines show how Billie Jo feels mostly about her father. In these lines, Billie Jo realizes how her father has manged to keep going even after the fire and the dust storms.
"...Holding on to life, with reserves underneath to sustain him and me, and anyone who came near." This line in particular forshadows certain things. Billie Jo's father will meet a woman from one of his night classes.
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