Dead End in Norvelt Chapter 6 Summary

  • Jack's father heads off to West Virginia for a few days. When he gets back, he heads upstairs to cut Jack "down to size."
  • Yikes. We hope not literally.
  • Instead of the expected lecture on cutting down the corn, Jack seems to be in for a lecture on gun safety, since his mother told his dad about his misadventure with the Japanese rifle.
  • Cue the flashback music: Jack recalls a hunting trip, where his father attempted to give him some gun safety lessons—and lessons in controlling flatulence, because the smell of human farts scares the deer away.
  • Huh. Good to know.
  • Especially good in this case, since Jack doesn't want his dad to shoot the dear. He tries to pass gas silently as an odiferous warning.
  • As he's working on mustering up some flatulence, he remembers reading about a tribe called the Hairy Ainus People who lived in the Aleutian Islands.
  • Rescue mission successful! After the deer runs away, Jack's father returns to the gun safety lessons, asking him: "You understand never to play with guns, right?" (6.60). Jack agrees, but this is obviously a lie.
  • Back to the present: neither Jack nor his father loaded the Japanese rifle, so it's still a mystery.