Summary
Ann finds out a little bit about the man: his name is John R. Loomis, he is a chemist from Cornell University, and he is an expert on radiation and the physical sciences. He feels much better the next morning (on May 29). Ann makes him a hearty breakfast, and notices that he is sitting up in the doorway of the tent. Loomis is baffled by Ann’s ability to survive for a year by herself in the valley. She tells him about how her parents drove away and never came back. Loomis notes that it was nerve gas that killed most people: they went to sleep and never woke up. It had taken him ten weeks to get from Ithaca to the valley, and all that way, all that time, he had seen no people, animals, trees, or insects. He says that he was ready to give up but then finally came over the ridge and saw, in the late evening, a haze of blue.
The next morning he saw that the blue was actually a deep green and decided to investigate it. Loomis notes that his tent is radiation proof, which is why he did not sleep in the house. Now that he knows conclusively that there is no radiation in the valley, Ann helps him up to Joseph and David’s room, which is on the ground floor. He lays down on David’s bed and goes to sleep. Ann goes out to the field to do some work, and when she comes back she sees Loomis walking around.
Mr. Loomis tells her more of his story: he was a graduate student at Cornell, studying organic chemistry, specifically plastics and polymers. The head of his department, Professor Kylmer, was a Nobel Prize winner and worked part time at a special government laboratory near Cornell. The lab was a secret, but eventually invited Mr. Loomis (Ann begins calling him this) to work at the lab. The government was attempting to develop radiation-proof suits – like the one he was wearing. This was three years before the war. After the war, he spent three months in the underground lab, hoping that radiation levels would go down. They did not, and so he began a series of expeditions – eventually ending up in the valley. He finishes up his lunch, and Ann gets him water.
It is June 3. Four days have passed, and Mr. Loomis seems to have gotten better. Ann does twice as much work, and one afternoon she sees Mr. Loomis standing at the gatepost while she is working in the fields. He feels bored and comes out to watch her work. He also gives her information about how to pump out gas for her tractor without electricity. She is delighted at the thought of having to do less work and also using the tractor to farm and plan for future harvests and food storage. That evening Ann plays the piano for Mr. Loomis. She also remembers reading a picture during her Sunday School days, which began with “A is for Adam” and ended with “Z is for Zachariah.” That night, Ann decides to sleep in the cave. As she is leaving, she hears Mr. Loomis having a bad dream in which he is having a conversation with Edward. She hears bits and pieces and she can get from Mr. Loomis that he warns Edward in his dream. Thinking that he might call for help, she decides to sleep in her room instead.
After she wakes up, Ann decides to make a salad, because a dream inspired her to do so. Before the crack of dawn, she picks flowers from the valley. When she returns, she makes breakfast. In the meantime, Mr. Loomis was well enough to measure the radioactivity of the water once again to confirm Ann’s measurements and his suspicions. Ann helps Mr. Loomis back to his bed, and goes fishing in the pond, where she catches three bass. After they both have lunch, Mr. Loomis goes back to sleep. She decides to bring the stove from the barn into the house. But she first has to disassemble it. She can lift all the pieces except the big cast-iron firebox. She decides to wait until Mr. Loomis is better so that he can help her. After dinner, Mr. Loomis studies The Farm Mechanic instruction books, which has diagrams of motors, wiring systems, pumps, silos, balers, etc., so that he can figure out how to build a generator.
The next morning, Ann gets the tractor running with Mr. Loomis’ instructions and help. He tells her how to pump gas from the store physically, and then she brings a five-gallon container and fills it up, puts it in the tractor, and ignites the engine with one try. It works. She decides to plant corn as her grain rather than wheat, oats, or barley. The sun comes out and she starts plowing with the tractor. Faro happily follows her out to the fields. As she is plowing, Ann hears a high squawking sound overhead. She sees crows circling over the field. She plows half the field by lunchtime, finishes it in the afternoon, and plans to harrow it in the morning and then seed it. However she has to change her plans because that night Mr. Loomis’ fever goes up to 104 degrees.
Ann does not leave the house for more than a few minutes. But one morning, she does, when she runs down to the barn to milk the cow. When she gets back 15 minutes later, Mr. Loomis is awake and calling her name. The fever has started, and Mr. Loomis calls Ann by her name for the first time. Though both dread the onset of the fever, Ann dreads it more than Mr. Loomis. She helps him take aspirin tablets. He then falls asleep, and Ann goes back to her room and falls asleep. Supplies are running low, and Ann does not want to leave the house for too long.
Ann tells Mr. Loomis that she will take the tractor to run the errands, to which he responds that it is a waste of gas. Ann loads up all the supplies onto the tractor and is gone for about 40 minutes. As she is turning from the barn (where she parks the tractor) she sees Mr. Loomis stumbling outside towards his wagon. He takes out his gun and aims at the second floor of the house – her parents’ bedroom – and fires three shots. Ann shouts but remains calm when Mr. Loomis points the gun at her. He recognizes Ann and lowers the rifle. Mr. Loomis thought someone was upstairs. Ann calms him down and inspects the damage done to her parents’ room – it is minimally harmed. She gets Mr. Loomis clean pajamas to change into, and he asks her if Edward is gone. Ann is worried, and forgets to give him the iced tea she made for him.
Analysis
Ann and Mr. Loomis begin to develop a relationship, and it is here that Ann’s willingness to extend the boundaries of her world to include Mr. Loomis really comes to bear on the reader’s impression of Ann’s character. Even in a situation where violence and chaos lurk below the surface, Ann is able to handle Mr. Loomis and her own emotions with a remarkable degree of maturity. This comes with the greatest force when Ann shouts but remains calm as Mr. Loomis points the gun at her.
Another important development is the story Mr. Loomis tells about his past to Ann. Here, Ann is vulnerable on two grounds: she is sympathetic and overly motherly to Mr. Loomis because of his health, and Mr. Loomis can take advantage of the fact that Ann knows nothing about him. He is able to construct a narrative with complete freedom. On the other hand, what gives him emotional leverage over Ann is precisely what exposes him: sickness. When he is talking in his sleep, the ever-attentive Ann is able to discern the missing parts of his narrative.
Mr. Loomis’ arrival also brings benefits for Ann: she is able to pump gas manually with his instructions and get the tractor running again. His presence affirms many of the expectations that she thinks of the happiness that a stranger – any human being, especially after living for so long on her own – would bring, or at the least convenience for her.
Moreover, it is because of Mr. Loomis’ illness that Ann has time to write down all that has happened. Though she compromises on certain components of her freedom, Ann is able to act more reflectively in her observations of and interactions with Mr. Loomis. That there is another person in her life gives her serious food for thought regarding how she thinks about her future and what role Mr. Loomis could have in it.
However Mr. Loomis’s erratic behavior certainly gives Ann reason to worry about the dangers that another human being can cause. In fact, it is precisely the dangers that other people pose and eventually cause that brought the onset of the devastating war that changed her world.
