Four Summers

Four Summers Summary | Part 1 Summary

Sissie, a young child and the narrator of the story, is playing a game with her mother. She describes her mother as pretty with long hair. Sissie and her family are seated at a table by the water when her father returns with glasses of beer. Friends of her parents' have joined them and are chatting away. They have all just come from a parade in which one friend, a volunteer firefighter, marched.

Sissie's brothers, Jerry and Frank, have been playing near by. They approach their father and beg to be taken out on the lake in a boat. He brushes them off and returns to his conversation. The boys run out to the boats and Sissie follows. The children wait impatiently for their father, before giving up and heading back to the table.

Again, their father brushes the children off and one of the women at the table offers to take the kids out on the lake. She is not serious, however, and the boys begin to whine again. Their father, who is beginning to get annoyed, shoos them away again. Sissie stays by her mother and one of the women offers her a sip of beer. This causes a bit of a commotion with the woman's husband, but Sissie tastes the beer to be polite.

One of the men at the table tells Sissie's father that he made a good decision, moving from the old neighborhood. Her parents bicker more about taking the kids out in a boat, but nothing comes of it. A young soldier named Jimmy joins their table. Frank and Jerry come back to bug their father again, and this time there is anger in his voice when he tells them no. Their mother tells them to go play by themselves. The kids wander back to the boats. They spot a blackbird stuck in the scum on top of the water. There are other children gathered around; one is throwing stones and the others follow suit. The bird is unable to get away. Sissie is horrified, "If the bird dies, then everything can die, I think." (Page 217)