Reading Check

1. His brother Herman (Paragraph 3)

2. She throws it “because the thrill of heaving a shoe through a window glass had enormously taken her fancy.” (Paragraph 7)

3. In the zither (Paragraph 10)

4. “What was the idee of all them cops tarryhootin’ round the house last night?” (Paragraph 15)

Short Answer

1. Present in James’s house are members of his family: his mother, his brother Herman, and his grandfather. Absent from the home are his father and his brother Roy, who have gone to Indianapolis. (Paragraph 2)

2. Despite James and Herman’s answer that the footsteps had been “nothing,” mother immediately assumes that burglars are in their home. She announces that she will call the police and then takes a shoe and throws it through the window of the neighbor Bodwell’s house. (Paragraphs 4-6)

3. The police arrive relatively quickly, entering the house by breaking the door and rummaging through their personal items. They are careless and chaotic, “tromping” and “yank[ing]" the family’s belongings all over home. They have questions about objects they find, such as the zither, and seem to find the actions of the family suspicious. (Paragraphs 8-10)

4. Hearing noises in the attic, the police officers quickly investigate the noise, only to find James’s grandfather who “[is] going through a phase in which he believe[s] that General Meade’s men, under steady hammering by Stonewall Jackson, [are] beginning to retreat and even desert.