While picking cotton, Luke overhears Tally speaking surreptitiously with an unidentified man a few rows over. Luke encounters a snake while he’s trying to sneak up on them, and when he recovers, he notices Cowboy running stealthily from the place where Tally is working.

Luke tells his mother about Cowboy and Tally later that day as they head to the Latchers’ house. She seems both surprised and amused. While she checks on the newborn, three of the Latcher boys approach Luke and beat him because Riley is his uncle. Mrs. Latcher breaks up the fight and punishes all three boys by whipping them with a switch. Luke’s mother takes him home, and he recounts the fight to his father and Pappy.

That Sunday, the Chandlers, Spruills, and the Mexican farmworkers all head into town for the annual Fall Picnic hosted by the Baptist and Methodist churches. After attending church, Luke enjoys the enormous covered-dish lunch and then watches a baseball game in which the Baptists, coached by Pappy, play the Methodists. The Baptists lose and when Luke gets home he finds, to his disappointment, that the Cardinals also lost.