This chapter introduces readers to Ocean View Orchard at Heart’s Rock, a coastal town in Maine. The orchard is owned and run by the Worthington family: Wallace, his wife Olive, and their teenaged son Wally. Wallace is a kindly but absentminded man who suffers from Alzheimer’s; since this is a little-known condition at the time, his absentmindedness is thought to be due to alcoholism. Smart and ambitious, Olive comes from a poorer background than her husband; she runs the orchard, since her husband is no longer capable of work, and their son is well-meaning but lazy. Wally’s girlfriend is Candy Kendall, the beautiful daughter of a local lobsterman; Candy’s accidental pregnancy will bring them to St. Cloud’s and cause their lives to collide with Homer’s.  

At the hospital, Homer delivers his first baby. It is a challenging delivery, since the mother has eclampsia, a condition that causes seizures during pregnancy and labor. However, Homer succeeds in preserving both the baby’s and the mother’s life. Dr. Larch has been gone because he is attempting to retrieve a corpse, which Homer can examine for his medical studies. The corpse has been sent from one train station to another, because no stationmaster will accept the body.