A Northern Light Chapter 16 Summary

This chapter occurs in the flashback.

Beth finds a man, she calls, a monster in the manure: her Uncle Fifty. This event made her late for school and late to take the rest of the exams so she got home at 6pm. THey find the grades out in a week, but she still had no way of getting to NY. With the money he made, Uncle Fifty cooked them a feast. His visits were rare, every 2-3 years whenever a job brought him near. All night he told him stories. He was called uncle FIFTY becauase his name was François Pierre, or Fifty Percent because you can only believe half of what he tells you.

We also learn a little more about Pa's childhood. His dad died when he was six and his mother needed to feed her 7 kids so she married the first one that aksed her, a mean man that gave him scars and he ran away from home when he was 12, and Uncle Fifty is the only sibling he sees.

Uncle Fifty brought presents, a fountain ink pen for Mattie, she had never had a pen before.

We also here about Mattie's mother's influence in Pa's work, they got in a fight over him not working in jams so he can be safe and she took the kids for 3 weeks to Aunt Josie's house. And he didn'y want to work at her father's saw mill, they did not get along.

Uncle Fifty had too much to drik and started to insult Pa. And told him about 100 banker's draft.

Mattie had only told Uncle Fifty about college in her family and was thinking about how Pa would react. He was going to be furious, for losing a set of hands, and wouldn't tell anyone until she was sure she had enough money to go and a place to stay.