One morning, Andy is given a newspaper slip by a friend of his father’s. The slip recounts the murder of Andy’s great-grandfather Ben Feltner by Ben’s close friend Thad Coulter. Though Andy knows of the event already, he suddenly wants to know the whole story. He gives the slip to his grandmother, who recalls the story in one sitting.

Thad Coulter lost his farm and his life’s devotion when his son’s prospective grocery business flopped. He drank heavily and barged into his friend and level-headed confidant Ben Feltner’s house, cursing at the bank. When Ben asked him to go home and sober up, he cursed at Ben, feeling Ben had locked him into his own self-condemnation. He came unhinged, threatening his family as never before, and stalked off with his mule in a dangerous mood. Meanwhile, Ben meandered through town, running errands and conversing with friends and neighbors. He found some of Thad’s relatives and asked them to keep an eye on him. Just then, Thad rode in on his mule with a pistol and shot Ben straight in the forehead. Ben’s son Mat came running into the street and made to run off, consumed with rage, to kill his father’s killer. Only his older brother Jack could stop him, grabbing and holding him as he kicked and thrashed into a man of greater maturity and strength and then released him. He ran to tell his mother, Nancy, who, though instantly plunged into silent grief, steadied the family. Friends and relations started pouring in with food, readying the coffin, and doing the work that needed to be done. The house rang with a new kind of silence, the children of Ben shocked by the change suddenly borne in themselves. A group of Ben’s friends came to the door and offered to kill Thad Coulter on their command. Mat refused their offer. Meanwhile, Thad Coulter walked to the next town and handed himself to the sheriff. His daughter Martha Elizabeth came and took care of him for three days until he hung himself before trial.

Mat, Andy’s grandfather, keeps this story pushed away in his past. But Andy knows it is a part of himself because his mother is of Feltner descent and his father of the Coulters – Mat stayed friends with all the Coulters after the suicide and trial and allowed his daughter Bess to marry one of them. Andy is the child of his grandfather’s forgiveness.