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Rose Burton arrives with her two grand children, Serena and Jeffrey. John and Olivia pick them up at the bus stop outside of Ike Godsey’s store. Corabeth watches from inside. She wants to go into the storage room with a bolt of fabric but Ike won’t let her in. He says that there secret government items inside for the war effort which he can’t reveal to the general public. Corabeth is beside herself saying that she is not just the general public. Jim-Bob arrives after getting Ike’s message. They go inside the locked storage room and Ike shows him that their air raid siren had been knocked down and that he has been issued a large high powered one from the civil defense department to replace it. He asked Jim-Bob if he can install it.
Olivia sets Rose up in Grandma’s bedroom who is away in Buckingham County going from cousin to cousin. Rose helped her family when she had the flu as the age of 6. Rose would collect fresh mint from the forest and put it on Olivia’s forehead until she was better.
Elizabeth helps Serena to unpack in the girls room. She has a small cigar bock full of “treasures” that she won’t reveal yet as she doesn’t know Elizabeth well enough yet. Serena believes that her father will take them around the world when he returns from the war. Jim-Bob helps Jeffrey unpack. Jeffrey doesn’t believe he will be there long enough to settle in. Jeffrey is impressed by all the trees and asks if there are any bears in the woods. He then asks Jim-Bob about the chickens in the yard and if he can have one as a pet. Jim-Bob shrugs his shoulders and sarcastically tells him that he can have them all.
At dinner Jeffrey walks in with one of the families best egg laying hens having claimed it as a pet. John tells him to return it to it’s pen and come in and eat his supper. Jeffrey backtalks to his Uncle John who sets him straight. Rose’s husband Bert was a conductor on the Norfolk and Southern Railroad. She just had one child, Bert Jr. who is Serena and Jeffrey’s father. Their mother died when they were young and their father was raising them until he went off to war. Jeffrey says he is full and won’t listen to John when he runs upstairs to the bedroom. Later he pesters Jim-Bob who is studying the instructions for the siren. Jim-Bob tells him to get ready for bed. Jeffrey asks for privacy and when he gets his pajamas out of the dresser he drops a package of cigarettes hidden inside.
Rose takes Serena to the country store. She says she hasn’t been in a store that quaint since her days in Alberene. Corabeth quizzes her for gossip while Serena sneaks some perfume off the counter.
Jeffrey continues haul around the chicken he was told to leave in the pen. He takes it to John’s mill where he tries to fix up Jim-Bob’s old soapbox scooter. When John arrives he loses interest in fixing it. He then hides in the back of Jim-Bob’s car in the rumble seat and gets a ride to where Jim-Bob and Ike are installing the air raid siren. Ike gets flustered at the site of him and Jim-Bob drives him back home.
John comes in and gives them chores around the farm to keep them busy. Elizabeth finds Jeffrey in the smoke house smoking cigarettes. She plans to tell his grandma but then relents when he agrees to not smoke anymore. Serena apologizes to Cindy for stealing her car keys and driving it into the garden. Cindy accepts her apology but Serena then steals her hair clip while she isn’t looking.
The family feels the strain of the Jeffrey and Serena’s visit. Olivia talks to John about the length of their stay. She believes that Rose is desperate for a place to settle down for a while and wants to stay longer than just a visit. That night Jeffrey has a nightmare but doesn’t want to be cuddled by Olivia.
The next day he tries to hypnotize the chicken. He then makes he way to the air raid siren where he flips the lever alerting everyone on the mountain with it’s overpowered volume. Ike then gets a letter informing him that the siren was improperly delivered to him but was intended for the city of Richmond and they have to uninstall it and package it back up for the delivery truck.
Erin catches Serena wearing a dress of hers and the cigar box full of stolen items belonging to various family members as well as the perfume stolen from the store. Rose and Olivia try to set her straight. She says that she was just “borrowing the items” so she could pretend they were gifts from her father and that she had intended to give them back. Outside Jeffrey smokes cigarettes again in the mill. A fire starts from his butt which gets out of control and he runs off. John sees smoke coming from the mill and the family fights to put out the fire. Jim-Bob find Jeffrey and discovers scars on his back. It is revealed that his father would hit Jeffrey with a belt when he was drunk and Rose fled with the children to get them away from her abusive son.
John says grace that evening for diner. He says that that their dinner table whas getting lonely and now is full once again.
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