The Mighty Miss Malone: Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

On the pie lady’s porch, Jimmie takes the now empty tin from Deza and knocks on the door. A tall, distinguished woman with graying hair (later identified as Dr. Bracy) answers the door. Jimmie confesses that he stole the pie, tells her about the dog, and explains how he and Deza gave the remainder to the poor family in the park. He offers to do whatever odd jobs she needs until he’s atoned for the theft. The distinguished woman wants to know how much of the pie “Robin Hood” and his sister ate. Jimmie says he ate some of the scraps he rescued from the dog and Deza explains that she ate one apple slice in the park out of pure courtesy, since it’s rude to refuse food when someone offers it to you. They both say it was the best thing they’ve ever eaten.

The distinguished lady (Dr. Bracy) invites Deza inside, but Deza refuses—she’s not allowed to go into strangers’ houses. The lady goes inside alone and returns in a few minutes with two slices of pie and two glasses of milk on a tray. She offers Deza a slice of pie and a glass of milk and introduces herself. Once Dr. Bracy has determined to her satisfaction that Jimmie didn’t steal the eight cents he left for the pie—he made it emptying boxcars at the local railyard—she tells him that he can work off his debt by chopping wood and clearing out the brush from her yard. She also offers to tutor him over the summer, since the note he left with the money was filled with misspellings and grammatical errors. Dr. Bracy has a doctorate in English.

A ringing noise from inside the house—Dr. Bracy is wealthy enough to have a telephone!—interrupts the conversation. She goes inside to answer it and when she returns, Deza excuses herself and Jimmie. Their 45 minutes is nearly up. As they leave, Dr. Bracy confronts Deza because she realizes that Deza has wrapped half her pie slice in a napkin to take home. Dr. Bracy doesn’t care about the takeaway, but she does want Deza to share it with anybody but Jimmie.

At home, Deza rushes to her dictionary to look up a word Dr. Bracy used—“epiphany”—but the entry uses other unfamiliar words and doesn’t help. She asks Mr. Malone to “translate” it for her. He doesn’t have to look in the dictionary to tell her what an epiphany is. He says it’s like when you’re bumping around in the dark and someone turns on a light so you can suddenly see where you are. It’s that feeling of really understanding.