Cold Comfort Farm

Amos, the family patriarch, appears to be Flora’s biggest problem. He enjoys preaching hellfire sermons to a religious group in town called the Church of the Quivering Brethren. Flora asks to go with him. She watches as Amos takes the stage and observes that “[f]or some three minutes, he slowly surveyed the Brethren, his face wearing an expression of the most profound loathing and contempt, mingled with a divine sorrow and pity […] The man was an artist” (79).

Flora ducks out of the sermon and goes to a local tea shop to wait for Amos, where she runs across a London acquaintance named Mr. Meyerburg; Flora refers to him as Mr. Mybug. He is a writer and an intellectual, and Flora would like to avoid him, but it is too late. He invites himself to her table and proceeds to tell her about his latest literary project, a book about the ne’er-do-well brother of famous authors Anne, Emily, and Charlotte Bronte. Mybug intends to prove that the alcoholic Branwell Bronte actually wrote his sisters’ novels. After boring Flora with this theory, Mybug proceeds to flirt with her: “He leaned his elbows on the table, sank his chin in his hands, and looked steadily at her […] A gambit […] used by intellectuals who had decided to fall in love with you” (83).

Amos comes to find Flora after his sermon, incensed that she is consorting with men. She tries to explain, but Amos won’t listen. On the way home, it occurs to Flora that getting Amos out of the way for a while might further her plans for the family. She suggests that he go on a speaking tour in a Ford van to preach to the masses, and Amos is vaguely receptive to the idea.

Back at home, Flora presents Adam with a little dish mop to clean plates. Adam is so enthralled with the gift that he hangs it over the sink to admire it but doesn’t use it on the dishes. Later that week, Flora determines to cultivate an acquaintance with her odd young cousin Elfine. The girl is smitten with a local country gentleman named Richard Hawk-Monitor. The problem is that Aunt Ada has promised Elfine to a cousin named Urk. Flora decides to intervene before it is too late.

Meanwhile, Aunt Ada sits brooding in her room. In an internal monologue, she reveals that she is aware of everything going on in her household. She controls everyone in the family and keeps a tight hold on the purse strings. She claims to have seen something nasty in the woodshed when she was two years old that traumatized her, which is why she never leaves her room. Ada says, “Outside in the world there were potting-sheds where nasty things could happen. But nothing could happen here [...] None of them must go out into the great dirty world” (93).

A few days later, Flora tells Reuben her plan to have Amos leave on a speaking tour. Reuben is pleased because this would give him a free hand to run the farm, and he now considers Flora an ally. However, he cautions her about the mad Aunt Ada: “Her madness takes the form of wantin’ to know everything as goes on. She has to see all the books twice a week […] If we keeps the books back, she has an attack” (97).