The narrator's parents meet after the mother is taken to a hospital for her broken arm and burns sustained from her leap to save herself. There a consulting specialist and she fall in love, and to help her relieve the tedium of being in the hospital, the doctor teachers her to read. They trade her stories of adventure for his help with her reading and "letters": "In return for stories of her adventures, he graded her first exercises."
The doctor purchases for the narrator's mother her first book, and as he leans over her to guide her in forming her bold letters that go outside the guide lines, they grow tenderly close to each other. Although the doctor wishes to move to a larger city, they remain in the area because the mother could not leave behind her buried child that she lost in the terrible storm that killed her first husband, the other half of the Flying Avalons, a trapeze act. So, the newlyweds move onto an old farm, and the doctor expands his practice to the surrounding valley.
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