The Death of Papa

From this point, two main storylines are traced in the play ...

One deals with young Horace's coming to terms with the concepts of life, death and familial relationships. He finds that his mother, Elizabeth, is expecting another baby; he listens to, and asks many questions about, the widely contrasting accounts of his two grandfathers; and he endures the fussing of his paternal grandmother, who's fearful that his love of reading will make him too introspective and "ruin him" for the real world. He must also come to grips with the drowning of Gertrude, a young black girl who was his confidante and friend

The other storyline concerns "Brother" Vaughn, Henry Vaughn's dissolute son, who, in the short time during which he has control, heads his late father's farms and other holdings on a course toward rapid ruin. When his mother takes back control of the estate, Brother heads off to Galveston, where he subsequently kills a man in a drunken brawl

Through all of this, Horace Sr. maintains his own counsel, although he stands up to his mother concerning his son's love of reading, and he comforts his wife, Elizabeth, through the crises affecting her family

But he refrains, even when asked, from interfering in the family's affairs and, as the play ends, the suggestion is strong that things are subtly, but inexorably, beginning to flow his way