Chapter 14 — As the Spaulding family prepares to shake out the rugs, Douglas and Tom's imaginations turn this chore into a magical discovery, fancying that they see the happenings and neighbors in their town in the stains of one rug. A lavish metaphor at the end of the chapter describes Tom beating the rug so hard that the dust rises up to meet him, another surrealistic chapter ending possibly a reference to the Judeo-Christian belief that man was created from dust.