When Jim awakens on the morning of January 22, he learns that after dinner the night before, Mr. Shimerda committed suicide in the barn, putting the barrel of his gun into his mouth and pulling the trigger with his big toe. Ambrosch brought the news to the Burdens in the middle of the night and now is asleep on a bench behind the stove; when he wakes, he sits nervously, fingers his rosary, and prays incessantly.
After breakfast, Grandfather, Grandmother, Jake, and Ambrosch leave for the Shimerdas' while Otto heads for town to bring back the priest and coroner. Alone in the house, Jim thinks about what he's learned of Mr. Shimerda's origins. He wonders if Mr. Shimerda's soul is resting here in the Burden home, feeling warm and secure, before beginning its long journey home to Bohemia. Returning later, Otto reports that Ambrosch is obsessed with worry, fearing that his father's soul is in torment. Jim doesn't believe it possible — "Mr. Shimerda had not been rich and selfish: he had only been so unhappy that he could not live any longer."
At noon the next day, Otto returns from Black Hawk with Anton Jelinek, a young Bohemian farmer who has come to help his fellow countrymen. The coroner will arrive later that afternoon, Otto says, but the priest is at the other end of his parish. Jelinek explains how difficult the suicide and the lack of absolution are to the Shimerda family.
