When Arley Wanderdale, the music teacher at Billie Jo's school, asks her to play the piano at the Palace Theatre with his band, the Black Mesa Boys, and Mad Dog Craddock (a singer and friend to Billie Jo), she is ecstatic. Ma gives her permission to play, and Billie Jo feels like she is in heaven. To Billie Jo, there is nothing better than playing the piano while the audience snaps their fingers, taps their feet, and sways to the music. Billie Jo is an excellent entertainer, and Arley Wanderdale knows it. He asks Billie Jo to travel to neighboring towns with him and the Black Mesa Boys during the summer months. Billie Jo's mother reluctantly agrees to let her go because she will be supervised by Vera, Arley's wife, and will be earning a little money — something Billie Jo's family desperately needs.
In July, Billie Jo's life changes dramatically as a result of a horrific accident. Her father leaves a pail of kerosene next to the stove. Thinking it is a pail of water; her mother picks it up to make her father some coffee. The kerosene immediately catches fire. Her mother runs outside to get her father, and Billie Jo — trying to save the house from going up in flames — throws the flaming pail of kerosene out the door. The pail of flaming kerosene splashes onto her mother, who is right in its path. Billie Jo uses her hands to beat out the flames that engulf her mother. Billie Jo's hands are badly burned and her mother, suffering from severe burns, dies giving birth to a baby boy a month later. The baby only lives a few days, and Billie Jo names her dead brother Franklin (after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt). Franklin is buried in his mother's arms.
