Chapters 26 - 27: In Which The Boys Go Camping and Will Comes Home to Find That Cold Sassy Knows Grandpa's Business

Chapter 26-27:

Will has a disappointing camping trip and misses Blu Jackson because Blu would not have been careless to let a bear get their food or leave the shotgun shells out in the rain. The boys decide to get Miss Love's horse and go home early, and Will tells two stories on Loma to keep the other boys from gossiping about Miss Love. He makes up stories about Loma having to nurse a pig to keep her milk flowing when Campbell Junior was born and wearing a "rubber bust" at her wedding. Though the boys promise not to tell, they do. Will gets in trouble from his dad and Grandpa (who he thought was mad about him leaking the marriage situation) for "insulting Loma's womanhood." But Will is not really sorry.

Will is sorry that the whole town knows about Grandpa and Miss Love's arrangement because he does not want Miss Love to think he did not care or was a gossip. He hears how the Methodist ladies told Miss Love that she was not needed to play for church any longer and how Grandpa came up with the idea to have their own service at home. He also hears how Miss Love had "blessed out the whole town."