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Walk Two Moons · Garden Heights
Part 2
for Walk Two Moons · Part 2 · Chapters 7–11
8 Parts40 min
What Happens in Part 2
As the car crosses Illinois and Wisconsin, mysterious messages start landing on Phoebe's porch.
Lake MichiganGramps steers the car into Illinois — Ill-ah-no-way, in his cheerful pronunciation — and the travelers stop at the shore of Lake Michigan, water so wide Gram first takes it for an ocean. That night near Chicago, Sal tries to picture Lewiston, Idaho, but her mind slides back to Bybanks instead: to how completely her moods once copied her mother's, and to the birth of a calf that first taught her she could feel happy on her own.
The First MessageIn Phoebe's story, blind Mrs. Partridge — Margaret Cadaver's elderly mother — calls the girls up and guesses Phoebe's age by reading her face with her fingertips. Then a nervous young man appears at the door asking for Phoebe's mother; Phoebe names him the lunatic, and Mrs. Winterbottom, rattled, wants him kept from Phoebe's father. Next day a white envelope on the porch holds blue paper and one line of advice: never judge a man before walking two moons in his moccasins.
Huzza at the DellsAt the Wisconsin Dells, Sal wakes from a nap to find Gram whooping huzza, huzza inside a circle of American Indian dancers. Watching, Sal turns over her own heritage: the great-great-grandmother who was Seneca, her mother's insistence that American Indian was the stronger, nobler term and that such stories be told properly, and the family mix-up that named her Salamanca when her parents were reaching for Seneca. She remembers her mother's road postcards, the last from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.
A Second EnvelopeBack in the story — no one having discovered who sent the first message, or which Winterbottom it was meant for — a second envelope arrives: everyone has his own agenda. Ben quietly tests what Sal cannot hide: since her mother left, she flinches whenever she is touched. At home that evening her father hugs her, and for once she does not flinch.
What We Will Learn
Section
What you will practice
Vocabulary
Mystery, family, and heritage words: peculiar, lunatic, anonymous, agenda, flinch…
Literary Elements
A frame story carrying a second story inside it, foreshadowing planted at a front door, and a motif of unsigned messages that will keep returning
Cross-Curricular
The Seneca Nation — the real nation behind Sal’s heritage, from the Haudenosaunee longhouse league to a self-governing nation today
Chapter Summary
Ch.
What happens
Chapter 7
Ill-Ah-No-Way — The car crosses into Illinois, and the travelers stop at Lake Michigan — so vast that Gram takes it for an ocean. That night near Chicago, Sal remembers how her moods once copied her mother’s exactly, and how the birth of a calf in Bybanks first showed her she could be happy on her own.
Chapter 8
The Lunatic — On the way to Phoebe’s, blind Mrs. Partridge reads Phoebe’s face with her fingertips and guesses her age exactly. Then a jumpy young man appears at the Winterbottoms’ door asking for Phoebe’s mother. Phoebe sends him off and privately decides he must be a lunatic.
Chapter 9
The Message — Phoebe and Sal find a white envelope on the porch steps holding a strip of blue paper: do not judge a man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins. No one knows who sent it or which Winterbottom it is for — and Mrs. Winterbottom, strangely shaken, wants the young man’s visit kept from Phoebe’s father.
Chapter 10
Huzza, Huzza — At the Wisconsin Dells, Sal finds Gram whooping huzza, huzza in the middle of a circle of American Indian dancers. Watching, Sal thinks about her Seneca great-great-grandmother, her mother’s preference for the words American Indian, the name mix-up that produced Salamanca — and the postcards her mother mailed, the last from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
Chapter 11
Flinching — A second unsigned message arrives: everyone has his own agenda. Ben sketches two moccasins, spots the lunatic at the drugstore, and quietly tests what Sal cannot hide — she flinches when touched. That evening her father hugs her, and for once she does not flinch.
Part 1
Vocabulary
Study 10 key words from Chapters 7–11, then answer each question.
💬Knowledge Bank · Say the Name Right
Civics · Naming a PeopleSal’s mother wanted her family’s heritage spoken of properly, and that wish points at a real, ongoing question: what do you call the first peoples of the Americas? The word Indian began as a navigation error — Christopher Columbus believed he had reached Asia. Centuries later, United States law still says American Indian, and so do the census and many tribal organizations, while Native American spread in the 1960s and 1970s and Indigenous is widely used today. Sal’s mother chose American Indian, hearing in it the stronger and nobler phrase. Surveys of Native communities keep finding the same thing: many people accept several of these labels, but what most prefer is the name of their own nation — Seneca, Navajo, Lakota — because one word for hundreds of distinct peoples, each with its own language, government, and history, blurs them all together. That is the deeper point underneath the novel’s wording. The polite rule in real life matches the rule in the story: listen first, and call people by the name they choose for themselves.
peculiaradj.Ch.7
Strange or odd in a puzzling way
“Sal finds it peculiar how many strange things go unexplained.”
heritagen.Ch.7
Traditions, stories, and identity passed down from ancestors
“Sal’s mother treasured the Seneca heritage in her family.”
lunaticn.Ch.8
A person who behaves in a wild, senseless way
“Phoebe decides the nervous stranger must be a lunatic.”
respectableadj.Ch.8
Proper and well thought of by other people
“The Winterbottoms work hard at appearing respectable.”
suspiciousadj.Ch.8
Believing something is wrong without real proof
“Phoebe grows suspicious of nearly everyone on her street.”
moccasinsn.Ch.9
Soft leather shoes, traditionally made by American Indians
“The first message speaks of walking in another man’s moccasins.”
anonymousadj.Ch.9
Coming from a sender whose name is not known
“The anonymous envelope carries no signature at all.”
exuberantadj.Ch.10
Overflowing with energy, excitement, and joy
“Exuberant as ever, Gram whoops huzza, huzza in the dance circle.”
agendan.Ch.11
A private plan or set of aims a person wants to carry out
“The second message warns that everyone has an agenda.”
flinchv.Ch.11
To pull back suddenly, without meaning to
“Sal cannot help but flinch whenever anyone touches her.”
ⓘ The vocabulary words in this list are selected to help you understand and complete this workbook. Some may not appear verbatim in the original novel.
🧠Knowledge Bank question
1According to the Knowledge Bank, when surveys ask Native communities about naming their heritage, what do most people prefer?Ch.7
2‘Heritage’ means the traditions and identity handed down from your ancestors.Ch.7
3A ‘lunatic’ is a person who behaves ___.Ch.8
4‘Moccasins’ are ___.Ch.9
5Fill in each blank with the correct word.Ch.9
Word choices:anonymousrespectablepeculiaragenda- some words will not be used
The message came from an sender — no name, no signature.
Phoebe’s family works hard to look to the neighbors.
6Someone ‘suspicious’ of a stranger ___.Ch.8
7An ‘exuberant’ family is quiet, careful, and reserved.Ch.10
8An ‘agenda,’ as the second message uses the word, is ___.Ch.11
9Fill in each blank with the correct word.Ch.11
Word choices:flinchexuberantmoccasinslunatic- some words will not be used
Sal cannot help but when Ben’s hand brushes her shoulder.
Gram was loud and in the middle of the dance circle.
10To ‘flinch’ is to pull back suddenly, the way you might from a hot stove.Ch.11
Part 2
Comprehension
Show you understood what happens in Chapters 7–11.
🏡Knowledge Bank · The Longhouse That Held Six Nations
History · The Haudenosaunee LeagueSal’s great-great-grandmother belonged to the Seneca, and the Seneca belonged to something larger: the Haudenosaunee, the people of the longhouse. Long before Europeans arrived, five nations of what is now upstate New York — Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca — ended generations of war by uniting under the Great Law of Peace. They pictured their alliance as one enormous bark longhouse laid across the land, each nation tending its own fire inside. The Mohawk, farthest east, guarded the Eastern Door; the Seneca, farthest west, were Keepers of the Western Door. When the Tuscarora joined in the early 1700s, the league became the Six Nations. Clans passed down through mothers, and clan mothers held the power to choose and remove chiefs — women carried real political authority here centuries before the United States existed. Some historians argue this example of united-but-separate nations impressed colonial leaders such as Benjamin Franklin. When Sal says the word Seneca, she is naming one pillar of that confederacy.
🧠Knowledge Bank question
1According to the Knowledge Bank, clan mothers in the Haudenosaunee league held the power to ___.Ch.7
2Who comes to the Winterbottoms’ door while the girls are there?Ch.8
3Phoebe decides that the nervous stranger at the door must be a lunatic.Ch.8
4What does the first message on the porch steps say?Ch.9
5Write the numbers 1–5 in the boxes to show the correct order of events. Number 1 = what happens first.Chapters 7–11
A white envelope with the moccasin message appears on the steps.
Gram joins a dance circle, whooping huzza, huzza.
A second message announces that everyone has an agenda.
The travelers catch sight of Lake Michigan.
A nervous young man asks for Mrs. Winterbottom at the door.
6Mrs. Partridge, who is blind, guesses Phoebe’s age by touching her face.Ch.8
7Why is Phoebe horrified when Ben carries Mrs. Cadaver’s bags into her house?Ch.11
8When Sal finds her at the Wisconsin Dells, Gram is ___.Ch.10
9At the end of Chapter 11, Sal flinches away from her father’s hug.Ch.11
10What does Ben discover when he quietly tests Sal?Ch.11
Part 3
Literary Elements
Understanding HOW and WHY Sharon Creech tells the story across Chapters 7–11.
✉Knowledge Bank · Two Moons, One Borrowed Pair of Shoes
Folklore · The Moccasin ProverbThe message on Phoebe’s steps sounds ancient, and its history is worth tracing carefully. Versions of the walk-in-another’s-moccasins saying circulate everywhere as an old Indian proverb, but folklore researchers who hunt for first appearances keep arriving at a printed poem: in 1895 a Michigan poet and preacher named Mary Lathrap wrote lines urging readers to walk a mile in another person’s moccasins before judging him. Whether she coined the image or polished a saying she had heard, no earlier written source has been found. That is how proverbs often work — a line breaks loose from its author, gets reshaped by thousands of speakers, and picks up a grander origin story along the way. Notice, too, the unit of time. A moon in many Native calendars means a full month, so two moons is roughly sixty days — the message does not ask for a quick moment of imagination but for a long, patient stay inside someone else’s life.
Frame Story
Sal tells Phoebe’s story aloud to Gram and Gramps as they drive west — one story carried inside another, with Sal’s own story hiding underneath both.
Foreshadowing
A jumpy stranger, unsigned messages, and a flinch nobody explains — Part 2 plants hints the novel fully intends to pay off.
Motif
The mysterious messages begin repeating: each new envelope returns to the same pattern and gathers new meaning as the story grows.
🧠Knowledge Bank question
1The Knowledge Bank explains that researchers tracing the moccasin saying keep arriving at ___.Ch.7
2The unsigned messages that keep appearing on Phoebe’s steps are best described as a ___.Ch.11
3A frame story is a story told inside another story.Ch.7
4Sal’s habit of flinching when touched is a detail that mainly ___.Ch.11
5Foreshadowing gives the reader a hint about something that will matter later.Ch.8
6Fill in each blank with the correct literary term.Ch.9
Word choices:motifframeforeshadowingrhyme- some words will not be used
The messages returning again and again form a .
Sal’s road trip is the around Phoebe’s story.
7The nervous young man at the door works as foreshadowing because ___.Ch.8
8A motif can appear only once in a novel.Ch.11
9Which pair shows the frame and the story carried inside it?Ch.7
10Fill in each blank with the correct literary term.Ch.8
Word choices:foreshadowingmotifdialoguesetting- some words will not be used
The lunatic’s visit plants the story will pay off.
Bybanks, Kentucky serves as a remembered .
Part 4
Think Deeper
Four deeper challenges — no single-word recall. Read, weigh the evidence, and reason it out.
📜Knowledge Bank · A City on Rented Ground
Law · The Salamanca LeasesSal’s parents reached for the name of the Seneca and came up with Salamanca — and even the mistake carries real history. Salamanca is a small city in western New York that stands almost entirely inside the Allegany Territory of the Seneca Nation, which makes it one of the only cities in the United States built on land leased from a tribal nation. In the 1870s a railroad boomtown grew up there on rental agreements that Congress later locked in at almost nothing — some lots went for a few dollars a year, fixed for ninety-nine years. When those leases finally expired in 1991, the Seneca Nation negotiated new terms, and Congress passed a settlement act paying compensation for the century of unfair rent. The city itself had been named for a Spanish nobleman who invested in the railroad. So the name Sal carries is a triple braid: a Spanish financier, an American railroad town, and the Seneca land that lies beneath them both.
Somewhere between Lake Michigan and the Wisconsin Dells, a thirteen-year-old girl is doing three things at once. With her voice she is telling her grandparents a story about her friend Phoebe — a story that now has a jumpy stranger at the door, an unsigned message on the porch steps, and a neighbor whose last name means dead body. With her memory she keeps slipping back to Bybanks, Kentucky — to a mother whose moods she once wore like her own clothes, and to the newborn calf that first proved she could be happy by herself. And underneath both, her body is telling a story of its own: when a boy’s hand so much as brushes her shoulder, she jerks away before she can decide to. In the middle of it all, Gram plunges into a dance circle shouting huzza, huzza, while Sal stands at the edge thinking about her Seneca great-great-grandmother and about the mother who is the reason for this whole trip. The first message asks its reader not to judge a man before walking two moons in his moccasins. Part 2 is the novel handing you that advice — and then daring you to follow it.
Original passage written for Garden Heights — not a quotation from the novel.
1Claim: “Part 2 shows that everything on the road and in Phoebe’s story keeps steering Sal back to her mother.” — choose the two details that best prove it.Claim & Evidence
2Belongs to Phoebe’s mystery, or Belongs to Sal’s buried story? Tap each detail to send it left or right.Sort into two
◄ Belongs to Phoebe’s mysteryBelongs to Sal’s buried story ►
3Match each cause to its result. For each cause, pick its result.Cause & Effect
A stranger asks for Phoebe’s mother→
An envelope appears with no sender→
Mrs. Partridge cannot use her eyes→
Ben’s hand brushes against Sal’s shoulder→
🧠Knowledge Bank question
4Fill both blanks to complete the reasoning.Build the Argument
The Knowledge Bank argues that even the mistake in Sal's name carries real history because , which shows that .
Part 5
Standardized Test
Keepers of the Western Door · Reading & Vocabulary · SAT & TOEFL-style practice
Read the passage — the highlighted words are tested — then answer. Tap an answer, then tap it again to confirm.
SATCentral Ideas — the passage's main point
SATWords in Context — a word's meaning in this passage
SATInference — a conclusion the passage implies
SATAuthor’s Purpose — what the author wants to achieve
TOEFLFactual Information — a fact stated in the passage
TOEFLVocabulary — a tested word's meaning here
TOEFLProse Summary — the three sentences that sum it up
Keepers of the Western Door
Long before the United States existed, five nations in what is now upstate New York — the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca — agreed to stop fighting and govern themselves as a league under the Great Law of Peace. They called themselves the Haudenosaunee, the people of the longhouse, picturing their alliance as one enormous bark house, each nation tending its own fire. Because the Seneca lived farthest west, they were honored as the Keepers of the Western Door. Outsiders called the league the Iroquois confederacy, and when the Tuscarora joined in the early 1700s, five nations became six.
The Seneca call themselves the Onödowá'ga, the Great Hill People, and their homeland stretched from the Genesee River valley toward Lake Erie. In 1794 the United States signed the Treaty of Canandaigua with the Haudenosaunee, promising that Seneca lands would remain Seneca forever. The promise did not hold. In the 1960s the federal government built the Kinzua Dam on the Allegheny River, drowning about ten thousand acres of treaty-protected valley and leaving roughly six hundred Seneca people displaced from homes their families had kept for generations.
Yet the Seneca are not a people of the past. The Seneca Nation of Indians is today a sovereign government — one that makes and enforces its own laws — with territories in western New York, an elected president and council, its own courts, and thriving businesses. Teachers there work to keep the Seneca language and heritage alive among its children. In a peculiar twist, one territory contains an entire American city, Salamanca, whose residents lease the ground beneath their houses from the Nation. When a girl in a novel says her great-great-grandmother was Seneca, this nation — old, wronged, and very much alive — is the one she means.
Original passage written for Garden Heights — not a quotation from the novel.
1What is the main idea of the passage?SAT · Central Ideas
2According to the passage, the name Haudenosaunee means ___.TOEFL · Factual Information
3In the passage, heritage most nearly means ___.SAT · Words in Context
4The Seneca were called Keepers of the Western Door because ___.TOEFL · Factual Information
5The passage suggests the Kinzua Dam felt like a betrayal because ___.SAT · Inference
6In the passage, displaced most nearly means ___.TOEFL · Vocabulary
7According to the passage, the Seneca Nation today has ___.TOEFL · Factual Information
8Prose Summary (TOEFL).This passage traces the Seneca from the founding of the Haudenosaunee league to the sovereign Nation of today. This TOEFL task lists six sentences; choose the THREE that best capture the passage’s main ideas. The other three do not belong — they state minor details or ideas the passage does not present.TOEFL · Prose Summary
9In the passage, peculiar most nearly means ___.SAT · Words in Context
10Why does the author end the passage in the present day?SAT · Author’s Purpose
Part 6 · Optional
Creative Writing
A bonus challenge to practice your English. Take your time and have fun with it.
About This Section
This writing task is optional and is not part of your auto-graded score. The feedback below checks only the basics — length, spelling, and grammar — not whether your ideas are right or wrong. It is meant for classroom discussion and creative practice, so feel free to use your imagination!
Writing Task — Part 2 “Two Moons in Their Moccasins”
The first message asks readers not to judge anyone before walking two moons — two whole months — in that person’s moccasins. Write about a time you judged someone before you knew their story, or a time someone judged you that way. Describe what you believed at first, what you later learned, and how the truth changed your view. 6–10 sentences. End with what you would tell someone about to make the same mistake.
You can start with: “At first, I was sure I knew exactly what kind of person they were...”
0 / 40 words minimum
🗣 Teach It · Just for Fun (optional)
No right or wrong — close the screen and tell someone nearby what happened in this part. Can’t find anyone? Tell yourself out loud. The moment you teach it, you truly understand it.
Independent study guide by Garden Heights. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Sharon Creech. Contains original analysis only; no text from the novel is reproduced. Reference text: This workbook follows Sharon Creech’s classic text (the standard Puffin edition sold worldwide). Revised 2023 UK editions change some wording and may not match the vocabulary studied here.
