The narrator, the boy, thinks that the relationship between his uncle and aunt was not so good. He describes that every Saturday night, his uncle would lift his wife on to the chair and she would beat him on his head with the china dog. The readers realize that the relationship between them was good. Her beating Thomas was an act of playful marital activity. Though the uncle and aunt were quite contrary in behaviors and temperament, they loved each other very much. She did not like Thomas’s drinking habit, so she was against his outing program. On such occasions, she would go to her mother’s house. When she went to her mother’s home, she left a note asking him to eat eggs from the pantry and to go to bed taking his shoes off. On Sundays, she would not allow him to play checkers.