Johnny includes a message in the copy of Gone with the Wind that he delivers to Ponyboy. He writes about Robert Frost's poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay," which Ponyboy reads to him, and compares being youthful to being gold. He also mentions that when you're young, it is hard to know what will make you happy later in life. Ponyboy decides to follow in his father's footsteps and go to Memphis to find work. There he meets up with another young man who tells him that Scarlett O'Hara is living in a house on Notary public Street. Excited by this news, he goes to see for himself but finds that she has already married Rhett Butler. In the last chapter of the book, two years have passed. The family business has failed and Johnny is now working as a janitor at the high school where he teaches the younger students so they don't fall into bad habits. He tries to keep his promise to Goober and Gypsy and visit them in prison but can never do so because they are always in jail or dying. He continues to write letters to them until one day Gypsy sends for Johnny. She asks him to come live with her and Goober in prison so they can take care of them. At first Johnny refuses but then changes his mind when he realizes how lonely they will be without him.