Sail into a pilgrim’s progress
When you go to school in New England, you read The Witch of Blackbird Pond in the sixth grade and The Crucible in the eighth.
I far prefer Elizabeth George Speare’s novel to Arthur Miller’s, because I’m a sucker for a happy ending. It hasn’t got the intellectual complexity or allegorical theme, but it does have an absorbing, if straightforward, premise.
Kit Tyler is that classic heroine, forthright, headstrong and described as “plain” – while of course breaking hearts all over town. Born in Barbados, she lived a privileged life on a vast plantation worked by countless slaves – until the death of her grandfather and the discovery of huge debts against his property. She decides to leave the tropical paradise (and an unwelcome marriage) to live with her aunt and uncle on the cold shoulder of 1687 Connecticut. Her Uncle is a dour Puritan, and her life is tumbled from posh parties and silken gowns to meetinghouse church rooms for day-long services and homespun for work in the fields. Even so, she learns to appreciate life in the colonies with the help of Nat, the quick-tempered but fun-loving sea captain’s son, the child Prudence, whose life is so wretched she makes Kit feel rich again in comparison, and Hannah, the kindly old Quaker woman who lives in the meadow, labeled a witch by the people in the township.
The book does a creditable job of describing the stony life of people who fled England to make a life of their own in Connecticut. While focusing on the day to day, the story is crosscut with political intrigue surrounding the appointment of a new Governor, and off-camera scuffles with local tribes. Illness strikes the town, and as the body count rises, the townspeople, frightened and angry, look to Hannah as a scapegoat. Kit is well-plucked and risks all to help Hannah, and earns her happy ending with a year of toil and social castigation that provides an appropriate amount of character building and moral fiber.
Although Kit is the center of the novel, she is not the reason I love it. While we’re clearly meant to identify with her, it is her cousin Mercy who steals the show by being sincerely and utterly pleasant in every way, despite affliction – it may be an unrealistic and “saintly” depiction, but Speare really sells Mercy, crippled by a fever as an infant, and growing up to be the patient and serene center of the household despite her infirmity. While Kit twits around sighing about how shitty Pilgrim life is (and, straight up, Puritans apparently did not know the meaning of the word fun, I won’t dispute that) Mercy cards wool and teaches dame school and never gets to leave the house. Another favorite is John Holbrook, new to town and apprenticed to the local clergyman and doctor. He has a very dry sense of humor and a hungry intellect, as well as a lovely speaking voice.
Since the book is set in 1687 (and published in 1958), everyone’s problems are solved by marriage. But if their matches are rote, they are still satisfying: cousin Judith, the temperamental belle, bags the richest bachelor in town, Kit winds up with Nat, who can give her the best of both worlds, the islands in the winter and the states and her family in the spring, and, best of all, John Holbrook, back from being held captive by Indians, falls into Mercy’s arms.
It holds up to repeated readings, and it’s a nice way to while away a windy autumn evening.
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I think we might have this one on our YA book shelf — an old copy that Alyx has had since childhood. I’m going to have to pick it up now!
I have always found it a strangely soothing book. It just wraps up so neatly, in every respect. Plus, hey, Puritans! They worked hard, right?
If you don’t, I can loan it to you. It’s one of those books I re-read at least once a year.
Me too!
WoBP is without a doubt one of my favorite books, YA or otherwise.
It’s a lovely read.