Week of March 26, 2007

Chapter Eight: In Which I Am Lost in India:

Aboard the Hesper:

At last the Prebles and Hitty are rescued from the Island. They are taken aboard the Hesper and treated kindly by the captain. He even provides a hankie for Hitty's dress.

Such a sense of relief at being aboard the Hesper and to have such a kind courteous Captain in charge. What luck (or Providence) that his ship would need repairs and put them close enough to the Preble group to save them.

Hitty really made out with a rich crimson silk handkerchief to use as a garment. It was very generous of the Captain to give up such a handkerchief for a little wooden doll. Perhaps he was thinking of his daughter at home and wanted to something nice for Phoebe and Hitty.

Kate on the other hand must have been a sight in her new dress made of bright calico provided by the Captain of the Hesper. She must have felt quite heathenish as she just knew she would be driven out of Meetin' at home if they ever found out she'd put such colors on her back.

It always amazes me the skills the women in those days had to make all their own clothing with just a needle and thread, and in such a short time. The clothing was so detailed and complicated, nothing like today’s casual wear. And all those layers!! Of course, under the circumstances, Kate's outfit wasn't fancy, but at least it was something to wear besides the rags she arrived in.

I think this was the first mention of the Captain keeping a bag of gold around his neck. At least he's not totally destitute, although it is mentioned that the gold would be the only ready money he would see for many a long day. The Captain and his three mates sit by the hour figuring up the losses in sperm oil. Apparently, there will be no recovery for his loss, and he is out the ship, the whale oil and everything else lost aboard.

I thought the gold should have been mentioned earlier, but I guess we can only know what Hitty knows.

Arrival in Bombay:

The next port for the Hesper is Bombay. The little group is very excited to finally reach port. So many exciting things to see -- the queer boats, the domes and narrow streets, the whining beggars, the throngs of robed and turbaned men, the half-naked men with legs or arms tied up in knots of bodies twisted in a grotesque and horrible manner.

When they reach port Captain. Preble sees that everyone is fitted out. Even Hitty gets coral beads.

Hitty’s luck is soon running out again. Phoebe is getting tired and is to return to the ship with Bill Buckle. As he is carrying her, Phoebe falls asleep. Hitty is hanging precariously from Phoebe’s hand and finally starts her fall to the ground.

Hitty again tries to effect her situation by trying to attract Bill Buckle's attention to the fact that she is falling from Phoebe's hand. Of course, it doesn't work and Hitty is left alone again. How she longs for Phoebe to find her but to no avail.

I wonder how upset Phoebe must have been when she awoke to find Hitty gone. I can picture her mother, Kate, telling her not to fuss so over the doll when they had gone through so much and still had their lives. Perhaps some kindly sailor carved her another doll but it would never be Hitty.

I always felt sorry for poor Phoebe--she has lost Hitty so many times -- in church, in the berry fields, on the ship, to the natives, and now in India, just when she got her back. She probably thought Hitty would come back to her yet again!

Hitty’s Loss of Phoebe and the Prebles and Getting Ahead of Ourselves:

Hitty mentions that she never sees Phoebe or the Preble family again. I find this among the saddest parts of the whole Hitty story -- the fact that she lives on and the people that she loved and who loved her are long dead. That's a lot of suffering, even for a wooden doll. I also wonder if Phoebe missed Hitty through all those years or never really thought of her again.

I have to say even I was so depressed Phoebe never found Hitty again. Really this bothered me so much. I kept hoping against hope that somehow Hitty would reunite with the Prebles. It felt so ......lonely.... But that's what makes this story so special.

I thought that Hitty coming back to the Preble house was nice...but I would have liked her to have seen and recognized Phoebe one last time (as an old woman, perhaps).

I think it would have been nice if the old woman at the Preble house in the end was Phoebe. At first I thought that was who she was. If Hitty was 100 years old and Phoebe was 7 when Hitty was carved, that would make Phoebe 107. Phoebe would have been dead when Hitty found herself back at the Preble home.

I was hoping the old lady would be Phoebe also. It would have been a nice ending -- Hitty would really be home and with her family again. I guess Field did not want the book to end on that kind of note. Phoebe is gone forever and Hitty goes on. She sits patiently in the antique shop waiting for her next new adventure(s).

I think it would have been a great ending, although Field never did give the old woman's name; but if it were Phoebe I don't she how she could ever have forgotten Hitty.

Maybe Field wasn't into sentimentality. She just kept moving Hitty from place to place and from person to person. I guess "It's in the script.", but I would have loved to see Hitty home and with Phoebe. Maybe that ending would be too predictable. Too many maybes. I guess we have to accept the book as written and cheer Hitty on for her fortitude, good spirit, and sense of adventure.

Dementia or Alzheimer’s. What if the old woman was Phoebe's daughter or Hitty was home among the Prebles but nobody knew.

Maybe the old lady was a daughter of Phoebe, but Hitty never knew if the old lady was Phoebe, or a daughter (because of the woman's dementia or Alzheimer’s). Maybe we should have a "contest" (for lack of a better word) and re-write another ending to the story with Phoebe (or a daughter) in it. I'll bet we would get some interesting endings to the story.

When we get to that chapter we will find clues as to who the old woman really was. It should be interesting. One has to wonder why the old woman was drawn to Hitty if she collected china pets. Guess we better not get too ahead of ourselves.

Not sure if you are talking about the old woman in Maine or the one in Boston. The old woman in Maine says she never knew the history of the house except that the owner had been a sea captain. If you are talking about the one in Boston, that whole episode of a wood doll flying that far, and then the possibility of anyone who liked her so much that she kept her on her desk and took her with her for the summer, driving off and leaving Hitty is pretty strange and far fetched. I have to keep reminding myself that Rachel was an artist and was writing a children's story to make money and not for adults to ponder over.

The thing about the book that I think was sad was that she never had a child who loved her at end. Even when Rachel and Dorothy got her they didn’t really play with her either. Dorothy's niece said that Dorothy had other dolls that she remembers playing with but they paid no attention to Hitty.

And there she sits in that glass case today downstairs in the library where she hardly ever must see a child. I think it is too bad that she isn't in the children’s part of the library where she could at least see children.

It makes me sad that Hitty will probably never be a child's doll again as well, but I also feel like she ages in the book and by the end finds contentment in sitting in the glass case with older people who cherish her.

Back to India:

Hitty is to be found again, but this is not going to be a happy time in her life as she has been rescued by a snake charmer.

Hitty is despondent since being separated from Phoebe. Her feelings range from despair at lying in the mud thinking she is going to perish in a foreign land; to foreboding at hearing the sounds coming from the wicker basket which she was lying near; to horrified fascination as a cobra rose out of the basket at the sound of his master's music; to abject fear when the snake brushed against her ("had it not been that my hair was so firmly painted on my head I have no doubt but that it would have stood on end"); to passive calmness as she became accustomed to the cobra; to comfort with the thought that in her present situation as the snake charmer's "image" she did not behave in any way which would bring disgrace upon her kind; and discouragement over the state of her affairs. She had abandoned all hope of rescue and felt she should "end her days in heat and dust, far, far from my native State of Maine."

What always strikes me most about this chapter is that Hitty starts out terrified of the cobra and then begins to feel sorry for it when she realizes it has no control over its own life and is at the will of the Hindoo...hmmm, maybe she's projecting a little?

How excited she must have been after spending "years or again only a few weeks" journeying around India in the wicker basket to finally hear a voice speaking words that she understood and which brought such a combination of homesickness and relief to her.

Imagine her feelings when the man and woman spotted her. Would she be rescued?? Would she be left behind with the snake charmer?? The latter thought was probably more than she could bear. The fear she must have felt wondering if the snake charmer would agree to give her up, but it seems he was happy with the payment he received for Hitty and turned her over to the man and woman.

Hitty obviously cared for these people as "to this day, I shall always believe they did as much good by restoring me to my proper place as a doll as they did by all their baptizing and hymn singing."

The woman was very happy to find Hitty, as it reminded her so much of home in America which she obviously missed terribly. She wants to dress Hitty as she was dressed as a little girl so that Thankful, their daughter, will get used to something other than robes and turbans before she is sent to America.

William, Thankful's father, believes that God intervened and put Hitty in their path just in time to answer their child's needs. He even wanted to preach a sermon about finding her when they gathered for prayers that evening, although his wife wanted him to wait until
Thankful's birthday.

This chapter ends on a very hopeful note. Hitty will appear at a birthday celebration for Little Thankful. She will be with another little girl again.

I wonder how much time has passed since Phoebe dropped Hitty in the mud, and when this nice couple found her with the snake charmer. Hitty said it could have been years or just a few weeks. I also wonder if Rachel Field had an intimate knowledge of India by traveling there herself.

Interesting Information:

Hesper:

The remains of two schooners were left to decay at Wiscasset, Maine. They were built around 1917 in Massachusetts and fell upon hard times possibly by damage in the 1920's. One was named Hesper.

In the book Hitty states that the Hesper was crippled by a severe storm, an accident that sent her miles out of her proper course. Hitty also states that the captain hailed from Fairhaven, Massachusetts. I wonder if Rachel used the real life Hesper as the model for the one in the book.

Rachel Field loved Maine and all its history. It wouldn't surprise me at all if she had visited the Hesper at Wiscasset, learned of her history and used the name in the Hitty book!

Rachel would not have visited the ship in Wiscasset as it wasn't there at the time she wrote the book. It was, however, laid over in Portland Harbor after it weathered a severe storm. That was the time of the book, so I think Rachel knew the Hesper was damaged in a storm and it was in Portland Harbor so she used the name and also made reference to the Hesper being damaged in a storm. The schooner was later purchased and moved to Wiscasset.

Article on the Hesper and Luther Little:
The four-masted schooners Hesper and Luther Little were laid up at Wiscasset in 1932. Here they remained, rotting and becoming tourist attractions, until their hulks had deteriorated into eyesores. In 1998 they were demolished.

Luther Little was built in 1917 by Read Brothers Co., at Somerset, MA. She worked both in a coastal and deep-water trades in her early career. In 1920 she grounded in Haiti, remained stuck for two weeks, and was nearly lost. In the end she was gotten off without serious damage. By the mid-1920's the 1234 ton (GRT) schooner was laid up. In June of 1932 she was auctioned to a Mr. Frank Winter, who had her towed to Wiscasset and laid up alongside the railroad wharf. She never moved again.

Hesper was built by Crowninshild Shipbuilding, South Somerset, MA. Her career started poorly, as the launching ways collapsed beneath her on launching day, 4 July 1918. New ways were built and she finally reached the water on 23 August. The 1348 ton (GRT) schooner made several lengthy voyages, including runs to Spain and Venezuela.

In 1925 she grounded while entering Boston and required nine tugs to free her. Sometime in the following years she was laid up at Rockport, Maine. In January of 1928 she got loose in a storm, demolished a wharf, and landed on the beach. She was hauled off and eventually ended up in Portland, still laid up. In June of 1932 she was sold to Frank Winter for $600. She was towed to Wiscasset, arriving 1 September 1932 to join Luther Little.

Mr. Winter had purchased the schooners, and the insolvent Wiscasset, Waterville and Farmington narrow-gauge railroad, to operate a Boston-to-Wiscasset coal and lumber business. The schooners would bring coal north to Wiscasset and return south with lumber, while the railroad shuttled coal and timber between Wiscasset and interior points in Maine. Sadly, this plan never became a reality, due to Mr. Winter's untimely death. Both the railroad and the schooners were abandoned where they lay.

Time soon began to tell on the old schooners, and Hesper's masts were cut down around 1940.

Her aft deckhouse was burned to celebrate the end of WWII; her forward deckhouse met a similar fate in 1978. Fire was a continual threat to these ships, and they both suffered numerous fires. Firefighting was nearly impossible due to the ships' inaccessibility, but the Wiscasset Fire Department made a valiant effort each time. To the delight of tourists, the ships retained their shape for many years. Each year the hulks were a bit more run down, but through the 1980's they were still recognizable as ships.

In the early 1990's the elements finally took control over the hulks. One winter saw Hesper's hulk disintegrate into an unrecognizable mound of debris. A storm in 1995 took Luther Little's remaining masts, and the rest of her hull began to collapse. Around this time talk of "preservation", a constant issue for many years, came to the forefront. Before anything could be down, however, Luther Little's hull finally gave up and collapsed into a heap of debris.

With the ships reduced to unsightly piles of rubble, there was little choice but to demolish the wrecks. This work took place in the spring and early summer of 1998. Certain items from the ships - masts, hardware, and identifiable wooden items - were saved, but the rest was dredged out of the river and hauled away to be dumped. Maine's most famous schooners had ceased to exist. But what became of the masts?

Bombay:
Mumbai (Mumbai), formerly known in English as Bombay, is the capital of the state of Maharashtra, the most populous city of India, and by some measures the most populous city in the world with a population of about 13 million (as of 2006). Mumbai is located on Salsette Island, off the west coast of Maharashtra. Along with its neighbouring suburbs, it forms the world's sixth most populous meetropolitan area with a population of about 25 million. The city has a deep natural harbour and the port handles over half of India's passenger traffic and a significant amount of cargo.

Mumbai is the commercial and entertainment capital of India, and houses important financial institutions, such as the Reserve Bank of India, the Bombay Stock Exchange, the National Stock Exchange of India and the corporate headquarters of many Indian companies. Mumbai has attracted migrants from all over India because of the immense business opportunities, and the relatively high standard of living, making the city a potpourri of various communities and cultures.

The name Mumbai is an eponym, etymologically derived from Mumba or Maha-Amba— the name of the Hindu goddess Mumbadevi. and Aai — mother in Marathi. The former name Bombay had its origins in the 16th century when the Portuguese arrived in the area and called the place with various names, which would finally take on the written form Bombaim, still common in current Portuguese useage. After the British gained possession in the 17th century, it was anglicised to Bombay, although it was known as Mumbai or Mambai to Marathi and Gujarati-speakers, and as Bambai in Hindi, Urdu, and Persian. The name was officially changed to Mumbai in 1995, but the former name is still used by some of the city's inhabitants and famous institutions.

A widespread explanation of the origin of the traditional English name Bombay holds that it would be derived from a Portuguese name meaning good bay. This is based on the fact that bom is Portuguese for good whereas the English word bay is similar to the Portuguese baía (bahia in old spelling). However, the normal Portuguese rendering of good bay would have been bahia boa rather than the grammatically incorrect bom bahia.

Fakir or Faqir:
The word is usually used to refer to either the spiritual recluse or eremite or the common street beggar who chants holy names, scriptures or verses. Many stereotypes of the great fakir exist, among the more extreme being the picture of a near-naked man effortlessly walking barefoot on burning coals, sitting or sleeping on a bed of nails, levitating during bouts of meditation, or "living on air" (refusing all food). It is also used, usually sarcastically, for a common street beggar who chants holy names, scriptures or verses without ostensibly having any spiritual advancement.
In India many people have been afraid of the Fakirs' curse power.

Cobras:

I decided I really must get my living room clean today, so I put on Milo (our parrot’s) favorite show, Animal Planet, and got to work. Usually I turn off anything about snakes because Milo is terrified of them, and hey, they are not my favorites either, but today, it was Steve Irwin, so I decided to leave it on. Milo got into 'Hey, look at me, I'm watching horror movies!' and seemed kind of proud of himself for watching.

The show was on location in Sri Lanka, and much of it was on cobras. Steve Irwin went to visit a community of Gypsies, as that is who charms snakes. It was not pretty. I understood afterwards why Hitty did not like living with that man - snake charmers are cruel users of both the animals (monkeys as well as cobras) and the people they con. They remove the fangs and although the snake continues to eat, it slowly dies without its fangs, and then they go catch another.

What “charms” the snake is not the music - that is just for charming the customer. To keep the snake’s attention, and make its head move back and forth, they wave the lid of the basket back and forth in front of it.

I previously knew absolutely nothing about snake charming, and I thought these facts were very interesting, if disconcerting.

I knew that the fangs were removed but I didn't know that this made the snake die. Snakes will never be my favorite but they certainly deserve better treatment than that.

I, too, hate snakes and don't watch shows about them. HOWEVER, there was an interesting show awhile back about cobras in India and how they would catch rats at night. The villagers sleep on mats on the floor/ground in open hut type structures. It showed a woman and boy sleeping and this looooooong cobra slithered right through the hut, right next to the child. One has to wonder what would have happened if that child or his mother had moved even a tiny bit. That program still gives me the creeps.

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