Week of May 14, 2007

Chapter Fifteen: In Which I Learn Much of Plantations, Post Offices and Pin Cushions:

In Chapter 15 Hitty does a lot of traveling and has several new owners.

She floats down the Mississippi River in a basket like Moses, rides in a flat fishing boat, is carried into the big plantation house, is mailed to New Orleans where she languishes in a desk until she is mailed to New York City where she goes to the dead letter office, then is carried to a tobacco shop and accidentally left there, and is carried by the ticket agent to his home. Her least favorite mode of transportation is being mailed in a sealed box, because she can't see or hear what is going on around her! Our Hitty does love to be involved in life! Hitty has several owners in this chapter.

First is Sally, the spoiled, wild-child daughter of the boat captain, Car'line the young daughter of slaves, Miss Hope the honest-to-a-fault plantation owner's grown daughter, and the unnamed wife of Jim the ticket agent. I suppose we could add Charlie the post office worker and Jim the ticket agent as very short-time owners too, even though they were only Hitty owners by accident and quickly passed Hitty on.
________________________

It was just as Hitty feared at the end of Chapter 14. She has been set loose by little Sally Loomis to float about in a wicker basket on the Mississippi River. She couldn’t help but remember the story of Moses. She was eventually picked up by a couple of Negro boys out fishing. They wanted the basket she was in to use for their bait. Luckily for Hitty, they didn’t toss her into the river. It was decided that the smaller boy, Cooky, would take Hitty home to his sister Car’line.

Hitty enjoyed her time with Car’line. She very much enjoyed hearing the children sing songs “for their voices were softer and sweeter than those of any children I had met before.” At night, there was always music in the cabins. After the children would go to bed, the men would play their guitars and banjos. Hitty’s thoughts went back to the Island and the beating of the savage’s skin drums. It wasn’t the same tune, but had the same stirring quality. Hitty wanted to get up and dance to this “different sort of music.”

Sometimes they would sing and Hitty never tired of hearing. The songs were occasionally about biblical characters. She recognized Moses, Jonah and the Whale, Noah and King David, and it felt like finding old friends to hear about them again in such different surroundings. Hitty has said before how much she enjoyed the hymns and I’m glad she can hear them again.

Hitty is to attend the big Christmas Day party on the plantation. Car’line was able to get a piece of plaid calico for a dress. Although very humble, only a square of cloth with holds cut for arms and a pin stuck into her to hold it in back, she at least had something to cover what was left of her bridal finery.

The plantation was beautifully decorated for Christmas, with long tables of chickens, hams, pies and puddings. There were gifts and candy for all the children.

Miss Hope, the Colonel’s daughter, spotted Hitty sitting with Car’line. She recognized her as the doll stolen from the Cotton Exposition. After questioning Car’line and Cooky as to how they came to find Hitty, Miss Hope decided that the doll must be returned. Miss Hope presents Car’line with a beautiful doll to replace Hitty.
________________________

Anyone reading this chapter in the 1930-40 or so would not even have noticed the way Field describes Car'line and her family, but doesn't it strike a jarring note now?
________________________

It certainly does strike a jarring note. I hate the whole "slave" concept. It was not a part of our history to be proud of for sure. The way they were treated . . . and being separated from their families at the whim of the "master". It seems in the book as if the Colonel and his daughters were kind people. It was after the War so the "slaves" must have been free and worked on the plantation.
________________________

Miss Hope carefully washed and repaired Hitty’s clothing. Nothing is said about “the” necklace appearing in the wedding dress picture, so it seems the necklace was lost in the river.
________________________

About the necklace shown with the cotton wedding dress--It seems logical to assume that it was lost in the Mississippi River when Hitty was floating downstream in the basket. After all, the dress was bedraggled, spoiled, stained and irreparably damaged. A necklace would have fared just as poorly.
________________________

Miss Hope mails Hitty to a friend in New Orleans. This part is weird. The box was opened and two men and a lady examined Hitty and were not at all interested in her. It doesn’t seem like the “friend” was one of these three people. The men had been connected with the Cotton Exposition, but it had been over for months and they did not know what to do with Hitty. They “had been to the two old ladies, only to find that one of them was ill and the other had no idea where the Artist might be” so Hitty lay in a box in the drawer of the desk for some time. This part of the story does not make any sense to me. The Larraby sisters were very distressed that Hitty had disappeared. They loved the doll and took such care in preparing clothing for her for the Exposition. Even if one of the sisters were ill, why on earth would the other sister not claim her? I think Rachel Field blew this part of the story. The Artist had originally left Hitty with the sisters, so to my way of thinking, the sister wouldn’t have cared whether or not the Artist could have been found. She would have claimed Hitty.
________________________

I never thought of that aspect before! I can see Field wanting to move the story along, but that was a bit clumsy. It does seem as if the Cotton Expo folks would have given her to the sisters.
________________________

I agree that the story seems a little off track here. But maybe the Larraby sisters, being so "fragile," "wrinkled," and "old", were totally in a tizzy when one of them became sick, so much so that they had no time to think of the doll they had lovingly dressed for the Cotton Exhibition.
________________________

I'm going to have to go with old is a subjective thing. Nowadays the sisters wouldn't be considered elderly, but back in the time of the story they probably would have been seen as described. People didn't live nearly as long, for the most part, and most weren't healthy as long. Plus, the wrinkled part-they didn't have our skin care products!

It makes sense to me that they tried to find the artist to send her back to...it says in the previous chapter that he agreed to loan the doll to the sisters. The only reason I can think of that the sisters didn't want her back would be that they'd already gotten her stolen once and probably didn't want to be responsible for her again.
________________________

I am still not convinced. That is a good argument as to aging in those days. However, these were obviously very sheltered women. They most likely wouldn't be caught out in the sun without a parasol and being in the hot, steamy New Orleans weather, most likely spent their days on their verandas receiving visitors and sipping lemonade or maybe a sherry once in awhile. To be so fragile, wrinkled and white haired while only in their 40's doesn't make sense to me. I think Rachel Field just didn't think about the timing, just as she missed the mistake with the corals. If the women were in their 40's when they became betrothed (which I really doubt), then it would make more sense.
________________________

It was decided by the three people to send Hitty to New York to the artist’s address, so she is on the move again. However, Mr. Farley, the artist, is not to be found. Hitty winds up in a dead letter office. She felt her days were numbered and thought she was to be taken out and burned or chopped up. She tried to reassure herself that her mountain ash wood frame would come to her aid, but in her present circumstances her usual good spirits deserted her.
________________________

It's kind of strange that people would be trying to find Mr. Farley, the Artist, because it seems to me he had released Hitty to the Larraby sisters--"She has put up with my bachelor ways long enough."
________________________

Since Hitty becomes an unclaimed package at the post office, she is to be sold as a grab bag. She is very humiliated because the person that got her didn’t want her and passed her around. Someone offered a painted soap dish for her although “it’s worth more” than the doll. This person leaves Hitty behind at the tobacco shop where she is found and put on a shelf for the “soap dish” person to return. However, the next day she gets picked up with a bunch of other boxes of clay pipes. The man who accidentally picked her up was not happy to find “an ugly old doll” inside one of the boxes. Hitty was used to kindness and admiration and was very depressed in her new situation, especially when he threw her down with such exasperation that she bounded off the table to the hard floor.

The man’s wife asked if she could have Hitty. She wanted to turn her into a doll pincushion, which “are all the thing.” She would be given to the fancy table at the church Fair next month. She would retain her chemise. I hate the thought of her legs being bound up in that pin cushion.
________________________

Being turned into a pincushion was an uncomfortable experience for Hitty, but unbeknownst to her, the future was bright!
________________________

Now that you mention it, having pins stuck into one's dress and hoping they won't reach through to the pegs is an "interesting" experience. I'm so glad I don't have to stay as a pincushion for the rest of my life!
________________________

I feel badly for her though that she can't move. It must have been so difficult for Hitty to be bound up like that.
________________________

From Hitty Timeline:
1884-85 September: Hitty is found by Cooky and given to Car'line.

1884-85 Christmas Day: Hitty is discovered by Miss Hope, and rescued. On Christmas Day of either 1884 or 1885, Car'line takes Hitty to a celebration at the big plantation house. Here, she is discovered by Miss Hope. I wish we knew how long she had been on display. It could have been anywhere from a few months to a year, so we don't know if it was 1884 or 1885.

One-two weeks later: Hitty has been cleaned up, and mailed off. She is in the box for an undetermined amount of time, and ends up in the dead letter office.

Many months later: Hitty is almost traded for a painted soap dish, sent to a man who ordered cigars, discarded at a little shop that sells tobacco, accidentally picked up by another man, and ends up in a railway station. As Hitty does not like to discuss the 'black time' she spent in the dead letter office, is rather humiliated to have been almost traded for a soap dish, and then flung down and discarded by the man who ordered the cigars, we will not discuss this matter further.

Summer, sometime after 1885-86: Hitty is transformed into a pincushion by the ticket agent's wife, sent to a church fair, and given to Aunt Louella as a birthday gift. We do know that she spent a little more than a month with the ticket agent's wife, because it took several days to make her, and the woman declared that she was to be sent to the church fair 'next month'. Also, it must have been summer for the church fair to have occurred.

Hitty’s Travels Thus Far:

Chapter 1: In Maine with the Preble family;
Chapter 2: To Portland, Maine;
Aboard ship bound for the South Seas on a whaling expedition;
Chapter 6: Lost on a South Sea Island;
Chapter 8: Rescued at sea and arrival in Bombay, India; traveling back and forth across India with the snake charmer;
Chapter 9: A new home with a missionary family in India; on board ship with Little Thankful and headed to Philadelphia in America to live with Little Thankful’s grandparents;
Chapter 10: A new family, the Pryces, in Philadelphia;
Chapter 12: To New York to reside with the Van Rensselaer family;
Chapter 13: From Washington Square in New York to become a gift for Tim Dooley’s cousin, Katie. Travels to Katie’s home in Rhode Island, then to the country so that Katie could recuperate from her illness; lost in the hay and tossed into the hayloft and there for “years”.
Chapter 14: Hitty is finally found and sold to a traveling portrait painter for a quarter. She travels the country posing for portraits with little girls. Many times to New York and Philadelphia, then down the Mississippi to New Orleans. Stays in the French Quarter with the Larraby sisters. Appears at the Cotton Exposition in New Orleans and is then stolen by little Sally Loomis and taken onboard her father’s river steamboat, Morning Glory, to travel up the Mississippi delivering cotton.
Chapter 15: Found floating in a basket on the Mississippi River; given to a little Negro girl, Car’line who lived on a plantation; recognized by the planatation owner’s daughter as the doll who disappeared from the Cotton Exposition; is packaged and mailed back to New Orleans; then mailed to her former owner, the Artist, Mr. Farley, at his address in New York, but as Mr. Farley could not be found, Hitty winds up in a dead letter office at the post office; is eventually put in a grab bag and sold; carried to a tobacco shop by the new owner and accidently left there; picked up by a ticket agent and taken to his home and then made into a doll pincushion by the ticket agent’s wife to be sold at the Church Fair.

HOME