In Which We
Discuss Hitty: Her First Hundred
Years
Written by Rachel Field, illustrated by Dorothy Lathrop
HITTY
Her First Hundred Years
Week of
Chapter Six: In
Which I Join the Fishes and Rejoin the
Prebles:
Hitty was lucky to have fallen off the burning ship and into the warm South sea waters. Fortunately, she landed on a coil of rope and floated with other ship wreckage toward the very island where the Prebles landed. She was not in great shape by the time she landed there, but then the others all looked pretty bedraggled. All were very happy to see her, but none happier than Hitty. The little island provided plenty of food, and there were a couple of huts there that the men immediately fixed for their comfort.
The Captain and crew are on constant watch for ship sails in the distance. However, one day, they saw smoke coming for another distant island and then spotted something coming their way. Indeed there were boatloads of natives headed toward them. They seemed an angry sort of group, and when the Chief spotted Hitty and held out his hand, the Captain told Phoebe to give her to the Chief. Bill Buckle said, “If my mem’ry don’t fail me, these natives have got some idea ‘bout how if they take your god away from you they’ve got you in their power.” And so Hitty was carried away by the Indians to become a “heathen idol.”
DISCUSSION:
Well, Hitty is
certainly having a spell of miracles.
First and foremost, being hurled off the burning ship, then
landing on a
pile of rope to float through the
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I wonder what happened to Patch and the rest of the crew that sailed off in the opposite direction. It seems Captain Preble was right in his choice of direction. Maybe the rest of the crew tossed Patch overboard once they realized they were headed to nowhere but open ocean.