Summer Part 1

"On such an afternoon Charity Royall lay on a ridge above a sunlit hollow, her face pressed to the earth and the warm currents of the grass running through her. Directly in her line of vision a blackberry branch laid its frail white flowers and blue-green leaves against the sky. Just beyond, a tuft of sweet-fern uncurled between the beaded shoots of the grass, and a small yellow butterfly vibrated over them like a fleck of sunshine. This was all she saw; but she felt, above her and about her, the strong growth of the beeches clothing the ridge, the rounding of pale green cones on countless spruce-branches, the push of myriads of sweet-fern fronds in the cracks of the stony slope below the wood, and the crowding shoots of meadowsweet and yellow flags in the pasture beyond." p. 34 This passage from the beginning of the book stood out to me a lot because it reminded me of when I was a kid. I used to get really bored and angry because I was so bored so I'd go outside and lay in the backyard to ventilate my anger from being so bored. This passage to me shows Charity's youth and her feeling of being confined in North Dormer. The description is written beautifully which may be another reason why it caught my attention.

"Harney and Charity sat down on a bench made of a board resting on two starch boxes. They faced a door hanging on a broken hinge, and through the crack they saw the eyes of the tow-headed boy and of a pale little girl with a scar across her cheek. Charity smiled, and signed to the children to come in; but as soon as they saw they were discovered they slipped away on bare feet. It occurred to her that they were afraid of rousing the sleeping man; and probably the woman shared their fear, for she moved about as noiselessly and avoided going near the stove." p. 54 This section reminded me a lot of some of the first mission work I ever did in West Virginia. The group I was with and I painted and repaired houses, did yard work, and hung out with locals while we were on our trip. It was a big surprise to me when we went to the first house and socialized with all the people who were living in it. I knew people lived in poverty and struggled and that poor people existed but I did not get a true sense of their situation until that trip which was very mind opening. This passage is similar except I feel that Charity is in even more of a shock that these are the type of people she came from. The people from the town ignored the people from the Mountain which I think also made it a big shock to finally see what she'd only heard a little about. This section also helps Charity see the lifestyle she might of been living if Mr. Royall hadn't taken her to the valley.