46 pages • 1 hour read
Joan W. BlosA Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal, 1830-32
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1979A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary
These journal entries range from January 24 to February 22, 1831. Catherine notes that Teacher Holt is still reading to the students from a newspaper, this one sent by the teacher’s friend, Mr. Garrison, in Boston. The information includes the population of New Hampshire (269,533) and the number of people from various demographics in the state, including those who are blind. Catherine and Cassie try to imagine what being either a blind person or an enslaved person would be like, a discussion that leads them to consider issues of choice and obedience.
Matty turns eight, and Catherine remembers how Father rejoiced when her infant brother, who lived only a few days, was born because every farmer needs a son. Soon, Teacher Holt brings to school a newspaper, The Liberator, started by Mr. Garrison himself and concerning the slavery question. Teacher Holt has the students copy the paper’s motto, “Our country is the world, our countrymen all mankind” (43). The townspeople disapprove of the teacher reading the news to students. Some of them saw the runaway’s footprints in Piper’s Wood, and knowing Holt’s abolitionist leanings, they conclude that it was he who helped the man. Catherine thinks that there is no end to the repercussions of having helped the runaway. The rumors are discussed by Father and Uncle Jack, who both oppose enslavement but have different views on how slavery should end. Uncle Jack thinks that enslaved people should simply be freed; Father, who does not want Black neighbors, thinks that they should be resettled in a new African nation.
Defying the town, Teacher Holt continues to share news from The Liberator, including a reprinted “for sale” ad for an enslaved girl of 17. Catherine thinks that this girl must also know love, fear, and honor as she does herself. Holt writes a letter to the district meeting saying that he did not help the runaway and pledges to stop reading newspapers to the students during school hours.
Chapter 8 Summary
Chapter 8 spans the journal entries from February 26 to March 19, 1831. Teacher Holt has gone to board with the Shipmans after being condemned by the family with whom he had been lodging. A delegation tells the Shipmans that the teacher will only read texts approved by the town. Catherine notes that spring is coming. She and Cassie think about becoming teachers one day, if only in the summer months when women teachers are allowed. Catherine’s own mother was a teacher before she married.
Father completes a chair he has been working on, and Matty is the first to sit in it. Catherine recalls that the previous day, she returned to the schoolhouse after dismissal to find Teacher Holt reading from The Liberator to half a dozen of the older boys. He has kept his promise not to teach it during school hours.
The maple sap is running, and the Hall family scalds their buckets to prepare to collect it. On March 18, Catherine turns 14, and her father recalls how happy he and her mother were at her birth. The men tap the trees and begin preparing the camp where they will have their “sugaring off,” slowly boiling down the sap until it turns to syrup. All the children help with these preparations.
Chapter 9 Summary
Chapter 9 includes diary entries from March 21 to April 4, 1831. Hardly any children attend school; everyone is needed to help feed the fires and stir the kettles for the maple syrup. It is a festive time; one neighbor brings his fiddle, and they snack on hot syrup or pour it over snow to make maple sugar. Warmer weather brings concern that the sap will end early, and Father observes that the seasons of life proceed in fits and starts, much like the weather. Catherine, meanwhile, has been acting as “a woman while yet a child” because she has had to take on her mother’s role in the family (55). Father wonders if “[t]ime or contrivance” will restore her youth (55).
A stranger visits the town in an elegant coach. It turns out that, long ago, he was bound to a merchant and ran away, taking some money. He became a brave sailor and eventually an admiral in the Russian navy. He has returned to restore the stolen money to the merchant.
Catherine discovers that Matty has outgrown an old dress. Father prepares to trade furs and maple sugar in Boston for goods, including fabric. A new dress is all that Catherine can think about.
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
These chapters are concerned with the abolition of slavery. The fictional Teacher Holt is friends with the real-life William Lloyd Garrison, a crusading journalist whose newspaper, The Liberator, published fiery critiques of enslavement and enslavers. Some of the townspeople criticize the teacher for trying to educate his pupils on the issue, implicitly invoking the fact that Garrison’s publication attacked the Church and the Constitution for contributing to slavery and also fought for other social reforms, including women’s rights. The townspeople even jump to the conclusion that Holt helped the fugitive, adding to Catherine’s feelings of guilt. Introducing a factual character to the fictional novel underscores the educational aspects of the novel since it aims to engage a young readership with historical events using fictional characters.
The educational aspect of the text is also evident in the discussion between Father and Uncle Jack, which shows two sides of the abolitionist movement. They discuss whether formerly enslaved people should be freed, as Uncle Jack believes, or whether they should be resettled in a new African nation, as Father thinks. This conveys the ideas that will shape the coming Civil War and the passage of the 13th Amendment. The fact that the self-liberated man is silent in the novel while white men debate his future highlights the racism that prevailed even amongst abolitionists.
This discussion, along with Catherine’s reaction to the reprinted “for sale” ad for an enslaved Black girl, develops the theme of Joy and Sorrow Unite Humankind. Father concludes his discussion with Uncle Jack by asking if he would want to have a Black man as a neighbor. Here, Catherine simply writes the words that the self-liberated man wrote in her lesson book asking for her pity, showing her understanding that everyone shares the same emotions. As she thinks about the enslaved girl, Catherine wonders if she would not know love, fear, and honor, as Catherine does herself. More and more, she is able to find commonalities with others, including those whose lives are very different than her own. The changing seasons are a motif supporting this theme, as Father compares the seasons to the seasons of men’s lives. Both the seasons and the stages of life proceed in the same order, although not always at the same pace.
The strange incident of the wealthy stranger who visits from Russia to repay a childhood debt stands out in a novel that is concerned with more quotidian details. This is based on a true event; in a brief author’s note, Blos reports that the episode came from one of the sources she consulted in the course of her research. By including the incident, Blos shows that people liberated themselves and went on to great achievements before return to pay debts, confirming Catherine’s judgment in helping her “phantom.”
