The paper that occupied the spring

This semester I had a rare opportunity to do something practical in grad school.

I took a class on the history and practice of publishing, and wrote a paper on the future of independent bookstores.

I've gotten my professor's feedback, shared it with a few people, and finally decide to release it into the wild. It's up on Scribd, and embedded below, for anyone who wants to check it out.¹

Modernizing the Cultural Elite

¹ My professor commented -- in a good way -- on the fact that the style here is not what one generally hears from academics. Which does not mean it's just a longer version of my usual posts. Consider yourself warned.

Haven't done a link roundup in a while...

Stuff that is not necessarily new, but intriguing. (To me, at least.)

• Melodies from isotopes
• The Ultimate Story Checklist
• Watch this video
• Polarized light as a proto-compass?
• We can always use a reminder of how awesome Mr. Rogers was
• 19th-century female math nerd FTW
• Wrenching NPR story on Native children in foster care
• UK journalism history (as relates to the hacking scandal)
• The phrase "Iron Age road" will usually get me to click
• I grew up on Ms. Magazine
• Experiments from the NYT
• Report cards from the 1920s
• Why the battle between Hamilton and Jefferson still hasn't gone away
• A key moment in the collapse of the USSR

One last thing: cover copy

We've finished the text of the book, but there's one more aspect of The Witch of Blackbird Pond I want to discuss.

This is the copy I have, acquired sometime in childhood. What's interesting about it is that there's no indication anywhere on the exterior that it was published as a children's book.

The inside blurb pages make reference to the book's Newbery-winner status, but there's no gold medal on the outside (unlike the Laurel Leaf edition you'll find in most bookstores now).

Here's the back cover text:

"Prisoner in a House of Strangers

The sunshine and laughter of childhood seemed centuries and worlds away as Kit Tyler viewed the forbidding New England coast. The lovely young woman had been raised amid luxury in the Caribbean, but now she was an orphan, unloved and alone, dependent on relatives she had never seen.

Awaiting her in the bleak dwelling that was her new home were suspicions and loneliness. The master of the house despised everything about her. The man, who claimed he loved her, abandoned her to the circle of terror. And there was nowhere to turn, no one to help, no way to escape the evil claiming her as victim..."

(We'll just ignore the comma splice in the penultimate sentence. Or at least try very hard to do so.)

And on the front the book is described as "A spellbinding novel of suspense and romance..."

There's no reference to the fact that it's historical fiction (well, the cover image suggests it, but the dress is hardly accurate to the setting), and no indication that it was intended as a children's book. A potential reader could quite reasonably expect to pick up a category romance based on the signals Bantam's marketing department chose to send.

It's still the same story -- one that, apparently, could just as easily have been written for adults.

Deep thoughts aside, I think it's time to enjoy the 90-second version:

Chapter 21: Happy endings

John Holbrook's quest has done its thing, and he has attained actual maturity.

"All his uncertainty had disappeared, and his steady eye and voice plainly revealed the core of strength that Kit had always sensed beneath his gentleness. In the days of his captivity, of which he never spoke, in the waiting for a chance to escape, and in the weary hunted trail down the Connecticut River, John had found his answers."

And as long as he's not mooning after Kit, William Ashby isn't really so bad.

"She and William spent their evenings in happy planning, and their contentment was good to see. Kit had never found William so likeable before."

So with both her cousins married off, Kit's ready to move forward with her get-out-of-Dodge plan. She's going back to Barbados, and she's going to do it by selling her fancy dresses and actually working for a living. "She would not be going back as Sir Francis Tyler's granddaughter."

Except.

Spring shows up. And as anyone who's gone through one of those suddenly-beautiful days knows, it makes the whole world look different. (See the post pic, taken on an 80-degree March day in downtown Boston.)

"All at once Kit was aware that this New England, which had shown her the miracle of autumn and the white wonder of snow, had a new secret in store."

"Was this what strengthened these New Englanders to endure the winter, the knowledge that summer's return would be all the richer for the waiting?"

"She did not want to leave this place, after all."

Not just the world, but the people in it.

"Had Hannah known when she herself had not even suspected? It was not escape that she had dreamed about, it was love. And love was Nat."

"Nat is New England too, she thought, like John Holbrook and Uncle Matthew. Why have I never seen that he is one of them? Under that offhand way of his, there is the same rock. Hannah leaned on it for years. And I refused to see."

That whole leaving thing? Maybe not. "From that moment in the meadow Kit ceased to plan at all. She only waited."

And if you wait long enough, and keep hanging around the docks, sooner or later you're going to run into the captain of a brand new ship: "A seaman in a blue coat bent to check a row of barrels, and as he straightened up, even before he turned or before she consciously recognized him, Kit began to run."

Nat gets straight to the point: "Kit? It is Kit, isn't it, not Mistress Ashby?"

And then he reveals the new ship's name:

"Oh, she's not named after Hannah. I hadn't gone ten miles down the river that day before I knew I'd left the real witch behind.... "Now you'll both have to wait. I'm not going to disappoint her, Kit. When I take you on board the Witch, it's going to be for keeps."

Chapter 20: Things get sorted out (mostly)

And by "things," we're mostly talking about the romantic polygon.

William was notably absent during Kit's trial, but now that everyone's healthy he's returned to the house. Kit does not respond with joy.

"Kit would not have risen from her place at all, but Rachel, with a meaningful nudge, handed her a candle, and she had perforce to see her suitor to the door."

This gives them a moment for a quick tete-a-tete, in which William makes his opinion of the whole witch business clear:

"You'll find, when you come back, I promise you, Kit, that everyone is willing to let bygones be bygones, and that you can make a fresh start.... We're judged by the company we keep. And in our position people look to us for an example of what is right and proper."

It takes Speare two brief lines of dialogue to sum up everything that's wrong with their relationship:

"'It would make a man uneasy never knowing what his wife would do next.'

''Twould make a wife uneasy never knowing whether she could depend on her husband.'"

And Kit has one of those realizing-what-she's-known-all-along moments:

"A month ago Kit's temper would have flared. But all at once she realized that William could not really anger her. She had had a long time to think, that night on the riverbank, and the longer night in the constable's shed. She had never consciously made any decision, but suddenly there it was waiting and unmistakable."

Thus ends that relationship.

At the same time, Judith has pretty well given up on John Holbrook, based on the reports from returning militia members, but it's clear that she hasn't given up on finding a husband.

"'Seven different kinds of cake,' Judith counted surreptitiously. 'I'll never be able to have anything half so grand at my wedding.'"

And evidently William hasn't given up either.

"Kit and Rachel sprang forward, but it was William who reached her first, and carried her to the settle by the fire, and it was William who later tucked her carefully into his sleigh and drove her home."

But while that's going on, Speare turns to phrasing that gives us a pretty good idea of how this island girl is enjoying her first-ever winter:

"There was no holiday in this Puritan town, no feasting, no gifts."

"January dragged by, and February."

"Every night she shrank from the moment when she and Judith must make the dread ascent to the upstairs chamber with only the meager comfort of a warming pan."

Which leads to Kit realizing that it's time for her to go. Not that she knows what she's going to do next: "The house was sold, and she was here in New England, and perhaps Nat had never really meant his offer at all."

But she knows it's what needs to happen, especially as she no longer has any marital prospects. "She will be sorry, I think, but truly, won't they, all of them, be a little relieved?"

For a moment it seems that no one has any marital prospects ("Though no on ever so much as hinted at it, the grim truth was that where a short time ago two girls had been well provided for, there was no every likelihood of three spinsters in the Wood household."), but then she remembers William: "It needed only time now to bring about the match which Kit and John Holbrook had interrupted."

And then, long after everyone had given up on him, John Holbrook returns. And this time there's no question about which sister he wants.

"The man did not even hear her. His eyes had gone straight to Mercy where she sat by the hearth, and her own eyes stared back, enormous in her white face. Then with a hoarse, wordless sigh, John Holbrook stumbled across the room, and went down on his knees with his head in Mercy's lap."

Chapter 19: Kit on trial

The constable's wife continues to be a font of supportive statements as she brings Kit breakfasts after the night in the shed. "'You're no treat to look at, that's sure,' the woman admitted. 'If they took you for a witch right now I'd scarce blame them.'" To be fair, she also supplies a comb.

Kit has to pretty herself up because it turns out that Wethersfield wants to put its justice system to work right away, so she's due to appear before the selectmen -- well, immediately.

Most of the complaints against her are given anonymously in the text, with only a couple being attributed to individual characters. Matthew is losing his patience with his colleagues: "'You can twist what I say as you will, Sam Talcott,' said Matthew in steely anger. 'But I swear before all present, on my word as a freeman of the colony, that the girl is no witch.'"

Among the accusers, naturally, are the Cruffs. But they actually have evidence, thanks to the many lessons Kit gave Prudence at Hannah's house. Kit refuses to say anything about the lessons, determined to keep Prudence out of it, when Nat Eaton appears in the Meeting House -- accompanied, of course, by Miss P.

"Almost paralyzed with dread, Kit turned slowly to face a new accuser. On the threshold of the room stood Nat Eaton, slim, straight-shouldered, without a trace of mockery in his level blue eyes."

"Watching Prudence, Kit suddenly felt a queer prickling along her spine. There was something different about her. The child's head was up. Her eyes were focused levelly on the magistrate. Prudence was not afraid!"

Which is a good thing, because she has to put up with her mother nagging her in addition to the official questioning. But first, let's take a break for a significant moment of eye contact:

"In the warm rush of pride that welled up in her, Kit forgot her fear. For the first time she dared to look back at Nat Eaton where he stood near the door. Across the room their eyes met, and suddenly it was as though he had thrown a line straight into her reaching hands. She could feel the pull of it, and over its taut span strength flowed into her, warm and sustaining."

Prudence demonstrates her new and secret ability to read, which delights her previously henpecked father: "All these years you been telling me our child was half-witted. Why, she's smart as a whip. I bet it warn't much of a trick to teach her to read."

Now that Goodman Cruff has been redeemed as a character, Speare uses him to work in another one of her colonial-values-are-the-best moments: "All my life I've wished I could read. If I'd had a son, I'd of seen to it he learned his letters. Well, this is a new country over here, and who says it may not be just as needful for a woman to read as a man?"

And apparently that's all it takes to restore the natural balance to the Cruff family, with Goodman Cruff returning to the position of authority -- or independence, as Speare phrases it: "Every man in the room was secretly applauding Adam Cruff's declaration of independence."

But Goodwife Cruff gets in one last dig, by reminding everyone that Nat is still under banishment from the town thanks to his earlier fun with pumpkins. But everyone heaves a sigh and decides that mitigating factors outweigh the whole flogging thing.

"With a shrewd look at his niece, Matthew Wood interceded for her. ''Tiz the truth, Sam,' he observed. 'The lad risked the penalty to see justice done. I suggest you remit the sentence.'"

And Prudence fills Kit in on the rest of it.

"He came and found me this morning. He said he got worried about you and came back and sort of spied around till he heard about the meeting. He said I was the only one who could save you, and he promised he would stay right here and help as long as we needed him."

Chapter 18: Kit under arrest

Kit decided duty beat passion when she decided not to join Hannah in escaping Wethersfield (even if she probably didn't stop to think about it in those terms), so she figures she's stuck with that now.

"That should be enough, and surely if she worked hard enough she could forget this strange feeling of emptiness, the haunting regret that a secret and lovely thing was gone forever."

But this is not the moment to settle into ennui. Because the witch-hunt mob, realizing it's lost its chance with Hannah, has chosen a new target.

There's a brief touch of foreshadowing: "They were not alarmed this time by the knock on the door." (Subtext: But they should have been...)

Matthew offers his reputation in Kit's defense, but the constable isn't willing to give up.

"Matthew looked back at the constable. 'I am chagrined,' he said with dignity, 'that I have not controlled my own household. But the girl is young and ignorant. I hold myself to blame for my laxness.'"

It isn't until later that Kit realizes why that didn't work: "She saw now that she had undermined his authority in all eyes by flouting his orders."

Kit's got plenty of time to think as she spends the night locked up in the constable's shed (having been advised by his wife that if she's convicted, all she has to worry about is some form of maiming), so it's time for recrimination. "If I wanted to neglect my own work, Kit groaned in remorse, I might at least have been out in the Cruff's field helping the poor child!"

And also time for purple prose. "Now, huddled in the ragged quilt, she was sucked down in spite of herself, into a black whirlpool of slumber, where nightmare phantoms whirled with her, nearer and nearer, toward some unknown horror."

Never mind about duty and passion now. Kit's got bigger stuff on her mind.