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 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary
Chapter 4 includes diary entries from December 12 to December 20, 1830. On December 12, everything reminds Catherine of the self-emancipated man, including the cold weather, but she still doesn’t know the right thing to do. She wishes that he had never come to her town. The next day, she notes that some of the Shipmans’ pies have been stolen. Asa takes the blame and is thrashed, though Catherine suspects the “phantom.” The theft troubles her again, and she thinks, “Again are wrong and right confused” (25).
Asa tells Cassie about the “phantom,” and Catherine knows that Cassie is greatly displeased. She is distressed at having disregarded the wishes of both Father and Cassie, yet she is torn between them and the pleas of Asa and the stranger. In class, Cassie takes the blame when Catherine speaks out, and Catherine is further mortified. Finally Cassie relents and asks for forgiveness, saying that kindness must be the highest of virtues. The next day, Catherine and Cassie take an old quilt, with some sausage and apples wrapped inside, and they leave it near the stranger’s stone with a flash of scarlet fabric showing, which Catherine thinks of as “a bit of warmth” (29). Catherine cries, remembering her mother talking about how she made that part of the quilt from an old Hessian (German) soldier’s coat in the Revolutionary War. She becomes distracted at home, and when a tree bursts open from the cold, she thinks that the sound means that someone discovered the “phantom” and shot a rifle at him.
Chapter 5 Summary
These journal entries take Catherine from December 23, 1830, to January 6, 1831. The family attends services on Christmas Day but otherwise observes the holiday only with a good meal and Bible reading. Catherine thinks that she sees her “phantom” again, but it is only an upright stump. The quilt that the girls left for him is gone, and his footprints have been erased. Catherine knows that he is gone and wishes him a safe journey. At school, Teacher Holt reads aloud from a newspaper, to the surprise of the students.
Chapter 6 Summary
These journal entries cover the days from January 7 to January 17, 1831. As Catherine walks home from school with Cassie, Asa, and Matty, Asa laments the fact that he must struggle with arithmetic while the girls are excused by reason of their sex from all but the simplest math. Catherine continues to wonder how the self-emancipated man is doing as he travels across snowy fields.
A heavy snow confines the girls to the house for days. When it finally lets up, Father predicts that the “breaking out” will take place the next day. Catherine notes that this event is “half a holiday” (36). Father hitches up the oxen and eventually meets other men with teams of oxen who are shoveling the road as they go along; the group eventually swells to 11 teams. The families with their teams race to reach the town of Holderness, but the Halls lose the race. The breaking out is a kind of holiday as families flock to the taverns.
Chapters 4-6 Analysis
By the end of these chapters, Catherine has reached the fateful year of 1831, to which she alluded in her letter in the Prologue. Catherine is haunted by the fact that she helped the self-emancipated man, to the point that she mistakes a bursting tree for a rifle shot and thinks that she sees the man but finds only a tree stump. The motif of phantoms here supports the thematic exploration of The Nature of Obedience. Father’s “phantom,” in the story he tells in Chapter 1, is meant to suggest that intellect must prevail over emotion. Catherine, however, has helped a real “phantom” because she let emotion prevail over intellect. She is not following the advice of her father but of Cassie, who says that kindness must prevail.
Blos characterizes Catherine using setting and action in Chapter 4. When Catherine extends the gift of the quilt to the self-emancipated man, she is also showing her warm heart. The symbolism of warmth is emphasized as Catherine equates the patch of red on the quilt with “a bit of warmth” (29); it is the only human thing in a cold, desolate setting.
In Chapter 6, Asa laments the fact that his math instruction is much harder than that of the girls. Cassie and Catherine have ready access to school and are encouraged to study, but they do not receive the same education that the young men do. At this point in American history, young women were mainly educated so that they could become teachers themselves. Glimpses into the patriarchal structures of this society underscore Catherine’s desire to please her father and other men around her.
The custom of “breaking out” the road provides a glimpse into how the people of rural New England turned community work into play during this time period. After three days of heavy snow, the characters can only see the tops of their fenceposts. School can’t reopen until the road is “broken out,” or cleared. This is accomplished as the farmers hitch up their oxen and march along on either side of the teams, shoveling the snow. They turn it into a race to the town and celebrate in the taverns. A similar spirit of cooperation will prevail with the “sugaring off” in Chapter 9. Cooperation is needed for survival in this harsh climate, but the sturdy New England characters make the most of it.
