Caleb's Crossing

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2011

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-3

Part 1, Chapters 4-6

Part 1, Chapters 7-9

Part 1, Chapters 10-11

Part 2, Chapters 1-6

Part 2, Chapters 7-12

Part 2, Chapters 13-18

Part 2, Chapters 19-23

Part 3, Chapters 1-5

Part 3, Chapters 6-10

Character Analysis

Themes

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Important Quotes

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Part 2, Chapters 1-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2: “Anno 1661 Aetatis Suae 17 Cambridge”

Part 2, Chapter 1 Summary

Bethia informs us that some time has passed since she has written and that she is now doing so reluctantly. Her dire present situation is what leads her to make a record. For one thing, she is overwhelmed by thoughts of her mother, whom Bethia discussed very little when her mother’s death was still quite fresh.

Bethia is now in Cambridge at the school of Master Corlett. Though her position is difficult and deprived, she at least has much paper for writing because the master discards so much partially-used paper. For Bethia, this paper is a valuable resource, since she is not freely allowed paper as a woman.

She revisits the time of Caleb’s arrival at her home. Of course, her father has no idea about her previous acquaintance with Caleb. He believes that he has recruited this young convert via Nahnoso. Bethia’s father is taking a risk in this venture of educating Caleb because it could potentially anger the more xenophobic inhabitants of the settlement. Indeed, he does not inform the others prior to bringing Caleb to his home.

Caleb arrives dressed in settler garb. Bethia’s family makes a bold statement by having him sit with them in a prominent place during their worship service. The Aldens hope to challenge Bethia’s father on this issue, but her father has a clever stratagem: He asks the eldest Alden to read a passage about welcoming strangers from the Bible. He also employs the story of the Good Samaritan. For the time being, the Aldens are neutralized as a threat to Bethia’s family.

Part 2, Chapter 2 Summary

Bethia wakes up on the morning after Caleb’s arrival and sets about her chores. She reflects that she has changed because of the guilt she feels after her mother’s death. After all, she feels that God is punishing her for her secret friendship with Caleb. So, she keeps to the settlement and does her duty to her family.

Nevertheless, she encounters Caleb, who explains that he always wakes up early to see Keesakand, the god of the sun. Bethia suggests that if he does so he is not a true Christian, but Caleb explains that the gods are not mutually exclusive.

Part 2, Chapter 3 Summary

As time passes, Caleb becomes friends with his fellow student, Joel, Iacoomis’s son. This is in spite of the fact that Joel has lost many of the ways of his people. Bethia’s brother Makepeace is not as welcoming as she and her father. Makepeace tries to manipulate Caleb into helping Bethia with the crops, knowing that among the Wampanoag this is woman’s work. Bethia’s father is angered by Makepeace’s attack, but, disarmingly, Caleb agrees and even helps the family plant their crops in a manner more suitable to the environment than their usual straight rows.

Noah Merry, still hoping for Bethia’s hand, makes himself a presence in the village from time to time. She likes him, but does not want to marry him. She also notices that Caleb seems uncomfortable interacting with the settlers outside of her family.

Part 2, Chapter 4 Summary

Thinking about those months after Caleb’s arrival makes Bethia very nostalgic, despite the fact that she was overworked and tired. Still, her time in Cambridge now is even more difficult and is unrewarding. They live near a cow grazing pasture that we know today as Boston Common. The smell of cow dung is always in the air.

The town is built in an ugly, cramped manner. This prevents proper drainage of the sewage and water in the town. Makepeace is by far the oldest pupil at the school, an indication that his (and Bethia’s) presence there is due to unforeseen circumstances.

Part 2, Chapter 5 Summary

Bethia admits that she has been avoiding coming to the point of her writing and she resolves to be more direct as she proceeds. Though she enjoyed Caleb’s arrival at her settlement, tragedy quickly robbed her of that joy. One day, while Bethia was working, her baby sister Solace crawled into a pit dug for a new well and drowned.

Part 2, Chapter 6 Summary

Not surprisingly, the tragic death of Solace causes the family to relive the experience of Zuriel’s death as well. Due to the nature of the death, everyone, including Caleb, feels responsibility for allowing Solace to wander off. Bethia’s father sits with Solace’s body the night before the funeral. Caleb secretly slips a sack containing a piece of scripture, a doll, and some beads into Solace’s hand before the burial. Bethia is concerned about the heathen nature of this tribute, but does not interfere.

The family member most affected by Solace’s death is her father. He becomes much more abstemious and rigid and resolves that he must challenge and defeat the pawaaws, whom he views as binding the Indigenous population to an alliance with Satan. He accepts a sort of battle with the local pawaaws and, in fact, manages to outlast them as they attempt to break his will with chants and curses. This results in many converts, but Bethia’s father is not satisfied. He decides to return to England to make use of his experience to raise money for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the Indians. Bethia suspects that this project is more to distract her father from Solace’s death.

Part 2, Chapters 1-6 Analysis

These chapters contrast formal and informal educational settings available to settlers in the colonies in the 17th century.

Bethia’s father, who prepares Caleb and Joel for higher education is free to institute whatever policies he wants into his more ad hoc instruction. Because there are no formal requirements for how to teach, he is able to take the bold step of inviting two Native young men to be his students, alongside his own son Makepeace. In this homeschool setting, internal motivation is key—Joel and Caleb thrive because they have a strong desire to learn and deep intelligence, while Makepeace is a middling student at best because he is not naturally given to hard work.

At Master Corlett’s school, on the other hand, success has less to do with intellectual prowess and more to do with social class. Students stratify themselves along class lines—with those lower on the social scale often struggling to achieve the basic necessities of survival, let alone learning. Bethia also notes the difference in setting: While the town is the most desirable place to be for educational purposes, it is also much less beautiful than the countryside. The school is a site of ill health: Cramped, unsanitary conditions play a role in transmitting tuberculosis, which Bethia describes as a “wetness in the chest” experienced by many in the school.

Solace’s death marks the novel’s most poignant and emotionally fraught moment. The avoidable and senseless tragedy of her accident is an oblique reference to the one of the hardest questions in religious life: How could a benevolent God allow senseless evil like this to happen? In the novel, we can see that the death triggers a crisis of faith for Bethia’s father—his staunch belief is tested, and he reacts by doubling down on the practical and logistical applications of dogma, battling with the pawaas and eventually leaving for England to fundraise for a conversion organization.