59 pages • 1 hour read
Peg KehretSmall Steps: The Year I Got Polio
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Middle Grade | Published in 1996A 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 13-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary: “The Great Accordion Concert”
Peg learns to play the accordion in occupational therapy because it exercises certain muscles of the arms and hands, and her father encourages her by attempting to play it himself, even renting an accordion and practicing secretly to surprise her. The girls attend school at the Sheltering Arms, and Peg reads adult books such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame, War and Peace, and The Scarlet Letter. She also obtains textbooks from her school in Austin, along with the weekly assignments. Because Peg has missed so much school and her hand tires quickly, she’s not required to complete or turn in the assignments, but at the end of the year, she can take the final exams and move on to eighth grade if she passes. If not, she’ll have to repeat the seventh grade. No one forces Peg to do the assignments, but she gladly teaches herself because she doesn’t want to be left behind.
Curious about Sister Elizabeth Kenny and her “Torture Time” treatment methods, Peg reads about her in newspapers and magazines. Sister Kenny served as a nurse in World War I as a commissioned “Sister,” which Peg learns is “an Australian military term, the equivalent of a first lieutenant in the United States Army” (131). While in the bush country of Australia, she came upon sick girls with painful muscle spasms. Without a telephone, doctor, or hospital nearby, she used her nursing knowledge to invent a treatment using hot packs and muscle massages, which lead to the girls’ incredible recovery. After discussing these cases with a doctor, she learned her patients had infantile paralysis (the original name for polio). Many people learned of her impressive success and Sister Kenny managed to successfully treat many polio patients as the epidemics increased, but when Australian doctors ignored her success and wouldn’t try her ideas, she opened her own small clinic. She eventually opened many more clinics and trained others to use her treatments, but Australian medical officials still refused to sanction her work and issued a report in 1939 that rebuked her methods. In 1940, Sister Kenny traveled to the United States and settled in Minnesota where her methods were appreciated. In December 1942, the Sister Kenny Institute was founded in Minnesota as a facility to teach her theories and methods. Eventually, her methods were adopted worldwide, including in Australia.
Peg realizes how fortunate she is to have gotten polio after the Kenny method became a widespread standard treatment. Before this breakthrough, people were just put in splints and casts to keep their arms and legs straight, but when the casts were removed, people couldn’t move their limbs at all because even the muscles not affected by polio had deteriorated. Peg remembers her severe cramps from the onset of her polio and imagines what it would have felt like if she had been put into casts. She’d prefer even the pain of “Torture Time” over that anguish.
Chapter 14 Summary: “Good-bye, Silver; Hello, Sticks”
Peg’s walking sticks finally arrive, much to her excitement, as she’s impatient to start walking. She manages to take a few steps but struggles to keep her balance. It’s much more difficult than she expected and her movements are slow. Peg concentrates and takes small steps, sweating with the energy and effort it takes. She prides herself immensely in taking 10 small steps the first day, and she continues to go farther every day. Peg’s roommates follow “[her] rapid progress with enthusiasm” (138). None are envious of her, despite the fact that Peg arrived last and is quickly surpassing them in recovery.
She believes that she and her roommates have a bond mirroring that of soldiers fighting a war together, where “the enemy was polio. [Their] battle medals were wheelchairs, back and leg braces, and walking sticks, and [they] wore them proudly. [They] were survivors” (138-39). Their experiences make them part of an exclusive group, and when one of them succeeds, all of them celebrate as if it’s a mutual success. Two weeks after Peg gets her sticks, Miss Ballard tells her that she doesn’t need her wheelchair anymore. Peg takes her wheelchair on one last joyride, surprised to be moved to tears despite having looked forward to this day for months.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Plans for a Pageant”
Despite her physical progress, Peg becomes unhappy as Christmas approaches. Singing Christmas carols makes her feel lonely, and she tries not to cry at night when she remembers past Christmases with her family. Despite frequent carolers and many wonderful parties, Peg begs to be allowed to go home for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Miss Ballard reminds her that it didn’t go so well the first time, but Peg insists it’ll be better this time. Miss Ballard agrees to think about it.
Meanwhile, the Sheltering Arms patients prepare for a Christmas pageant where they will play roles and sing. Miss Ballard assigns Peg the role of Mary and gives the role of Joseph to Kenny, one of the patients from the men’s ward, whom they meet on the day of the pageant. Alice is asked to sing “Silent Night.” For their roles, Peg and Kenny must walk down the aisle to the manger at the front of the room, but on the day of the pageant, Miss Ballard claims that the aisle is not as wide as it should be, and they can’t go down side by side as planned with Peg’s walking sticks. Fearing that she’ll be replaced by someone else who can walk down the aisle alone, Peg assures Miss Ballard that she can make it down the aisle without her sticks as long as Kenny helps. Walking without her sticks would mean that Peg and Kenny can fit in the aisle side by side. With no time to practice, Peg gives her walking sticks to Miss Ballard, Kenny’s arm goes around her waist to support her, and everyone’s eyes turn to them. Peg is not sure she can make it all the way by herself without her walking sticks, but she’s going to try.
Chapters 13-15 Analysis
No victory comes without more advanced treatments to dislike, which remains true when Peg’s occupational therapy requires her to learn the accordion to strengthen her arms and hands. She hates the “heavy” and “awkward” sound of the instrument and dislikes the way it makes her arms ache. When her father’s verbal encouragement has no effect on Peg’s motivation to master the accordion, he learns to play a song on the accordion the following week, and flawless rendition inspires Peg to succeed in a way that indirect encouragement could not. Just as Peg’s father practices as often as possible, demonstrating consistency and tenacity, Peg takes his example seriously by renewing her own efforts at occupational and physical therapy. Thus, her father’s support once again emphasizes The Value of Connection in Recovery.
The progression of learning to walk with her walking sticks is laborious at best, and Peg must tell herself, “Slowly, slowly. Small steps. Concentrate” (137). This reference to the title in Chapter 14 represents the entire recovery process. By referencing a moment in which she had to concentrate on a specific sequence of movements to swallow and or breathe, Kehret’s narrative makes it clear that the same process must be followed to achieve the larger goal of walking. In the long months of her recovery process, Peg has come to understand that no matter the size of the step, each inch of progress influences the direction of her journey. By quelling her impatience, Peg exhibits a new level of maturity, for she understands that pushing herself too far at once can potentially be more harmful to her long-term progress.
Peg experiences another moment of Emotional Turmoil Throughout Recovery when she graduates to walking sticks and must say goodbye to her wheelchair. Despite her sense of triumph at her achievements, she cries when she says farewell to it, for just like Art’s lost teddy bear, the wheelchair represents a powerful chapter of Peg’s life and further emphasizes The Value of Connection in Recovery, for it is just as easy to form emotional attachments to objects as it is to bond with people. Her wheelchair has quite literally carried her through some of the most challenging moments of her recovery and has also become a source of safety, security, and newfound independence of movement. The arrival of the Christmas holidays only intensify the complexity of Peg’s emotions, for although the holidays are an inherently joyful time filled with family and friends, Peg feels an overwhelming sense of isolation and loneliness due to her confinement at the Sheltering Arms. Memories of her old life and of the world she inhabited before polio overcome Peg with homesickness and sorrow.
The focus on school is secondary to recovery at the Sheltering Arms, but Peg is passionate about her education and determined to keep up with her peers. Doing her reading and teaching herself coursework—even when she can’t physically write to complete the assignments—is a testament to Peg’s dedication and work ethic. Just as she pushes herself toward recovery, she also prepares herself to pass the final exams to move onto eighth grade. Peg’s intelligence and emerging values are further illustrated through her research on Sister Elizabeth Kenny’s treatments in Chapter 13. Peg begins her education into the Sister Kenny methods, and eventually the history and statistics of polio, which she devotes a portion of the rest of her life to. This research, given through Peg’s character at that point in time as she learns it, also gives readers additional insight into various aspects of polio and the history of the treatments developed to combat its effects. By learning that Sister Kenny’s methods were adopted in 1942, just six years prior to Peg’s diagnosis, Peg understands “how fortunate [she is] that by the time [she] was stricken with polio, the Kenny method was standard treatment for cases like [hers]” (134). If she were to have contracted polio prior to the existence of the Sister Kenny methods, she might have experienced more severe symptoms, like Alice or Tommy.
Related Titles
By Peg Kehret
