45 pages • 1 hour read
Betty G. BirneyThe Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1980A 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: “Day Three: Disappointments”
Eben thinks about going to Colorado, but his aunt’s words about their cousin Molly make him wonder if she likes the family. His father explains that Aunt Pretty had her own “sorrows” and never married. When she was young, several men wanted to marry her, but she wanted a man named Holt Nickerson. Holt often sleepwalked; one night while doing so, he mounted his horse and disappeared from Sassafras Springs, which was hard for Aunt Pretty. Eben’s father warns him not to mention this to his aunt.
Eben goes to Jeb, who tells Eben he must work. Jeb wonders why Eben is so excited about the wonders and tells him he is never going to see those “faraway places.” Eben is certain he will. Jeb tells him it must be lonely to travel and live among strangers, but Eben suggests they could travel together. Jeb notes that his father needs him to work on the farm and says that even if they travel together, he will return to Sassafras Springs. Eben says he has had enough of farming. Disappointed with his friend, he feels that he must continue his search alone and leaves with his dog.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Day Three: Continued Difficulties and Discoveries”
Eben asks people for more wonders but finds nothing. As he walks, a girl named Rae Ellen Hubbell follows him, to his annoyance. He and other children avoid her because she steals their pies at school. Rae Ellen tells him she knows he is looking for “wonderfuls” and says she has one. Eben dismisses her, saying he is busy, but she follows him. He goes to the general store to buy things for his aunt. There, he meets Violet Rowan, whom he describes as the “tallest” and “smartest” girl. After her father died, her family became one of the poorest in town. Violet heard from Rae Ellen that Eben is looking for wonders and says she has something to show him. Eben promises to visit her the next day.
Eben and his dog stroll around town and visit the graveyard. The boy rests until he hears a unique sound coming from the church. Eben follows it, expecting to find an angel “playing a heavenly harp” (83). Inside the church, he instead sees a man named Calvin Smiley, playing an ordinary handsaw with a bow. Calvin lives outside of town, and though his farm is small, it produces more food than others. He says he taught himself to play, calling the saw a “marvel.”
Calvin tells Eben his childhood story: “Amazing Grace.” Calvin was 10 years old when a plague of locusts threatened his family’s crops. They started fires to drive the pests away, but the locusts kept coming. His parents and brother tried to repel them with shoves, but Calvin could not stand the buzzing and ran to the barn. There, he started playing “Amazing Grace” with his saw. Moments later, his father called him to come out and play. Calvin saw that the locusts were leaving. He tells Eben that the saw was a “humble instrument of the Lord” and a “wonder” (92). Eben thinks the saw’s music is the reason Calvin’s farm is fertile. Calvin calls him “smart,” and Eben adds the story to his notebook.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Day Four: Smells and Spells”
Eben works hard in the field on Saturday morning, and his father tells him he is free in the afternoon. Eben goes to Jeb’s, but the family is not home. Later, he meets Junior, a boy from school. Junior asks Eben to follow him to show him something “special.” They go to Junior’s place, and the boy shows Eben his eggs, which are the “rottenest” in town. Junior thinks they are special, but Eben says they are not a wonder.
Back home, Eben remembers his promise to visit Violet Rowan. Aunt Pretty gives him a basket of food for Violet’s family. Eben goes to her small farm and finds Violet and her mother, Eulie. They show him their table, which they say “walked through a graveyard” (104). Eulie invites him to sit and starts her story about “The Four-Legged Haint” (106). Years ago, there was a rumor about a ghost in the graveyard: A table walked among the graves and made an “eerie” sound. Many people were superstitious, but Rose-Ivy, a woman who managed her farm alone, was not. She did not believe the “haint” story and went to the graveyard one night. There, she saw a light and a walking table among the tombstones. She waited and heard someone crying. When she approached, she saw a man named Tom mourning above his wife’s grave. Tom told Rose-Ivy that he missed his wife and visited her grave every night because he could not eat dinner alone. Rose-Ivy invited him to her house that night. The two spent time together and married a year later. Rose-Ivy used to visit the woman’s grave and leave flowers. Eben asks Eulie how she obtained the table, and she reveals that Rose-Ivy and Tom were her parents. Eben thinks it is a “positive wonder.”
That night, Eben wakes up and looks out his window. He sees his aunt sitting on the front porch and gazing at the farm. He wonders if she is thinking about the man who disappeared.
Chapters 4-6 Analysis
This section further explores the theme of Finding a Sense of Place through Eben’s and Jeb’s contrasting viewpoints. Like Eben, Jeb belongs to a family of small farmers who struggle economically, but he feels more obliged than Eben to help his parents and siblings. Jeb also lacks Eben’s curiosity and has no desire to travel the world, even as he echoes Eben’s original belief that Sassafras Springs has nothing extraordinary to offer. Nevertheless, he appears more connected to his environment. He tells Eben, “Maybe I’ll go on an adventure with you sometime, but if I do, I’m coming back here” (70), underscoring how rooted he is in his hometown. By contrast, Eben lacks an emotional bond with the town. He feels tired of farmwork and is determined to achieve his dream of traveling. The text conveys that Eben must continue his quest for wonders alone, emphasizing again that developing a personal sense of place is central to his transformation.
Eben’s journey therefore advances as he discovers new extraordinary stories that transform his perception of his surroundings. As Eben hears “Amazing Grace,” he describes the sound as otherworldly, with “haunting notes” that could not come from “any instrument of this world” (83). The description of the music as “haunting” emphasizes its transformative impact on Eben, whose familiar surroundings take on a sublime quality in the context of the music.
The setting of the churchyard and the nature of the music—a hymn—illustrate the role that Christian imagery and allusions play in conveying this sense of the otherworldly or transcendent. Similarly, in Calvin’s story, the “plague of locusts” that threatened his family’s crops is a reference to one of the Plagues of Egypt featured in the Book of Exodus. Calvin managed to keep the locusts away by playing music, which he suggests was a “miracle.” Through this story, the novel imbues human creativity (e.g., the capacity to create music) with spiritual significance, depicting it as a “wonder” in and of itself. The reference to “Amazing Grace” reinforces the Christian symbolism in the novel and reflects Eben’s journey: “I once was lost, but now am found / Was blind, but now I see” (85). This suggests Eben’s growth as he uncovers stories in his community that gradually transform his worldview, but it also ties that growth to the Christian faith, implying that Christianity constitutes a communal bond among the people of Sassafras Springs that helps Eben become attuned to his surroundings.
The theme of Fostering Community Through Storytelling also develops in more overt ways in this section. Eben listens to his classmate, Junior, even if he does not have wonders to show, gradually reconnecting with the community. Meanwhile, in the process of looking for wonders, Eben learns more about people’s personal histories, as when Eben’s father talks to him about Aunt Pretty’s past. Even though her story is not one of the seven wonders Eben discovers, it functions as another story within the story, deepening Eben’s exploration of his community. The scene where Eben watches Aunt Pretty sitting alone on the porch at night suggests his growing connection to his town and the people who live there. Eben begins to observe and speculate about things he would not have noticed before, realizing the undercurrents of life in Sassafras Springs.
The Importance of Imagination in Childhood is also evident, particularly as Eben learns about the mystery of the walking table. In Eulie’s story, elements of magical realism blur the boundaries between reality and imagination, as the narrative suggests that the mystery of the ghost in Sassafras Springs (a fiction) brought her parents together (a reality). Eben realizes that the wonder in Eulie’s story is her parents’ union after sharing their troubles, the table that symbolizes their union depicted as a “wonder” to highlight Eulie’s memory of her parents’ love. The story changes Eben’s viewpoint, causing him to see Violet and Eulie through a different lens as he recognizes their happiness despite their economic struggles: “It was almost dark, but Violet was still kneeling alongside the peppers and lettuce. She looked different now. Even in her shapeless dress, even with dirty hands and feet, she looked positively rich” (113). As the stories feed Eben’s imagination, the text conveys that his worldview changes—e.g., to focus less on material wealth.
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By Betty G. Birney
