Makenna and I are reading togethet Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriot Beecher Stowe. Using the book as a catalyst to probe the historical period in which it was written, we are learning much about the Civil war.
What a pleasure it is to share literature, to gossip over the characters, learn about the author and the world in which they lived, to read aloud our favorite parts, bemoan our least favorite parts, and weave the lessons of literature into the clothe of our family lexicon.
We laugh over the antics of Andy and Sam, discuss the irony in the title of the first chapter (In Which the Reader is Introduced to a Man of Humanity), marvel over Eliza's escape and the desperate and courageous love she has for her child, and explore the biblical implications of chapter XI: In Which Property Gets into an Improper State of Mind.
I can't wait to introduce her to the Senator (Who is but a Man) and his wife, who aid Eliza in her flight to freedom.
Mrs. Bird, the senator's wife, packs supplies for Eliza and her little Harry, adjusting hems from her own clothing to make them fit for Eliza and gathering the clothes that were her own son's who died as a young child. Stowe describes it so:
"She sat down by the drawer, and leaning her head in her hands over it, wept till the tears fell through her fingers into the drawer; then suddenly raising her head, she began, with nervous haste, selecting the plainest and most substantial articles, gathering them into a bundle. . . . There are in this world blessed souls, whose sorrows all spring up into joys for others; whose earthly hopes, laid in the grave with many tears, are the seed from which healing flowers and balm for the desolate and the distressed. Among such was the delicate woman who sits there by the lamp, dropping slow tears, while she prepares the memorials of her own lost one for the outcast wanderer."
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