Allison Thompson Writer

Writing on English folk dance, Elsie J. Oxenham, Jane Austen, May Day and maypole dancing, Elsie J. Oxenham and more!

Elsa Puts Things Right and The School of Ups and Downs

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It was not my original nor is it my present intent to blog about all of Elsie J. Oxenham’s books (88 published in her lifetime; 90 total), although reading her works and thinking about them is sort of like opening a bag of delicious Southern Heat Honey Barb-E-Que potato chips (crisps) and you say, oh, just one, and then you have one more because that first one was broken and then another and then another and pretty soon the bag is empty and your lips and fingers are stained orange and then you glance around furtively to see if anyone is looking and if they are not you find yourself licking those orange fingertips and jamming them into the bottom corners of the bag to dab up those last few yummy spicy-salty-sugary potato chip crumbs. In other words, it is hard to stop!

Fortunately, EJO is less caloric than BBQ.

I recently read and enjoyed these two books, just republished by the Elsie Jeanette Oxenham Appreciation Society, and, after what I’m sorry to say are the somewhat flatter Retrospective and Second Generation titles, it was a real pleasure to get back to EJO in her prime, particularly in the second book. I therefore thought I’d share a few comments on them. [Read more…]

Elsie J. Oxenham and Camp Fire, Part III: American Series Novels for Girls

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This week’s post looks at pre-WWII American Camp Fire series books for girls, books that could have represented competition for Elsie J. Oxenham, had her books been published in the U.S. Why are we doing this? Partly because it is fun, and partly because by looking at how other authors treated Camp Fire we can gain some insights into Elsie’s approach. The differences are night and day—it’s not just that Oxenham was, generally speaking, a better writer than these series writers (although, of those that I have read, Margaret Vandercook’s works are quite good and very readable), but also that she was a different writer—Camp Fire represented something different to her than it did to many of the series writers. While we don’t know whether other authors were personally familiar with Camp Fire—as we’ll see below, some of them seem to have just cribbed from the Handbook—we know that EJO was Guardian of Camp Watéwin (The Camp of Those Who Conquer) from 1916 to 1922, where she took the name of Wenonah, the Eldest Daughter.

(Above: the image used on this series by Vandercook. When my sisters and I canoed we called the girl in the middle the Beautiful Lady Passenger (still a family term), but we faced forward. It makes more sense to face backward as the BLP’s weight would be more in the center of the canoe. And, yes, that is a swastika on the prow—this was and still is a symbol of prosperity and peace in some cultures, despite its modern connection to Nazism.)

By the way, none of the American titles I have read yet address folk dancing. As I noted in earlier posts, while dancing was an activity for which a girl could earn Honors, it did not make its way into the series books. [Read more…]

Elsie J. Oxenham and Camp Fire, Part II: Participating in the Early Days

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This post, the second of several on the Camp Fire movement as Elsie J. Oxenham experienced it, looks some of the details of participating in a Camp Fire. EJO was a Guardian of two successive Camp Fires and this colored her writing, most explicitly in some of the non-Abbey Girl books.

As with the real world of folk-dancing, EJO is a reliable and evocative reporter of the ceremonies: the lighting of the three candles and the fire, the call of “WoHeLo,” the approach of the girls, the adoption of names, etc. What she is silent on is the work and commitment involved in earning the honors themselves—she does not show us is a girl learning “standard dives” (Health honor), carving a totem pole (Camp Craft honor), or swatting “at least twenty-five flies a day for a month” (Patriotism honor).

Before I go further, please click on the picture above, which I love, to enlarge it. (Click on the back arrow—so appropriate to this topic!—to return to the post.) This image is unsigned and I don’t know what book it comes from, but it seems to be by the artist whose work I admired in my last post on Camp Fire. We see a lot of fun details: one girl is making a woven basket, another a clay bowl, a third is showing off her beaded headband, while the fourth holds a bow and has an arrow on her lap. All of the girls wear comfortable bloomers and middy blouses and we can see a neat tent with a mirror, trunk, and cots as well as what are probably bathing suits and a dressing gown drying on a line strung between two trees. They look happy and absorbed and there are no grown-ups in sight.

Suppose you had read a thrilling article about Camp Fire in a magazine, like the one by Mrs. Gulick to the right. (Notice the pose of the girl at the top left: this is the “sign” of the fire and it is used in many of the illustrations of the series books that I’ll address in the next post.)  How would you get started? By purchasing a small, paper-backed book with a brown cover (EJO even mentions this book and the color in one of her non-AG books) which cost only twenty-five cents. (My copy cost more than that on ABE.) My copy is the fifth revised edition from 1914, and it is well-worn. It looks like the one below except that it is dirtier and there is no date in large letters.

The Guide immediately tells us that Camp Fire is an organization of girls and women “to develop the home spirit and make it dominate the entire community.”

It is a means of organizing a girl’s daily home life. It shows that romance, beauty and adventure are to be found on every hand and in wholesome ways; that the daily drudgery may be made to contribute to the beauty of living. It gives boys and girls wholesome interesting things to do together. It deliberately intends to promote happy social life.

The reference to boys is a little puzzling until one looks at some of the honors, several of which involve interacting in a “healthy” way with boys—teaching them folk dances, for instance. The Guide goes on to state that Camp Fire “is an army of girls rather than a mission to them.” It stresses that meetings are usually in the home or in the out-doors.

A minimum of six girls over the age of twelve plus their Guardian, who had to be over the age of eighteen, were required to form a Camp Fire. The Guide suggested that a group should not exceed twenty in number, but that ten to twelve was the best size for the girls to get to know each other and their Guardian. And Guardians were meant to be more than just activity leaders: they were counselors of their groups of girls, whom they would nurture for several years.

The fire-lighting ritual and all the symbols and ceremonies were central to the concept of Camp Fire.

[Camp Fire] uses beautiful ceremonies, has an appealing ritual and bases rank and honors upon personal attainment. There are attractive ceremonial costumes, honor beads, and decorations. It interprets daily things in terms of poetry, symbolism, color and imagination.

Each Camp Fire was encouraged to take on a name, activities, and symbols relevant to their own part of the country.

A Camp Fire in one of the Western states may be called the Alsea Camp Fire because it is in the Alsea Valley. . . . The symbol for this Camp Fire is two low brown triangles with bases touching, to suggest the mountains. . . . . The Sequoia Camp Fire may have a reddish brown, long trunked, pointed topped tree for its symbol because it tells of the giant redwoods. A group of girls in Butte, Montana, may name themselves the Copper City Camp Fire Girls, because of the principal industry of their home city, and they may use the pick and shovel in copper color as their symbol. The more simple the symbolic design the more effective it will be and the more varied may be its use.

Girls were encouraged to take names from Indian legends and folklore, but I have not seen any discussion of any of the languages or the differences in Native American cultures described; they are all just generically “Indian.” The Guide tells us that “‘Pakwa’ chose the frog as her symbol, for its skill in diving; ‘Kanxi’ chose the honey-bee for its sweetness. ‘Morning Star’ likes to take walks before breakfast and hopes soon to get breakfast all alone for the other members of the family. ‘Evening Star,’ her sister, is the one who puts the two younger children to bed, and she is winning her first honors in telling folk-stories and Indian legends to them.” Girls could also make up their own names: the Guide says that one girl took her name from the words “needed” and “cheerful,” as she wished to be both those things, and formed the name, “Neachee.” If a girl had chosen a name too hastily, and felt that it no longer described either her qualities or her desire, she could, after discussion with her Guardian, change it, by burning a paper with the old name on it in the ceremonial fire and saying that that name and intent were gone.

One thing that the Guide was silent on is precisely how the Guardian was to acquire the skills to instruct the girls: how did she learn to set a broken limb or tie the trucker’s hitch? Perhaps that was part of the personal growth that the founders were envisaging—that the Guardian would find experts to cover the knowledge areas with which she was unfamiliar, thus binding the Camp Fire to others in the community. This aspect of engaging others—especially mothers—with the group comes out clearly in some of the fiction about Camp Fires.

After the fire itself, the gown was an important part of the movement. Girls were encouraged to incorporate personal symbolism in their beaded headbands and in the embroideries on their gowns. This can be seen clearly in these two examples, especially the one on the left: this girl really enjoyed embroidering as you can see the flowers, the beaver, the bunny, the music notes, etc.

Not only did the gown incorporate symbols and decorations important to the individual wearer, it had a democratic, unifying influence. As the Guide states, when the Grand Council Fire was held and many groups attended

. . . girls from every station in life came together all clad alike. [The gown] was just as becoming to the poor girl as to the rich girl. Its value in bringing about a true democratic feeling between girls of all classes cannot be estimated. They are all one in this great sisterhood.

Unlike Boy Scouts, who apparently routinely went about in the street in their uniforms, Camp Fire girls reserved the fringed gowns for ceremonies. The Guide specifically requires this so that the gown should not become “common and of little significance” by being so worn. It specifically states that a girl may not wear it at any “partisan” parade such as a women’s suffrage parade (though the Guide says that girls and Guardians were entirely free to “identify themselves” as they please) but it did permit the wearing of the gown at pageants when the girls could appear in their “ceremonial dresses without sacrificing any of the delicate personal feeling which should cling to them.”

This sewing pattern shows the change in the ceremonial gown from the earliest days–that fringed leather or leatherette breast plate seems to have been adopted after WWII.

Organized activities—hikes, camping, and acquiring honors—were also central to the movement. To achieve the rank of Fire Maker (the second rank), you had to have accomplished all 14 of the required Honors, such as sleeping with open windows for at least one month, naming the chief causes of infant mortality, tying a square knot five times in succession correctly “and without hesitation,” refrain from eating candy and sweets for at least one month, and so on. In addition to these required Honors, girls also obtained Elective Honors in the following categories:

Home Craft—Flame colored honors, as fire has been the center of the home.
Health Craft—Red honors (red blood).
Camp Craft—Brown honors (woods).
Hand Craft—Green honors (creation, growing things).
Nature Lore—Blue honors (blue sky).
Business—Yellow honors (gold).
Patriotism—Red, white and blue honors.

There were 90 possible Home Craft honors to earn, showing its importance to the movement, and 32 Health, 25 Camp Craft, 41 Hand Craft, 49 Nature Lore, 25 Business, and 48 Patriotism honors. Guardians also seem to have had some leeway in being able to bestow an honor not on the official list. In addition to regular honors, a girl could earn Big Honors, which were certain multiples of individual honors: viz., to earn a Home Craft Big Honor, you would have to have earned any fifteen Home Craft Honors.

The previous owner of my well-worn copy has placed tick marks on various of these honors. For example, she seems to have known how to identify and describe fifteen trees in Summer and Winter, to have made a baby dress, to have taken seven hours of outdoor exercise every week for three months, to have known six trail blazes, and to have known the names of the Indian tribes that inhabited her state, as well as “the tribes and number of members now living there, and their economic and religious condition.” Religious condition? Hmmm.

Unlike, for example, the YMCA or the YWCA, both dating back to the mid-1850s and both with an emphasis on Christian Bible study, Camp Fire was the first non-sectarian organization for girls. While non-sectarian, however, it was very definitely spiritual as its “Law” and the various “Desires” of the different ranks show.

Elsie Oxenham’s father, John Oxenham (their real surname was Dunkerley, but both of them used Oxenham as a pen-name), contributed verses to Camp Fire, but I do not believe that we know which ones. I suspect him of writing the Fire Maker’s Desire since EJO quotes it, but we may never know.

The Fire Maker’s Desire
As fuel is brought to the fire
So I purpose to bring
My strength
My ambition
My heart’s desire
My joy
And my sorrow
To the fire
Of humankind.
For I will tend
As my fathers have tended
And my father’s fathers
Since time began
The fire that is called
The love of man for man
The love of man for God.

Symbolism was another key component of the Camp Fire movement, and Charlotte Gulick created many of the symbols, visible in the Law to the left. Note the two little dancing girls at the bottom of the page: this pictogram of one triangle on top of a larger one is the “primitive” (to quote the Guide) symbol for woman. EJO refers obliquely to these pictographs: when Elspeth Abbott sends her letter of invitation to Rosamund, Maidlin thinks that her cute drawings of girls and squirrels are very similar to what her Camp Fire girls use.  I have no idea what Charlotte based her symbols upon, but in addition to using these symbols on a gown or a headband, one could sign with them, in a fashion of hand signals that real Native Americans may have used to communicate—although if they really used hand signals, I am doubtful that the Camp Fire signals matched with them.

For example, Seek Beauty, the first of the Laws, could be signed as “Seek” and “Good,” with Seek shown as the index and middle fingers of the right hand touching the eyes, then those two fingers pointed towards the front and Good shown as “Right hand, palm down, held against left breast. Move hand several times with quick motion front and right on horizontal plane.” These “air-pictures” were also developed by Charlotte Gulick, and you can read a book of her symbols and their explanations here.

While Camp Fire was originally founded as a sister organization to the Boy Scouts of America, it never officially became so. However, many of the same people were interested in or involved in the organizations at various times. My Guide lists John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Mrs. Russell Sage, S.R. Guggenheim and Grace Dodge among the financial supporters and Ernest Thompson Seton, Kate Douglas Wiggin (Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm), and Jane Addams among the Electors and Directors. These were all important people of the time and their involvement certainly gave an imprimatur of respectability to the movement.

By December 1913, membership in Camp Fire Girls was estimated at 60,000, which is an enormous number for this pre-internet era. Interest was fueled by word-of-mouth, by magazine articles, and by books for girls with the words Camp Fire in the title—I’ll be discussing some of these in a later post.

For Folk Dancers

While EJO’s Maidlin makes singing and dancing one of the principal activities of her Camp Fire, the former at least was a relatively small part of the official honors. (Singing was more stressed, especially “action” songs which incorporated mimetic movements.) However, dear folk-dance reader, you could earn an honor (a red, white and blue bead) in Patriotism thus:

An honor in patriotism may be given to:  each member that participates in giving a party or dance in which the girls and boys are about equal in number and in which at least two of the following dances are learned and danced by all:  Virginia Reel, Portland Fancy, Lady of the Lake, Howe’s (or Hull’s) Victory, Pop Goes the Weasel, Chorus Jig, Lancers, Boston Fancy, French Reel, German Hopping Dance, Varsouvienne, Furetur, Gottland’s Quadrille.  This honor may be repeated four times in any one year, provided new dances are used each time.

The Virginia Reel is the old Sir Roger de Coverley and there are many variants in the U.S. The next five dances as well as Boston Fancy and French Reel are contra dances from New England—these are basically the old country dance, still in triple minor formation, set to New England fiddle tunes. The Lancers is an abbreviated version of one of the figures of the five-part Lancers Quadrille, popular in England at and after the Battle of Waterloo. The Varsouvienne is a turning couple dance from the ballroom, and I don’t have information currently on Furetur or Gottland’s Quadrille which I take from the names to be Danish dances. In 1914 there were a number of folk dance manuals from which girls could learn these dances, but Elizabeth Burchenal, the great collector, had not yet begun publishing. More on her at another time.

You could also earn a Home Craft (flame-colored) honor if you taught a boy to dance any four of those dances, and a Health Craft (red) honor if you demonstrated knowledge of any five “standard” (undefined) folk dances. Since some honors could be repeated, some of us could have earned quite impressive strings of honors!

 

Camp Fire, Part I: Origins and Influences

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My paddle’s keen and bright

Flashing with silver

Follow the wild goose flight

Dip, dip and swing

Sang we thus, my sisters and I, as under the glimmer of the Corn Moon we paddled along the silvery shores of Asquam near Lake Winne-pe-sau-kee in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. (Listen to a delightful clip of the song complete with loon call and sound effects here, sung by Michael Mitchell.

This is the first of three posts on the topic of the origins and early practices of the Camp Fire movement that Elsie J. Oxenham so loved and which she incorporated in many of her books, including some of the Abbey Girls books. I should have written these earlier, back when Maidlin was shown as being more active as Guardian of her Camp Fire but, life being what it is, I didn’t. In this first post I’ll give a bird’s eye view of some of the social forces in America around 1900 that contributed to the founding of the movement. In a later post I’ll look at the activities and structure of a Camp Fire. Finally, I’ll look at some of the series books for girls that feature Camp Fire—books that to some extent EJO was competing with for readers. [Read more…]

A27_Rosamund’s Castle

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Despite what Aslan the great Lion of Narnia says about never knowing what would have happened, which means that since you cannot change the past there is no point in regretting it (unless it changes one’s present or future course of action), I do have regrets. One of my regrets is that, thirty years ago when I was acquiring good reading copies of EJO’s works for very reasonable prices, I did not pick up all eighty-eight of them, especially rare Connectors like Patch and a Pawn, now going for $270 to $900 on Advanced Book Exchange. Even Santa didn’t cough up for these! Patch and a Pawn is part of the Kentisbury set, which is closely interwoven with the Abbey Girls series. That installment comes before A27_Rosamund’s Castle and contains backstory on  the Kane children and on young Tansy Lillico and her unhappy feelings.

Rosamund’s Castle was published in 1938 and is set in November of 1931 through February of 1932, Abbey Time, starting about seven months after Rosamund’s wedding. While I am very fond of Rosamund Kane, now Countess of Kentisbury, this is not one of my favorite of her stories, partly because she appears rather flat in it, partly because of the sensational plot-line, and mostly because the idea of one of Our Girls living in the enormous castle that was apparently based on the real-life Arundel Castle in Sussex is just a little too hard to believe. This installment does feature the girls of Wood End School, and they are a jolly touch to a convoluted story. [Read more…]

A26_Maidlin Bears the Torch

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Our attention lately has been on Elsie J. Oxenham’s Cinderella-heroine Rosamund Kane but now another character, her best friend Madalena di Ravarati, re-enters the spotlight. EJO has been quietly and cleverly setting up Maidlin’s emotional Problem for fourteen or so novels, starting from when she was introduced back in the fourth book to bear the Abbey title, A13_The New Abbey Girls, published in 1923 and set in 1921 (see the note below about publication order). In this episode, published in 1937, we will happily see her come into her own, tip-toeing on the edge of her romantic and artistic fulfillment. [Read more…]

Elsie J. Oxenham and A24_Joy’s New Adventure; A Romance of the Abbey Girls

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Gentle Reader, like some of Mr. Collins’ delicate compliments to the ladies, this blog has been long in the making; I did not start posting until I felt that I had about 80% of each of the book’s summary and analysis written, and that process took several years. Some 80 per cents were more complete than others! Then, each week, I refine the post, which can be quite time-consuming. But this combination of long gestation and weekly challenge has given me some deeper insights into characters and actions. One character that I have had as much difficulty in liking as I did Miss Emma Woodhouse, is that of Joy Shirley, now the dowager Lady Marchwood. This installment is hers, though it is not told from her point of view, and she does not necessarily appear to advantage in it. Next week’s post—God willin’ and the crick don’t rise—will be about Joy. So now I have seven days to pull those thoughts together!

Published in 1935, A24_Joy’s New Adventure; A Romance of the Abbey Girls, is set in June through August of 1930. The word “romance” tells you that there is going to be little or no folk dancing—our focus is on different things.

Plot Synopsis (Contains Spoilers)

Sixteen-year-old Abigail Ann Alwyn, known as Gail, is on a train down to the village of Whiteways. Gail is the orphaned grand-daughter of the famous composer Frederick Alwyn, who wrote progressive music that no one—at least no Abbey Girl—likes or understands. He died recently and Gail is now the ward of the famous conductor Sir Ivor Quellyn. Without discussing it with her, Sir Ivor has sent her to the village to attend the music school for girls that Lady Joy Marchwood runs. Gail does not want to attend and does not want to be a concert pianist as her grandfather intended. She contemplates running away. At a halt, the train compartment door opens (must be the old kind where the carriages did not connect) and a tall girl with blond hair in buns over her ears bursts in and welcomes Gail. She is Rosamund Kane.

Rosamund fills Gail in on the backstory; Lady Marchwood is not old as Gail had imagined, but young, scarcely thirty, and the mother of twin girls. Her husband had been killed while on safari—Joy was in fact engaged, married, widowed, and a mother all within one year—and Lady Joy has taken to doing good works in the village with her music school and a crafts center and so on. (This is in fact one of Oxenham’s repeated visions of a cooperative community of artists and artisans all run by a benevolent queen.) She takes Gail through the Abbey, and we know that the visitor is the right sort because she responds to its beauty. Gail confesses that she does not want to go to the music school and must tell Lady Marchwood so right away, and Rosamund urges her to give it a try. She then takes Gail to see Lady Jen, whose fourth child is just three weeks old.

Jen greets them warmly and tells Rosamund that she is sorry about the news—Rosamund doesn’t know what news she is talking about. And now we hear that the prediction made at the end of the last installment has come true—the young Earl of Kentisbury has gone out on a motorbike at night after he had been forbidden to, and been killed. The new Earl is his uncle, Geoffrey the invalid, and Rosamund’s baby half-brother is now the heir presumptive. Rosamund reveals that Geoffrey wants to marry her and she would like that but hates the idea of being a Countess. She also fears that she will not be able to keep Roderick at the cottage, since he has become more important to the succession. Jen is not happy about Rosamund marrying an invalid twenty years older than herself—and here there is a veiled hint that she wants Rosamund to be able to have children—but urges her to follow her heart. Rosamund goes into the Manor to make a phone call.

Suddenly screams fill the air and Gail, followed more slowly by Jen, rushes off. A small shed is on fire. In front of it, seven-year-old Andrew Marchwood (Jen and Ken’s eldest son) is holding down a struggling seven-year old Margaret Marchwood (one of Joy’s twin daughters) so that she can’t enter the burning shed. She is screaming for Elizabeth, who is inside it.

Gail rushes into the shed, brings out the unconscious Tony Marchwood (five, and Jen’s second son) and goes back in. She brings out Elizabeth-Twin, whose hair and clothes are on fire, and beats out the flames with her hands.

The children have been playing at Camp Fire, and lit some candles inside the wood shed that was littered with wood shavings. It was (of course) the twins’ idea.  Sir Kenneth Marchwood finally says what some Readers have been thinking for quite some time, which is that the twins are brats and should be spanked and he won’t be responsible for them again. The children are uninjured, but Gail is badly burned—one finger will always be crooked and she will not be able to play music in public. Maidlin returns to the Hall from a visit to her Italian relatives and she and Gail become good friends. (In the cover illustration above, Maidlin, the Primrose Queen, is in the yellow dress and Gail, with her red-brown curls, in white.)

—Here I digress to meditate on the Marchwood twins, of whom I am not overly fond. Margaret, in particular, has a form of attention deficit disorder: she is flighty and impulsive and can’t stick to anything regular. In her grief over her loss of her husband, Joy has spoiled them terribly, and the omniscient narrator and several of the characters are aware of this. Occasionally in the series a character will call Joy out on some poor parenting technique. The twins are useful to the author because they create some kind of havoc that creates the tension or conflict that a story needs. If you are a girl visitor, beware! You are likely to suffer grievous bodily harm in protecting the brats from some predicament that they created themselves. The twins also represent the negative side of Joy, the side that used to be called the Wild Cat that Walks on its Own. And here, as I meditate, I see that EJO is also cleverly setting the twins up with their Problem—as I wrote some posts ago, each of the principal girls has a Problem that she must resolve in order to become happy. Some Problems are externally-focused, such as Jen’s coping with the loss of her parents. Rosamund’s Problem will similarly be the external one of her future marriage and what that entails. But some Problems are internal, and Maidlin and Joy have these. Maidlin is almost done solving her Problem—while still a bit over-sensitive and artistic, she is now quite capable of taking care of herself and others, and of understanding and forgiving Joy’s negative side while still loving her. So, in re-reading Joy’s New Adventure last night I noticed that EJO subtly linked the dead young Earl and the two girls lying in bed after the fire as equal cases of “disastrous self will.” Elizabeth and especially Margaret will have to learn self-control, empathy, and compassion before they reach their goal. It will be a long journey!—

Joy and Jen take care of Gail, whom they call Abbey Gail or Abbey Gale (she is hot-tempered). Meanwhile, Sir Ivor comes to visit. It is clear to Gail and Maidlin that he and Joy are interested in each other. Joy is over-excited. The over-sensitive Maidlin begins to feel neglected by Joy and uncomfortable with Ivor’s focus on her voice. Ivor raves over the improvement in her voice and says that she now sings as a woman (her voice has taken on new maturity after her growth in taking care of Biddy in France), and Joy becomes increasingly jealous and insecure about his affections. One night, upon Maid’s return from running her Camp Fire, her cloak falls off and there she is in her gown and beads and beautiful hair. Ivor is impressed and clearly admires her as a man admires a beautiful woman. Joy imperiously says: “‘Maidlin! You did it on purpose! Go to bed at once!’”

—Here I think that if I were a Girl Reader I wouldn’t really understand what was going on. What is the “it”? I don’t know if I would have noticed that it is weird that a thirty-year old woman tells a girl in her twenties to go to bed as if she were a naughty child. EJO does not write well about grown-up emotions, especially when sex is involved, not that we ever say that word! We have seen time and again that Abbey Girls are often unconscious of their feelings towards their Man until he proposes. Joy is an exception—she is excited by her feelings for Ivor and hopes that he will propose—he has taken her to see his mother; she is even looking ahead to the possibility of more children (we know this because she flushes slightly at the thought of babies)—but she is terribly jealous of Maidlin, her adopted daughter. It is not until some pages later, after this scene, when Joy runs to Jen for comfort and advice and says that Ivor had been interested in her eight years before, though she hadn’t known it, that we begin to understand this. Jen makes it clear that Joy overreacted and needs to apologize to Maid. Joy returns to the Hall and Ivor sweeps her away to propose to her. Through Gail’s eyes we are made to understand that Ivor is rather Joy-like himself; he is imperious, used to being obeyed, and somewhat blind and insensitive to other people’s feelings. Through Jen and Rosamund’s eyes we hear that Ivor might actually be a better match for Joy than Sir Andrew was; they have music in common, and Sir Andrew would have been bored with it. Joy does not go to Maidlin that night, and she and Gail leave the Hall in the early morning.

After a brief check-in with Rosamund and Biddy (and here we find out for sure that her nice Frenchman has proposed to her), the girls end up in St. Valéry in France, on the mouth of the Somme, a tidal river. Maid refers to the Battle of the Somme that took place in 1916, observing that she barely remembered the brave men and that Gail wouldn’t know about it first-hand. She is correct in Abbey Time; she was eleven in 1916 and Gail was about one.  EJO’s description of the town and the fishing boats coming in on the tide is charming and evocative—some of her best writing! She excelled at painting pictures of places and activities, such as folk-dancing.

Maidlin receives a letter of apology from Joy forwarded by Rosamond. She writes a pleasant answer. Immediately after Gail posts the letter, they receive a telegram from Rosamond to return quickly: Margaret has fallen down the well—

—Quick, Lassie! Timmy’s in the well! Go fetch the doctor!—

—and hurt her head and Joy needs her. Joy had been showing Ivor around the secret passages under the Abbey and the twins followed them and started larking about. Margaret fell into the well and Elizabeth jumped in after her, most fortunately, as there was water at the bottom of it. Elizabeth held up Margaret’s head until rescue comes. The girls race back to England. Maidlin feels that if she had been there the accident wouldn’t have happened, but both Rosamund and Gail scout that idea—it was Joy’s fault for not paying attention. All explanations are made and fences mended. Rosamund is engaged. She tells Gail that a school is moving in to the big house near the Rose and Squirrel teashop/crafts store. There is another little cottage nearby that Rosamund wishes to use as the school “tuck shop” where the students can buy sweets and ice cream. She offers Gail the position of tuck shop lady, and Gail accepts.

For Folk Dancers

Nada. But do not lose heart. The next installment will include quite a lot.