Understood Betsy

Summary

Understood Betsy follows nine-year-old Elizabeth Ann, an orphan raised in a medium-sized Midwestern city by her Great-aunt Harriet and Aunt Frances, a piano teacher who has studied child-rearing books and correspondence courses and is determined that her niece shall be thoroughly understood. Elizabeth Ann is thin, pale and frightened of dogs, thunder and examinations, and Aunt Frances shares and rehearses every fear with her. When the doctor called to examine the child discovers instead that Aunt Harriet's cough is serious and orders her to a warm climate, Aunt Frances goes with her mother. A scarlet-fever quarantine at the Lathrop cousins' house sends Elizabeth Ann instead to the dreaded Putney cousins on their Vermont farm near Hillsboro. Great-uncle Henry hands her the reins on the drive from the station; Aunt Abigail gives her a kitten, which she names Eleanor; Cousin Ann, brisk and black-eyed, calls her Betsy and expects her to wash her own dishes and walk to school alone. At the one-room district school the teacher, Miss Benton, puts her in seventh-grade reading, second-grade arithmetic and third-grade spelling, and asks her to help six-year-old Molly with reading. Betsy learns to make butter and apple sauce, reads Scott's The Lady of the Lake aloud to Uncle Henry, and discovers that the old desk she sits at carries the initials of Uncle Henry and his father. During maple-sugaring she fails an examination before the Superintendent, but that same evening, when Molly falls into the Wolf Pit, she asks herself what Cousin Ann would do and lowers a dead pine branch as a ladder. The Putneys take Molly in while her mother is in hospital. Betsy and the schoolgirls sew clothes for 'Lias Brewster, a neglected first-grader whose stepfather drinks, hoping Mr. Pond the cattle-buyer will adopt him; Cousin Ann asks why they need his thanks, and they leave the bundle on his doorstep at night. The stepfather sells the clothes for whiskey, Ralph scrubs 'Lias clean in the river, and Mr. Pond, seeing the boy weeping in the woodshed on Decoration Day, carries him off to live with him. On her tenth birthday the girls are stranded at the Woodford fair, and Betsy earns the train fare by washing dishes and tending a doughnut booth. In October Aunt Frances arrives, engaged to Mr. Plimpton, and in a careful conversation in the surrey each discovers that the other would be glad for Betsy to stay at Putney Farm. The book appeared as a magazine serial in 1916 and was published by Henry Holt in 1917 with illustrations by Ada C. Williamson.

Plot or Argument

• Chapter I: Aunt Harriet Has a Cough

  Elizabeth Ann lives anxiously under Aunt Frances's devoted care; the doctor finds nothing wrong with her but much wrong with Aunt Harriet's lungs, and a scarlet-fever quarantine sends the girl to Vermont.

• Chapters II-III: Betsy Holds the Reins; A Short Morning

  Uncle Henry lets her drive the team home, Aunt Abigail gives her the kitten Eleanor and a warm bed, and in the milk-room she makes butter and realizes that the Declaration of Independence was signed by real people.

• Chapters IV-V: Betsy Goes to School; What Grade is Betsy?

  Sent off alone to the little district school, she is placed in different grades for different subjects, helps Molly read, plays tug-of-war with the teacher, and crosses the log over the brook.

• Chapter VI: If You Don't Like Conversation in a Book Skip this Chapter!

  Aunt Abigail and Uncle Henry tell of the first settlers, sun-dials, fire-borrowing and home-made pencils; Betsy makes apple sauce and reads The Lady of the Lake aloud.

• Chapter VII: Elizabeth Ann Fails in an Examination

  After panicking before the Superintendent she goes to the sap-house, where Cousin Ann is unmoved by her tale; then she rescues Molly from the Wolf Pit, and Molly comes to live at Putney Farm.

• Chapters VIII-IX: Betsy Starts a Sewing Society; The New Clothes Fail

  The girls sew clothes for 'Lias Brewster, learn from Cousin Ann to give without seeking thanks, and see their plan collapse when his stepfather sells the clothes, until Mr. Pond takes 'Lias home with him.

• Chapter X: Betsy Has a Birthday

  Left behind at the county fair, Betsy keeps Molly calm, earns the fare home at a doughnut booth, and returns to find the Putneys frantic and then proud of her.

• Chapter XI: Understood Aunt Frances

  Aunt Frances comes to reclaim her; Betsy resolves not to hurt her feelings, the two discover each other's real wishes, and Betsy stays at Putney Farm for the winter.

Characters

• Elizabeth Ann (Betsy), protagonist

  A timid, over-protected nine-year-old orphan who grows strong, capable and generous on a Vermont farm.

• Aunt Frances, guardian

  Elizabeth Ann's first cousin once removed, loving and conscientious, who shares and enlarges every one of the child's fears.

• Aunt Harriet, great-aunt

  Aunt Frances's widowed mother, whose cough sends her to a warm climate and Elizabeth Ann to Vermont.

• Uncle Henry Putney, great-uncle

  A sparing-spoken old farmer who loves checkers, Walter Scott and stories of the first settlers.

• Aunt Abigail Putney, great-aunt

  A fat, rosy, merry woman of seventy-two, born in 1844, whose warmth first loosens Betsy's misery.

• Cousin Ann, cousin

  The Putneys' capable daughter, brisk and few-worded, whose example Betsy follows in every emergency.

• Molly, friend

  A six-year-old first-grader whom Betsy teaches, rescues from the Wolf Pit and comes to love like a sister.

• Miss Benton, teacher

  The young district-school teacher who places children by what they can do, not by grade.

• Ralph, schoolmate

  A rough-looking boy who quietly feeds and washes 'Lias and becomes Betsy's friend.

• 'Lias Brewster, neglected child

  A motherless six-year-old whose stepfather drinks; adopted at last by Mr. Pond.

• Mr. Pond, cattle-buyer

  A big, kind childless man from Bigby who carries 'Lias off to a new home.

• Shep and Eleanor, animals

  The Putneys' old snoring dog and Betsy's kitten, who later has kittens of her own.

Lessons

• Doing things for yourself

  Elizabeth Ann has always had someone think for her, so her first discovery on the wagon seat, that the horses go where you pull them, is the first whole thought she has ever had. At Putney Farm she learns by doing: driving, churning, cooking, finding her way to school. The book shows that confidence grows from real work, not from reassurance.

  • Why does Uncle Henry hand Elizabeth Ann the reins and then keep doing his figures?
  • What is the first thing Betsy ever does all by herself, and how does she feel?
  • What jobs at Putney Farm would you like to learn?

• Learning is not the same as passing grades

  Miss Benton puts Betsy in seventh-grade reading and second-grade arithmetic, and tells her she is not any grade at all but just herself. Later Betsy fails an examination and then, the same evening, solves a real problem at the Wolf Pit. The story teaches that school is for learning to use your mind, not only for moving up grades.

  • Why is Betsy so confused when she is put in three different grades?
  • How does Miss Benton help Betsy with arithmetic?
  • What does Cousin Ann mean when she says Hemlock Mountain will still be standing?

• Giving without wanting thanks

  The schoolgirls enjoy imagining how grateful 'Lias will be for their sewing. Cousin Ann's quiet question shows them they were working for praise. After they see 'Lias asleep alone over a crust of bread, they leave the clothes on his step without a name, and Betsy prays for him for the first time in earnest.

  • Why did the girls first want 'Lias to know who made the clothes?
  • What changed their minds?
  • Who really helps 'Lias most: the girls, Ralph or Mr. Pond?

• Kindness that protects another's feelings

  When Aunt Frances writes that she is coming to take Betsy away, Betsy decides above all not to hurt her. In the surrey each is afraid of hurting the other, and only careful honesty lets them both say what they want. Betsy ends by wishing she could always take care of Aunt Frances, who once took care of her.

  • Why doesn't Betsy tell Aunt Frances straight away that she wants to stay?
  • How does each of them find out what the other really wants?
  • How has Betsy changed since the day she left Aunt Frances?

Context

The novel is set in the years just before the First World War, in a Vermont hill farm and one-room district school that the narrator contrasts with a large graded city school of six hundred pupils. Aunt Abigail's family stories reach back to settlers who came up from Connecticut in 1763. Dorothy Canfield had visited Maria Montessori's schools in Rome and written A Montessori Mother (1912) and other books on education, and the novel puts into story form her conviction that children grow through responsibility, freedom to work at their own pace and real household tasks.

Composition

Dorothy Canfield, as she signed the book, lived in Arlington, Vermont, and set the Putney farm in the Green Mountains near a station called Hillsboro. The story first ran as a magazine serial in 1916 and was published as a book by Henry Holt and Company in 1917 with illustrations by Ada C. Williamson. The narrator speaks directly to child readers throughout, even titling Chapter VI with advice to skip it if they dislike conversation in a book.

Reception

Understood Betsy has remained in print for more than a century and is widely read aloud in homes and schools as a gentle portrait of rural New England and of a child's growth in independence. Canfield's later work on the Book-of-the-Month Club selection committee made her one of the best-known literary figures in the United States between the wars.

Comparisons

• heidi

  Both books send a child to a mountain home with plain, gruff relatives, and both show a pale, fearful city child made strong by fresh air, work and affection, as Clara is in Heidi.

• the-secret-garden

  Mary Lennox and Elizabeth Ann are both orphans spoiled in different ways, and both are healed by outdoor work, plain food and the company of other children.

• pollyanna

  Another orphan girl sent to relatives in Vermont a few years earlier; Pollyanna changes the people around her, whereas Betsy is the one who is changed by the Putneys.

• anne-of-green-gables

  An orphan goes to live with an elderly brother and sister on a farm and wins their reserved hearts; both books end with the child choosing to stay.

• farmer-boy

  Both describe nineteenth-century northeastern farm work in loving detail, from butter-making to maple sugaring and county fairs, from a child's point of view.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The ride from the station in Chapter II, when Uncle Henry hands Elizabeth Ann the reins.
• The moment the book stops calling her Elizabeth Ann and starts calling her Betsy.
• The Wolf Pit in Chapter VII, and the question Betsy asks herself there.
• Cousin Ann's two questions to the sewing society in Chapter VIII.
• The mirror at the fair in Chapter X, where Betsy hardly recognizes herself.

Key terms and names

Putney Farm

The Vermont farm of Uncle Henry, Aunt Abigail and Cousin Ann, which Aunt Harriet had called the worst place in the world.

Chores

Daily household and farm jobs; Elizabeth Ann first thinks the word means something dreadful.

District school

A one-room country school where children of all ages learn together with one teacher.

Sap-house

The little hut where Cousin Ann and Uncle Henry boil maple sap into syrup; Betsy waxes hot syrup on snow there.

Wolf Pit

A deep hole in the woods where settlers once found a trapped wolf; Molly falls into it.

Decoration Day

The spring holiday for honouring soldiers' graves, now Memorial Day; the children recite pieces in the Town Hall.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension Why is Elizabeth Ann sent to the Putneys instead of staying with the Lathrops?
2. Comprehension How does Betsy get Molly out of the Wolf Pit?
3. Comprehension How do Betsy and Molly get home from the fair?
4. Interpretation Aunt Frances and Cousin Ann both love Betsy. How are their ways of loving her different?
5. Interpretation Why does Betsy feel ashamed when the grown-ups talk about 'Lias's stepfather?
6. Interpretation At the end, Betsy wishes she could always take care of Aunt Frances. Why is that a surprise?
7. Big Question Is it kinder to do things for someone or to let them learn to do things for themselves?

Faith Connections

• Matthew 6:1-4 (Scripture)

  Jesus teaches that alms should be given in secret, not to be seen. The girls first want 'Lias to thank them, then leave the bundle on his step and run away.

• James 2:15-16 (Scripture)

  James asks what good it is to wish a hungry, naked brother well without giving him what he needs. The Putneys are ashamed to have sat with plenty while 'Lias went hungry.

• Luke 2:52 (Scripture)

  The child Jesus increased in wisdom and stature. Betsy grows in both at Putney Farm, as the mirror at the fair shows.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: A child who is always explained to and protected never learns to think or act alone. Real tasks, real responsibility for others and grown-ups who expect competence give a child confidence. Therefore Betsy, who was fearful when she was understood, becomes brave and kind when she is trusted.

Rhetorical device: dramatic irony. In Chapters II and III Betsy thinks the Putneys are ignoring her, while the reader sees that every offhand request, from the reins to the dishes, is meant to help her.

Debate: Resolved: that Cousin Ann helped Betsy more than Aunt Frances did.

Memory Work

YOU aren’t any grade at all, no matter where you are in school. You’re just yourself, aren’t you?

That room was full to the brim of something beautiful, and Betsy knew what it was. Its name was Happiness.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Show how Betsy becomes brave, using the reins in Chapter II, the Wolf Pit in Chapter VII and the fair in Chapter X.

Comparison with Heidi: Compare Betsy's arrival at Putney Farm with Heidi's arrival at her grandfather's hut. How do the gruff grown-ups show love in each book?

Medical Lens

The novel is, among other things, a lay portrait of childhood anxiety and its remedy as an educational reformer of the 1910s understood it. Elizabeth Ann's fears of dogs, thunder, illness and examinations are shown as learned from a loving but anxious guardian: Aunt Frances rehearses her own examination symptoms with the child, asks her to recount nightmares every night, and writes them down to interpret from a thick book full of hard words, an allusion to the vogue for dream analysis and child-study manuals. The family doctor finds the child sound and implies, without saying it, that the household is the trouble; his attention turns instead to Aunt Harriet's cough and a sore spot on her lungs, for which he orders a warm climate, a course that fits the period's management of suspected pulmonary tuberculosis, though the book never names the disease. At the farm the cure is plain: hearty food, sleep, outdoor work, responsibility for a smaller child, and grown-ups who decline to dwell on her feelings. A modern reader may see something like graded exposure and the withdrawal of reassurance, but that is an interpretive reading, not the author's vocabulary. Other details belong to the social history of medicine: a scarlet-fever quarantine, Molly's mother taken to hospital, 'Lias Brewster's hunger and neglect under a stepfather who drinks, and Aunt Abigail's faint, revived with an ammonia bottle.

• Chapter I, Aunt Harriet Has a Cough

  Aunt Frances's nightly dream interviews, her worry over the child's nerves and appetite, the doctor's verdict that the child is sound, and his alarm at Aunt Harriet's cough.

  Neurosis Anxiety Dreams Nightmares Physicians Doctors Tuberculosis Consumption
• Chapter I, Aunt Harriet Has a Cough

  Old Mrs. Lathrop shouts from a window that the cook has scarlet fever and the house is quarantined.

  Fever Infection
• Chapter VII, Elizabeth Ann Fails in an Examination

  The narrator lists the examination symptoms Betsy learned from Aunt Frances, and Cousin Ann's refusal to rehearse them.

  Neurosis Anxiety
• Chapters VIII-IX

  'Lias Brewster's hunger and neglect, and his stepfather's selling the new clothes for whiskey.

  Alcohol Starvation Nutrition

Creative Prompts

• Classroom

  Make a two-column chart of things Elizabeth Ann could not do in Chapter I and things Betsy can do by Chapter XI, with the chapter where she learned each one.

• Fiction

  Write the letter Betsy might send Aunt Frances after her first week at Putney Farm, telling the truth this time.

• Dialogue

  Write a conversation between Molly and Betsy, years later, remembering the night at the Wolf Pit.

• Essay

  Which grown-up helps Betsy most: Aunt Abigail, Uncle Henry, Cousin Ann or Miss Benton? Give two events to support your answer.

Further Reading

• A Montessori Mother, Dorothy Canfield Fisher

• The Bent Twig, Dorothy Canfield

• Vermont Tradition: The Biography of an Outlook on Life, Dorothy Canfield Fisher

• Dorothy Canfield Fisher: A Biography, Ida H. Washington