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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Goodwife Cruff is a woman who lives in Wethersfield, Connecticut. Kit first meets Goodwife Cruff, along with her husband and daughter, on the ship from Saybrook to Wethersfield. Goodwife Cruff is a...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Kit's grandfather owned a plantation in Barbados. He hired a man named Bryant to be the overseer of the plantation. The job of an overseer was to manage the estate and the slaves who worked on it....
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
There were three members of the Cruff family. Kit first observed "a shabby, dour-looking man and wife" and their young daughter (The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Chapter 1). Kit thought that Goodman...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
When Judith first sees Kit's fine dress, she gazes at it admiringly. She begs Kit to open her trunks full of dresses. Mercy cautions her sister against idleness. Then she begins to reason that...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
In The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Hannah Tupper is forced to live a life of tremendous isolation, with her cottage located at the edge of the swamp on the outskirts of town. The people of...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
For the first five chapters of the novel The Bronze Bow, Thacia is either referred to by her full name, Malthace, or her nickname, Thace. In Chapter 1, Joel introduces his sister to Daniel as...
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Reference
In Elizabeth George Speare's The Witch of Blackbird Pond, any behavior that is contrary to the behavior of the rest of society serves as grounds for accusing someone of being a witch. Throughout...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
In Chapter Seven of Elizabeth George Speare's The Witch of Blackbird Pond, William Ashby visits Kit at her Uncle Matthew and Aunt Rachel's home. Kit finds this encounter utterly boring, as William...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Most of the first chapter of the book takes place onboard the Dolphin, the ship that Kit takes from Barbados to Wethersfield. The setting of the book is introduced to us in the first paragraph,...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Kit did not tell the Woods that she was coming to live with them, and she had never even met them before she showed up at their door. The Woods would naturally be surprised to see her. Also, Kit...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
In Chapter Nine of The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Kit and Mercy are co-teaching eleven small children from the town. Kit decides to have the kids act out the story of The Good Samaritan, but the play...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Hannah says she first met both Nat and Kit crying in the meadow. Kit and Nathaniel Eaton are both good friends of Hannah Tupper, the supposed witch of Blackbird Pond. They do not realize this at...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Judith is envious of Kit for getting to wear a fancy dress to church. Kit Tyler came to her aunt and uncle’s house unexpectedly. She had never been to Connecticut before, since she grew up on...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
John Holbrook believes that Kit should not hang out with Hannah Tupper because she is a Quaker and has a reputation as a witch. John Holbrook is a friend of Kit’s. She met him on the ship on...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Kit meets John Holbrook on the ship on the way to Wethersfield. He is going to Wethersfield to study with Reverend Bulkeley. He is kind to Kit, and she finds him mild but pleasant. She has...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Kit is angry at Dr. Bulkely’s prayer because she does not consider Mercy afflicted. Mercy is weak, but she doesn’t let that stop her. She just does as much as anyone else in the household,...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Kit is surprised that people didn’t think she would be able to swim and annoyed at Nat for jumping in after her. When Prudence Cruff drops her doll in the water, Kit thinks nothing of jumping in...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Kit Tyler does not miss any formal prayer meetings under the strict surveillance of her pious Uncle Matthew; however, she does miss a Thursday Lecture, which is the day that people are publicly...
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Reference
William Ashby took the charter and hid it to keep it safe. The charter is a point of contention between the loyalists and some of the colonists that want to make sure they keep their rights,...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Nat and his friends illuminated William’s house with jack-o-lanterns because he was jealous. Kit’s uncle tells her that William has been the victim of an “insulting prank.” He tells her...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Kit finds the texts that the children at the dame school are required to read from to be extremely dull. Their main books are a set of "primer readers." These primers have selections of various...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
The Puritans believed in religious dedication, modesty, and conformity. When Kit arrived in Wethersfield, she soon realized that going to Meeting was an important routine. When she declined to...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Upon arriving at her new home in Wethersfield, Kit explains to her Puritan family how she got there and why she came alone. Kit describes how her grandfather's health had been gradually failing,...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
King Charles granted Connecticut a charter. This charter guaranteed "every right and privilege." It also guaranteed their land and the laws that the citizens of Connecticut had established....
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Captain Eaton made his living by being a sailor and an officer aboard the ship the Dolphin. More specifically, Captain Eaton is the captain of the ship. The Dolphin is a trading vessel, and the...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Kit was surprised and disappointed when she arrived in Connecticut, and eventually in Wethersfield. Kit had expected established towns, with solidly built buildings and paved streets. Instead,...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Kit admitted that she had not told her family she was coming. When Kit’s grandfather died, she had almost no family left. The only family was an aunt in Wethersfield, Connecticut that she had...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Kit blushes because she is overdressed and everyone is looking at her. Kit really doesn’t understand the Puritans. She doesn’t realize how important religion is in their lives. The first time...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
The reader learns about the fate of Kit's parents during a conversation she has with John Holbrook in the second chapter of The Witch of Blackbird Pond. Holbrook asks Kit about her parents, and...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
A lack of wind and breeze caused Kit's ship, the Dolphin, to move along the river at a very slow pace. The journey took nine days in all as the boat sailed on "the forty-three mile voyage." After...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
There are many comparisons and contrasts in The Witch of Blackbird Pond. Two more obvious contrasts are Mercy and Judith Wood. They have many things in common, but their personalities are very...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Katharine Tyler, or "Kit," is the sixteen year-old heroine of Elizabeth George Speare's The Witch of Blackbird Pond. She is best described as fiercely independent, intelligent, and curious......
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Chapter 15 of Elizabeth George Speare's The Witch of Blackbird Pond gives an account of an actual a legendary event in which the colonists of Massachusetts hid their charter in an effort to...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
"Stocks" were a type of device used in colonial America (although they were created far earlier in history, used often in Medieval times and even appearing in the Bible) to punish criminals....
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
When John Holbrook first came to Wethersfield, he was hesitant to contradict Reverend Bulkeley. Reverend Bulkeley was his teacher and mentor. John Holbrook had moved to Wethersfield to study...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Kit grows up significantly throughout the book, learning to survive in a different culture. Kit Tyler goes from being a sheltered rich girl to a generally successful Puritan over the course of the...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
After a long journey aboard the ship the Dolphin, Kit requested that she be allowed to ride on the longboat to go ashore to the town of Saybrook. She was eager to set foot on dry land, if only for...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Goodwife Cruff was shocked that Kit jumped in the water and did not drown. The detail to remember is that Goodwife Cruff did not approve of Kit’s actions. Kit jumped into the water after...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
William is speechless when he first sees Kit. William is a simple man, and he is a man of few words. Most Puritans live simple lives and value family. William is looking for a way to build a...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Nat and his friends light jack-o-lanterns in William’s house. Nat has a thing for Kit, but she is not really aware of it. She is considering marrying William Ashby because he is wealthy and...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
In Chapter 16, Hannah warns Kit that, without love, she will discover that marrying William will prove a fruitless escape from her uncle's house. Hannah is implying that Kit will not have improved...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
The plotline between Kit and Nat is one of those classic love stories when the characters initially don't like each other, but later grow fond and eventually marry. Kit first meets Nathaniel Eaton...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
The constable feels badly for Kit. He brings her supper and a heavy quilt to keep her warm. We can tell that he feels uneasy about Kit staying in his shed overnight. He tries, unsuccessfully, to...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
In Puritan Connecticut, religion and laws were closely intertwined. Most laws in Puritan societies were based on Biblical principals. Punishment for law breaking was often severe. In the town of...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
When Kit meets William Ashby, she is surprised that he does not regard her with the suspicion everyone else does. Instead, he seems pleasingly intrigued by her, and she smiles at him, making him...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
In Chapter 1, Kit describes Barbados nostalgically. She misses the "shimmering green and white that fringed the turquoise bay of Barbados." To her mind, the bleak shoreline of Saybrook pales in...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
In The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare, Katherine Tyler, known as Kit, leaves Barbados in 1687 to live with her aunt in Puritan Connecticut. When her boat, the Dolphin, docks...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Mercy asks Kit to help her teach school. There is a big learning curve for Kit in Wethersfield. It takes her some time to learn the chores of the house and the customs of the people. She helps...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
The townspeople of Wethersfield, Connecticut, first see Kit when she arrives to the Meeting House with her family for the weekly Puritan service. Elizabeth George Speare describes this scene in the...
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The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Nat receives several punishments for his "crime" (stealing pumpkins from a field, carving them in jack-o-lanterns, and lighting them up in William Ashby's house). He is sent to the stocks, fined...