Preview
Copywork
About This Passage
Burnett tucks a tiny social comedy inside this sentence. Martha skips; the painted ancestors 'stare' and 'wonder'; and the narrator smiles at what a 'common little cottager' is doing 'under their very noses.' Copying slowly lets a Trailblazer feel the playful tension between Yorkshire Martha and the grand manor-house world.
And she ran into the middle of the room and, taking a handle in each hand, began to skip, and skip, and skip, while Mary turned in her chair to stare at her, and the queer faces in the old portraits s...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell Chapter 8 carefully. Begin with Mary carrying the garden key in her pocket, then move to Martha coming back from the cottage with the skipping-rope, then Mary's thanks and her first skipping, then her meeting with Ben Weatherstaff and the robin in the gardens, and end with the gust of wind, the round knob, and Mary stepping inside the secret garden.
Discussion Questions
- What does Martha's gift of the red-and-blue skipping-rope, bought with two pence of her own wages, show you about the kind of mother Susan Sowerby is, even though Mary has never met her?
- Mary says, stiffly, 'Thank you,' and holds out her hand because she does not know what else to do. What does this awkward thank-you show you about how Mary has been taught, or not taught, to treat the people who serve her?
+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide
Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
puzzled or confused by something strange or unfamiliar
Item 2
showed or displayed something openly for others to see
Item 3
a person who lives in a small country house, often of modest means
+ 7 more vocabulary words in the complete study guide
Critical Thinking
+ 5 more questions in the complete study guide
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