3.2 Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

                                Mary E. Wilkins Freeman 

Mary freeman lived in a time that was very hard for people, being it was after the civil war where many stores had to close.   Many people began to move to the west but many unmarried women stayed behind.  These women were strong willed and often referred to as “stern old maid” these women became the focus of jokes, poems, songs and cartoons.  Mary’s health wasn’t the best during her younger years and that’s where her love for reading turned into writing.  Mary needed money to help support the family so; she got her start writing children’s poems and short verses.  Her writing later turned into adult fiction. One of her very famous stories is “The English Nun” which I am now going to tell you about.

The setting is a little ole lady sitting by a window sewing.  This lady is Louisa Ellis very dainty and meticulous about her home and how she does things. Well who could blame her after all she was left 14 years by herself waiting on her boyfriend Joe Dagget to get back from Australia to wed. But that didn’t happen and her living by herself, well that can make one very picky about how things should be placed.  Almost every movement she makes has a particular purpose.  Although; Louisa was not wealthier than anyone else, she liked the finer things such as her fine linen, and china that she handles with such care.

Joe comes to visit Louisa and everything he does seems to adjutants her. Joe seeming very nervous around her turns over her sewing and practically stubbles out the door. With relief that he is gone Louisa fixes her home back to the order it was.  She see’s dirt on the carpet that he has brought in and she gets her broom and brushes the carpet to make sure it is clean and the same way before he had came. As you can see she isn’t in love with Joe anymore.  She has been a lone for so long and now she isn’t the person she once was before he left her to go make his fortune. They seldom ever wrote or kept in touch for the 14 out of 15 years.  But the thought now of her to be married and have to help take care of his mother just wasn’t the life she had once wanted. 

In the end Louisa hears a conversation between Joe and Lily Dyer. They have been seeing each other and she is hurt but free from what she felt was her obligation to marry Joe.  She was no longer in love with him but, was going to marry him because she felt that was what she was supposed to do.  I can relate to this story so well I have been seeing a man for about twenty years. At one time I wanted to get married and he didn’t.  Then the wheels turned he wanted to get married and I didn’t, now it has been so long that neither one of us really cares.  I help him when he is sick or needs me and him the same. I don’t feel that we really have to get married, at one time that was all I wanted. But after all these years I am like Louisa I have my home and when he comes and disturbs something it really upsets me. But not like it once did because I don’t value material things as I did when I was younger.  So, in the end of the story mine and Louisa everyone is happy and they have what they wanted.