North of Boston · Chapter
A Servant to Servants explained
A woman speaks to a visitor camping on her land, revealing her exhaustion from endless domestic labor and her family history of mental illness.
What happens
A woman speaks to a visitor camping on her land, revealing her exhaustion from endless domestic labor and her family history of mental illness. She describes her uncle who was kept in a cage by her father, her own time in a state asylum, and her current life cooking for hired men. She expresses a deep weariness and sense of being trapped, unable to find rest or change her circumstances.
Themes in this chapter
Isolation and Community
The speaker feels isolated despite having people around, and her only connection is with the transient visitor.
Work and Labor
The speaker is consumed by endless domestic chores, cooking and cleaning for hired men, with no end in sight.
Home and Belonging
The speaker's home is a site of labor and confinement, not comfort; she feels trapped rather than belonging.
Characters to notice
- Unknown Narrator
The speaker, a woman who confides her struggles and family history to a visitor camping on her land.
- Len
The speaker's husband, who is optimistic about their situation but overworks himself and is taken advantage of by hired men.
- Warren
Mentioned as part of the family history; the speaker's father who built a cage for his brother.
- Silas
Not directly present but referenced as part of the family's past; the uncle who was kept in a cage.
Key passages
“It's rest I want—there, I have said it out— From cooking meals for hungry hired men And washing dishes after them—from doing Things over and over that just won't stay done.”
What I truly need is rest from the endless cycle of cooking and cleaning for hired men, tasks that never stay finished.
The speaker explicitly names her need for rest, highlighting her exhaustion from repetitive domestic labor.
“I've been away once—yes, I've been away. The State Asylum.”
I was once institutionalized at the state asylum.
The speaker reveals her own history of mental health treatment, linking it to her family's past.
“He'd pull his bars apart like bow and bow-string, And let them go and make them twang until His hands had worn them smooth as any ox-bow.”
He would bend the bars of his cage like a bow and release them, making them twang until his hands wore them smooth.
A vivid description of the speaker's uncle's behavior in the cage built by her father.