XI explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Gender Roles and Independence

  Selina defies gender norms by driving her own wagon to market and peddling vegetables, facing disbelief and hostility from buyers and authorities.

• Class and Social Mobility

  The stark contrast between Selina's ragged appearance and Julie Hempel Arnold's wealth highlights the class divide and Selina's struggle to maintain her farm.

• Motherhood and Sacrifice

  Selina's desperate efforts to sell vegetables are driven by her need to provide for Dirk and save the farm, enduring humiliation and exhaustion.

Characters to notice

• Selina DeJong

  Endures a catastrophic market day, sleeps in her wagon, and attempts to sell vegetables door-to-door on Prairie Avenue.

• Dirk DeJong

  Accompanies Selina to market, sleeps in the wagon, and becomes weary and hungry during the day.

• Chris Spanknoebel

  The Austrian proprietor of an eating house near the market who offers Selina and Dirk breakfast and a place to wash.

• Julie Hempel

  Now Mrs. Arnold, she rescues Selina from a policeman on Prairie Avenue, recognizing her old friend despite her ragged appearance.

• Pom

  The DeJong dog, left as a sentinel at the wagon while Selina goes to Chris Spanknoebel's.

Key passages

• “It would be enchanting to be able to record that Selina, next day, had phenomenal success, disposing of her carefully bunched wares to great advantage, driving smartly off up Halsted Street toward High Prairie with a goodly profit jingling in her scuffed leather purse. The truth is that she had a day so devastating, so catastrophic, as would have discouraged most men and certainly any woman less desperate and determined.”

  Selina's market day was a complete failure, not the success one might hope for, and only her desperation kept her going.

  Sets the tone for Selina's disastrous first market experience.

• “There shook Selina from head to foot such a passion, such a storm of outraged sensibilities, as to cause street, victoria, silk-clad woman, horses, and policeman to swim and shiver in a haze before her eyes. The rage of a fastidious woman who had had an alien male hand put upon her.”

  Selina was overcome with fury when the policeman touched her, feeling deeply violated by the unwanted physical contact.

  Highlights Selina's fierce pride and sense of personal dignity.

• “And had taken Selina, carrots, beets, corn, and radishes in her arms. The vegetables lay scattered all about them on the sidewalk in front of Julie Hempel Arnold's great stone house on Prairie Avenue. But strangely enough it had been Selina who had done the comforting, patting Julie's plump silken shoulder and saying, over and over, soothingly, as to a child, 'There, there! It's all right, Julie. It's all right. Don't cry. What's there to cry for! Sh-sh! It's all right.'”

  Julie embraced Selina despite her disheveled state, but it was Selina who comforted Julie, showing her strength and composure.

  Demonstrates Selina's resilience and the reversal of roles in their reunion.