The Hoosier Schoolmaster · Chapter
XXI: Miss Nancy Sawyer explained
Ralph Hartsook, fleeing Flat Creek, arrives at the cottage of his former Sunday-school teacher, Miss Nancy Sawyer, in Lewisburg.
What happens
Ralph Hartsook, fleeing Flat Creek, arrives at the cottage of his former Sunday-school teacher, Miss Nancy Sawyer, in Lewisburg. He carries the sickly Shocky, whom he presents as a 'little angel' needing care. Miss Nancy, a kind and motherly spinster, takes them in, and Shocky, though feverish, speaks of being a boy God forgot and then remembered.
Themes in this chapter
Poverty and Charity
Miss Nancy's selfless care for Shocky exemplifies charity and the overflow of motherly love.
Religion and Hypocrisy
Ralph reflects on the true lesson of Christianity taught by Miss Nancy, contrasting with superficial religious instruction.
Characters to notice
- Ralph Hartsook
Arrives at Miss Nancy Sawyer's cottage with Shocky, seeking refuge and care.
- Shocky
Carried by Ralph, feverish and chilled, speaks of being forgotten by God.
- Miss Nancy Sawyer
Ralph's former Sunday-school teacher, a kind and motherly spinster who takes in Shocky.
Key passages
“Miss Nancy was a providence, one of those old maids that are benedictions to the whole town; one of those in whom the mother-love, wanting the natural objects on which to spend itself, overflows all bounds and lavishes itself on every needy thing, and grows richer and more abundant with the spending, a fountain of inexhaustible blessing.”
Miss Nancy was a blessing to the town, an old maid whose motherly love, having no children of her own, poured out on all in need, becoming ever more abundant.
Highlights Miss Nancy's charitable nature.
“But Ralph learned from her what most Sunday-school teachers fail to teach, the great lesson of Christianity, by the side of which all antiquities and geographies and chronologies and exegetics and other niceties are as nothing.”
Ralph learned from her the true essence of Christianity, which is more important than all the academic details of religious study.
Contrasts genuine faith with mere knowledge.