Alone

Mary Ingalls On Her Own~Elizabeth Kimmel Willard
I read from page 152 to page 180 (the end of the book)

This week, Mattie was asked to leave the college like I said last week.  That meant that Ben was going to go home as well because he was only there to try to help Mattie.  Mary was sad that Mattie was gone once she found out her whole story.  She was engaged, but when she began to become blind, the man quit the engagement.  She was sad and I think that that is part of why she was so mad and sharp to everyone else.  Mary was also sad because she wanted to apologize to Mattie for what she had done. After a little while, Mary left the infirmary and a few weeks later told Hannah and Blanche about what really happened that night that she and Mattie were in the rain.  Then Hannah and Blanch told their stories about how they had become blind.  Hannah's parents didn't tell her that she was going blind, and she had to figure it our all by herself.  Blanche had gone to the doctor and the doctor told her that she was in the first stage of blindness.  For her, she had relatives that were either blind, or partially sighted.  Over Christmas break, Mary volunteered to tutor two younger girls who were staying at the college over the holidays.  Mary knew how they felt.  Right at the end of the book, on Christmas Eve, Miss Mattice came in her room with a package and two letters from home.  One letter was from Ma, and the other one was from Laura.  Mary decided to wait to open them until Christmas morning or day.  She then went downstairs to meet the girls that she was going to tutor.
I next hope to read either Cheaper By The Dozen, or Storm Warning.  Stay tuned to next weeks post to find out what one I picked.

Question:  I wonder how old the two girls are that Mary is tutoring?  It never says how old they are, it just says that they are young.  Their names are Tessie and Lucia.  Both are pretty names.

Prediction:  I predict that Mary will have a fun time tutoring the two younger girls and that she will have a good time at the college over Christmas break. She will have fun in the activities that they have planned the the students who are staying at the college over Christmas because their houses are two far away, or their families can't afford to have them home for Christmas.

Connection:  I am going to connect to the part of the book where Mary is not home for Christmas.  I am going to connect that with another family that I know. Their name is the VanderBeeks.  They were in Costa Rica over Christmas (they still are in Costa Rica.)  She posted on their blog that it was hard knowing that everybody was gathering together on that day and they weren't going to be there with everybody.  They knew what their family members were doing on that day.  The is kind of like Mary because she thought about what her family would be doing at that time, and she missed them and wished that she could be back home with them.

Key Question:  For our Key Question this week, we had a choice whether we wanted to write a paragraph comparing two of our characters from our book, a paragraph on a problem that occurred and they had many different solutions for it, or if there was something that happened to the characters that had a lot of effects on them.  This week, we are also allowed to do persuasion. We just have to do a different one than we did last week.  I am going to do the one on Persuasion.

          Miss Mattice sort of persuaded Mary that Christmas at the college is not that bad.  She said that they had a few treats in store for the next few days for the students that are staying over at the college. Plus, Mary is tutoring two students, and that will make the time fly by.  Miss Mattice understood that it is not like home, but I think that she persuaded Mary that it won't be so bad.  I also think that Mary figured some of that out on her own.