Lyddie is lonely and unhappy working at the tavern, badly missing the family farm and her siblings, especially Charlie. Luke Stevens, the youngest of the Stevens sons, although much older than Lyddie and Charlie, gives them a ride to their new homes and employment at the mill and the tavern and promises to keep an eye on their house while they’re away. However, even though their mother sees that the world doesn’t end, she decides that she’s going to hire Lyddie out as a maid at the Cutlers’ tavern and Charlie to work at the mill because the family has too many debts and they will have to rent out their fields and animals. Lyddie and Charlie let her go with their younger sisters to stay with Aunt Clarissa and Uncle Judah while they continue managing the farm as best they can. However, when a bear enters their house and eats the oatmeal that Lyddie was preparing, their mother, primed by Clarissa’s and Judah’s talk of signs of the end times and such, goes into a panic and sure that the world is going to end. Because of their mother’s depression at the loss of their father, she pays little attention to the things that her children do to keep the farm going and the family together. Lyddie and Charlie are just grateful for their help. They are kinder than their aunt and uncle, although their mother disapproves of them for being abolitionists and, in her mind, heathens. Lyddie and her brother Charlie, who is ten, more often turn to their Quaker neighbors, the Stevenses, for help.

The children’s aunt and uncle, Clarissa and Judah live nearby, but they are of little help, full of fire-and-brimstone talk.

Lyddie helps her mother to take care of their farm in Vermont and the younger children, but they are very poor, and her mother has given up hope of their father returning home. Thirteen-year-old Lyddie’s father left home to go West and seek his fortune, and he hasn’t been heard of since.

Lyddie full book