Week of June 4, 2007

Last Remarks:

Chapter 17 ends with Hitty having been purchased at auction in Maine by the Old Gentleman. She has traveled to New York to an Antique Shop on Eighth Street “again”.
(This must be fairly close to her previous home with the Van Rensselaer family on Washington Square. Hitty tells us about Isabella Van Rensselaer leaving her home on New Year’s to visit a friend in the “wilds of Twenty-third Street.” They made it beyond Sixteenth Street before being accosted by thugs. Hitty also mentions the merchants were located on Fourteenth Street.)

Hitty was purchased by the Old Gentleman for Miss Hunter, owner of the antique shop. She was very happy with the purchase. Hitty saw the gentleman many more times. He obviously became very attached to Hitty because on his buying trips, he would always bring back a small gift for her. Sometimes, to play a trick on the Old Gentleman, Miss Hunter would hide Hitty and tell him that she has been sold. She has a high price on Hitty so one has to assume that she really doesn’t want to sell her. Maybe Miss Hunter is in love with the old man and as Hitty is very special to both of them she will never sell Hitty.

Hitty makes many friends of the customers. They all come by to see her. Each customer coming into the shop fills Hitty with interest and suspense for “who knows but this may be the one fated to carry me away to further adventures.” Hitty is apparently ready to move on and discover new things. She is so excited about the noise of an airplane that she falls off her bench to see just what it is. Imagine her surprise.

This story definitely needs to continue on. We can’t leave Hitty in the Antique Shop forever!!

From Hitty Timeline:

We can't know how long Hitty spent in the Antique Shop, nor how long it took her to write her memoirs. But I do believe, from casual remarks dropped about her being over one hundred years old, that it was probably 1929, and that Hitty was probably made anytime in the winters of 1820-1828. This is, of course, merely my opinion.

Hitty’s Travels Thus Far:

Chapter 1: In Maine with the Preble family;
Chapter 2: To Portland, Maine;
Aboard ship bound for the South Seas on a whaling expedition;
Chapter 6: Lost on a South Sea Island;
Chapter 8: Rescued at sea and arrival in Bombay, India; traveling back and forth across India with the snake charmer;
Chapter 9: A new home with a missionary family in India; on board ship with Little Thankful and headed to Philadelphia in America to live with Little Thankful’s grandparents;
Chapter 10: A new family, the Pryces, in Philadelphia;
Chapter 12: To New York to reside with the Van Rensselaer family;
Chapter 13: From Washington Square in New York to become a gift for Tim Dooley’s cousin, Katie. Travels to Katie’s home in Rhode Island, then to the country so that Katie could recuperate from her illness; lost in the hay and tossed into the hayloft and there for “years”.
Chapter 14: Hitty is finally found and sold to a traveling portrait painter for a quarter. She travels the country posing for portraits with little girls. Many times to New York and Philadelphia, then down the Mississippi to New Orleans. Stays in the French Quarter with the Larraby sisters. Appears at the Cotton Exposition in New Orleans and is then stolen by little Sally Loomis and taken onboard her father’s river steamboat, Morning Glory, to travel up the Mississippi delivering cotton.
Chapter 15: Found floating in a basket on the Mississippi River; given to a little Negro girl, Car’line who lived on a plantation; recognized by the planatation owner’s daughter as the doll who disappeared from the Cotton Exposition; is packaged and mailed back to New Orleans; then mailed to her former owner, the Artist, Mr. Farley, at his address in New York, but as Mr. Farley could not be found, Hitty winds up in a dead letter office at the post office; is eventually put in a grab bag and sold; carried to a tobacco shop by the new owner and accidently left there; picked up by a ticket agent and taken to his home and then made into a doll pincushion by the ticket agent’s wife to be sold at the Church Fair.
Chapter 16: To Boston as a gift for Great Aunt Louella. Given to Louella’s friend, Pamela Wellington. Goes on a motor trip with Miss Pamela and winds up in the State of Maine. Lost by Pamela, found by picnickers, found by stable man, given to stable man’s daughter, taken to her sister Carrie’s restaurant on the Falmouth Road in Portland, Maine. Purchased by an old lady and taken to the old lady’s home which turns out to be the Preble House in Maine where Hitty was carved and started her travels.
Chapter 17: Hitty is sold at auction and taken by her new owner, the Old Gentleman, to New York.
Last Remarks: Purchased at auction in Maine by the Old Gentleman for Miss Hunter who owns an antique shop in New York. Hitty remains in the shop.

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