The Witch of Blackbird Pond Appearance Quotes

Only three shabbily-dressed women lingered near her, and because she could not contain her eagerness, Kit smiled and would have spoken, but she was abruptly repulsed by their sharply curious eyes. One hand moved guiltily to her tangled brown curls. She must look a sight! No gloves, no cover for her hair, and her face rough and red from weeks of salt wind. But how ill-mannered of them to stare so! (1.31)

The captain lifted the iron knocker and let it fall with a thud that echoed in the pit of the girl’s stomach. For a moment she could not breathe at all. Then the door opened and a thin, gray-haired woman stood on the threshold. She was quite plainly a servant, and Kit was impatient when the captain removed his hat and spoke with courtesy. (3.6)

As Kit threw back the woolen cloak, Judith’s reaching hand fell back. “My goodness!” she exclaimed. “You wear a dress like that to travel in?” (3.30)

Beside the plain blue homespun and white linen which modestly clothes Aunt Rachel and Judith, Kit’s flowered silk gave her the look of some vivid tropical bird lighted by mistake on a strange shore. (5.2)

Scandalized to see Kit wearing out her finery with scrubbing and cooking, Rachel and Mercy had made her a calico dress exactly the same as Judith’s. It was coarse-woven and simply made, without so much as a single bow for trimming, but it was certainly far more suited to the menial work she had to do in it. Beyond a doubt, too, it had made for an easier relationship with her cousin. This morning Judith seemed almost friendly. (8.2)

The girl looked about her. “’Tis a pretty room,” she said without thinking, and then wondered how that could be, when it was so plain and bare. Perhaps it was only the sunlight on boards that were scrubbed smooth and white, or perhaps it was the feeling of peace that lay across the room as tangibly as the bar of sunshine. (9.57)

“An interesting cargo we had this trip. One item in particular. Sixteen diamond-paned windows ordered from England by one William Ashby. They say he’s building a house for his bride. A hoity-toity young lady from Barbados, I hear, and the best is none too good for her. No oiled paper in her windows, no indeed!” (14.17)

And Andros! He was a true cavalier, with his fine embroidered coat, his commanding air, and the wealth of dark curls that flowed over his velvet collar. How elegantly he sat the saddle of his borrowed horse. Why, he was a gentleman, an office of the King’s Dragoons, a knight! Who were these common resentful farmers to dispute his royal right? He made their defiance seem childish. (15.36)

Kit laid down the trench in dismay. “But I can’t go like this! I’ve been sitting in the dirt all night!” The face she lifted to the woman was even sorrier than she realized, streaked with mud and tears.

“You’re no treat to look at, that’s sure,” the woman admitted. “If they took you for a witch right now I’d scarce blame them.” (19.7-8)

But the dresses must serve another purpose now. Would they bring enough to pay her passage on a ship? Fine cloth like this was rare in Connecticut. In many families, she had learned, one dress such as these would be handed down through three generations as a cherished possession. (21.9)

She laid aside the dress, and very thoughtfully she chose another, a fine blue-flowered muslin. These two she would take directly to Uncle Matthew, and this time she felt sure he would let his daughters accept them, because he would know now that she offered the gifts with love instead of pride. (21.10)