A White Heron and Other Stories

Reading Questions- A White Heron by Sarah Orne Jewett

Compare and contrast Sylvia's life before and after moving to her grandmother's farm.

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Sylvia's life in the town was busy, and she wasn't happy. Living on the farm enabled her to keep from strangers and enjoy the nature she loved.

Everybody said that it was a good change for a little maid who had tried to grow for eight years in a crowded manufacturing town, but, as for Sylvia herself, it seemed as if she never had been alive at all before she came to live at the farm. She thought often with wistful compassion of a wretched geranium that belonged to a town neighbor.

"'Afraid of folks,'" old Mrs. Tilley said to herself, with a smile, after she had made the unlikely choice of Sylvia from her daughter's houseful of children, and was returning to the farm. "'Afraid of folks,' they said! I guess she won't be troubled no great with 'em up to the old place!"

Source(s)

A White Heron