A Little Girl in Old Salem

Two letters interrupt a quiet breakfast in the Leverett house on Derby Street. One announces visiting relatives; the other brings a much larger change. Anthony Leverett, a merchant living abroad and facing the end of his life, asks his cousin Chilian to care for his little daughter. Chilian is a Harvard teacher who prefers books to business, and his household is managed by Elizabeth and Eunice, older relatives with differing temperaments. The request places a child's future within this carefully ordered domestic world.

Amanda M. Douglas links family life to Salem's overseas trade. Rooms contain objects brought home by seafaring relatives, while a later outing among goods from India stirs the girl's memories of life abroad. Her attempts to understand a globe and the movement of the sun give the historical setting a child's scale. Readers interested in household customs, childhood learning and a port town's connections with distant places will find those subjects woven into the story.