Fair and Tender Ladies

“She saw Sugar Fork sparkle in the sun like a ladys dimond necklace.” 

Though Ivy may live in a rural area with little going on besides farming, she has an active imagination and dreams of worlds beyond her reach. Even as a very young girl, Ivy has a poetic view of the world, as demonstrated in this quote, in which she imagines how her mother must have felt arriving in Sugar Fork for the first time. 

“[N]o I do not pray, nor do I think much of God. It is not rigt what he sends on people. He sends too much to bare.” 

This is Ivy’s first real comment about God while she is still a child. Though she lives in an area dominated by religion, the losses she has suffered at a young age have convinced her that God isn’t worth her time. She does not deny his existence, but she feels that he does not deserve her praise, as he is unfair. 

“Please do not think I am fancy, nor spoilt, nor putting on Airs. It is not so, as I will tell you direckly. Things is not all what they seem ether.” 

While she often wishes for more than she has, Ivy is adamant that the recipients of her letters know she is not trying to live above her station. She feels it important that her family know she is still like them and part of their world regardless of what experiences she has. Ivy also notes, for the first of several times, that wealth doesn’t necessarily equal happiness.