Tootered

Chapters 5 and 6 gave us more insight into Roberts’s daily life. We thought his chapter 5 trip into the countryside with Pinky sounded like a fun day to contrast his normal hard working life. We got a good laugh from his interpretation of a ‘Tutor’ (which demonstrated that he clearly needed one according to Ben.) Not to say he is not very bright, but how did he manage all of those other ‘A’s?

We have not seen many clues yet as to where the story is going – or maybe they were there and we just failed to recognize them. (?)

The Author has an interesting way of adding historical information. He presents it from the point of view of Robert – which it would seem is rather far from the ‘truth’ (i.e. Ethan Allen & Roberts namesake Robert Rogers). The interesting thing is that in researching the history of these characters (and Abner Doubleday) I found that the conventional wisdom (what we have been taught) is probably not very accurate either.

As Kris said in her note regarding the last post, there are some clear contradictions to the traditional Shaker Lifestyle here. I wonder if it was common as the colonies came apart for former residents to take some pieces of the faith with them while embracing other things in the non-shaker world. Or is it possible that there were always people living around the colony that embraced many principals of the faith and worshiped with them but did not become part of the colony? (The PBS video indicated that outsiders came for the worship.)