Miracles on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorensen

First published: 1956; illustrated

Type of work: Domestic realism

Themes: Family, friendship, health and illness, and nature

Time of work: The mid-twentieth century

Recommended Ages: 10-13

Locale: Maple Hill, Pennsylvania

Principal Characters:

• Marly, the sensitive daughter who loves people, animals, and nature
• Mother, a tender woman who provides emotional stability for her children
• Daddy, a depressed, former prisoner of war
• Joe, Marly’s adventurous elder brother, rescuer of young foxes and of a hermit
• Mr. Chris, the kind, sturdy neighbor, an artist at making maple syrup
• Chrissie, Mr. Chris’ wife, a motherly figure who is concerned about her husband’s health
• Harry the Hermit, a man who lives with goats and is a foil for Daddy

The Story

In Miracles on Maple Hill, the setting is interwoven with the plot as a family seeks restoration through involvement with nature and friendly country people. Having returned from a savage war in which he was a prisoner, the father is filled with tension and anger, sick of life. He and his family leave Pittsburgh in search of healing for him. Although he does not believe that the simple country life, open air, and hard work, will provide a cure, he consents to go.

Marly, the main character, is eager to live in the pastoral setting of Maple Hill because of the many stories that her mother told of summer adventures when she was a child. In the vastness of the beautiful outdoors, Marly believes that miracles are possible, and this year she discovers many miracles in the mystery of nature.

The first miracle is the sap rising in the maple trees, then being drawn off and made into syrup in the sugaring camp. Mr. Chris, a close friend of Marly’s mother, guides the family in this encounter with the first breath and taste of spring. The sap rising in the trees provides a foil for the returning zest for life in the father. After the sap boils off into syrup and Mr. Chris performs his magic trick to quiet the bubbles, Daddy sings a song for the first time since returning home from war.

Mr. Chris, like a gentle Santa Claus bringing gifts in which to delight, plays a central role in introducing Marly to other miracles. Early one morning, he takes her to see the spring beauty of the flowers awakening from the slumber of winter. Candleshaped bloodroot flowers, hepaticas cascading over the hills, and trilliums covering the forest floor all become gifts for Marly.

Exploring brings adventure. Once she climbs over a fence to pick some beautiful golden flowers and is surrounded by a herd of cows. Then she and Joe, her twelve-year-old brother, find a den of foxes and rescue them from the rifle of Fritz, Mr. Chris’s hired man.

After forming a friendship with Harry the Hermit, who lives with goats, Joe rescues Harry from death when Harry falls and hurts his leg during a winter freeze. Harry had also been to war and become disillusioned with life. Mr. Chris gave him a house in which to live and a purpose for living.

Then the plot comes full circle to the beginning of the miracles when spring comes again. Yet this time the miracle is threatened when Mr. Chris, the kindly guardian of the pastoral setting, suffers a heart attack. Suspense builds as the city family tries to save his sugar crop, the main source of his small income. Weariness and hard work are complicated by the worry over Mr. Chris’s condition.

Then Mr. Chris begins to improve, and the truant officer brings a crew of boys and girls to help gather the sap. The miracles of nature combine with the gentle kindness of people who sacrifice to help others. Recuperating at home, Mr. Chris tests the syrup and proclaims it to equal his in color, fragrance, and taste. The story ends, but the miracles of Maple Hill, occurring when Marly’s mother was a child, reoccurring during Marly’s childhood, and restoring her father, promise to begin again every spring.

Context

Miracles on Maple Hill is Sorensen’s celebration of the wonder and mystery of the simple things of nature. This novel also emphasizes the importance of family, a theme common to her books for children. Plain Girl (1955) concerns a girl of Mormon background in conflict between the values of her classmates and the traditions of her loving and tender family. Of the two, Miracles on Maple Hill is more universal in appeal and vicarious involvement for children.

Sorensen’s emphasis on the kindness of neighbors and the security of a family’s love for one another is reminiscent of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House” series (1932-1943). Also, the poetic techniques of personifying aspects of nature and including an abundance of sensory images resembles Laura Ingalls Wilder’s style. The beauty of ordinary life, so often taken for granted, is echoed by thoughts in the Thornton Wilder play Our Town (1938).

Yet Miracles on Maple Hill is unique in its creation of unforgettable characters, such as the sturdy Pennsylvania Dutchman, Mr. Chris, and the sensitive protagonist, Marly. Also, the thematic emphasis on the cyclical rhythms of nature, of winter and spring, death and life, darkness and light, provides a foil to the cyclical renewal of Marly’s family. An archetypal theme, it evokes emotions within readers as they respond to patterns resonating in their subconscious minds. The spiritual rebirth of man through the influence of nature is also an age-old theme, but one often forgotten in the modern urban world.

Sorensen strongly believes in the importance of children, who symbolically renew the lives of the old by beginning again, as bearers of truth. As children grow up into life, always pushing, as the sap in the trees, so they bring beauty and revival of hope to the weary adult world. Although the trend of contemporary taste is toward graphic realism, this book, filled with kindness of a family and community, reminds its audience of the healing power of love.