Lyddie: Chapter 7 Summary & Analysis

Before Lyddie sets off to Lowell, Triphena gives her some new boots and money; Lyddie promises to pay Triphena back. As Lyddie embarks on the journey, she thinks about Ezekial with pride: “he walked north for freedom and I am walking south.” But before long, Lyddie’s feet are aching, and it starts to pour. By the time she arrives at a roadside inn, the owner there is so taken aback by Lyddie’s bedraggled appearance that she offers to put her up for a week.

Lyddie decides that she should take a coach after all, spending much of her money on a ticket. The coach ride is long and cramped, and the other passengers are unfriendly and judgmental of Lyddie’s homemade clothes. Worse still, the rain will not let up. One day, the coach gets stuck, and none of the men on board can figure out how to free it. Only Lyddie is smart enough to get the coach out of the mud. The other passengers are furious to have been bested by this little girl, but the coachman is delighted at his passengers’ stupidity.

After that incident, Lyddie and the coachman bond over their shared distaste for the other passengers’ snobbery. The coachman is impressed by Lyddie’s strength, and when he learns she is headed for the mills in Lowell, he promises to connect her with his sister, who runs a boardinghouse there—Number Five of the Concord Manufacturing Corporation.

Soon enough, they’ve arrived in the city, and Lyddie is amazed by the giant buildings, the constant smoke, and (most of all) the deafening noise. The other passengers get off at a fancy hotel, which Lyddie knows she could never afford. The coachman then brings Lyddie to his sister’s boardinghouse, telling his sister that “I’ve brought you a little chip of Vermont granite.”