Text Leveling System

Lyddie

RDQ:	2161	Max Word/Sent	48	Total Words	2910		Diff Words	955
Lex	920	Ave Word/.Sent	12	Hi Freq occurs	2085	71.6%	Hi freq	378	39.6%
AR	5.2	Long Sentences	18.3	Low Freq occurs	212	7.3%	Low freq	175	18.3%

The bear had been their undoing though at the time they had 
all laughed. No Mama had never laughed but Lyddie and 
Charles and the babies had laughed until their bellies ached. 
Lyddie still thought of them as the babies. She probably always 
would. Agnes had been four and Rachel six that November of 
1843-the year of the bear.
It had been Charles's fault if fault there was. He had fetched 
in wood from the shed and left the door ajar But the door 
had not shut tight for some time so perhaps he'd shut it as 
best he could. Who knows?
At any rate Lyddie looked up from the pot of oatmeal she 
was stirring over the fire and there in the doorway was a 
massive black head the nose up and smelling the tiny eyes 
bright with hungry anticipation.
"Don't nobody yell" she said softly. "Just back up slow and 
quiet to the ladder and climb up to the loft. Charlie you get 
Agnes and Mama you take Rachel." She heard her mother 
whimper. "Shhh" she continued her voice absolutely even. 
"It's all right long as nobody gets upset. Just take it nice and 
gentle ey? I'm watching him all the way and I'll yank the 
ladder up after me."
They obeyed her even Mama though Lyddie could hear 
her sucking in her breath. Behind Lyddie's back the ladder]] 
creaked as two by two first Charles and Agnes then Mama 
and Rachel climbed up into the loft. Lyddie glared straight 
into the bear's eyes daring him to step forward into the cabin. 
Then when the ladder was silent and she could hear the slight 
rustling above her as the family settled themselves on the straw 
mattresses she backed up to the ladder and never taking her 
eyes off the bear inched her way up to the loft. At the top she 
almost fell backward onto the platform. Charles dragged her 
onto the mattress beside her mother.
The racket released the bear from the charm Lyddie seemed 
to have placed on him. He banged the door aside and rushed 
in toward the ladder but Charles snatched it. The bottom 
rungs swung out hitting the beast in the nose. The blow 
startled him momentarily giving Lyddie a chance to help 
Charles haul the ladder up onto the platform and out of reach. 
The old bear roared in frustration and waved at the empty air 
with his huge paws then reared up on his hind legs. He was 
so tall that his nose nearly touched the edge of the loft. The 
little girls cried out. Their mother screamed "Oh Lord deliver 
us!"
"Hush" Lyddie commanded. "You'll just make him madder." 
The cries were swallowed up in anxious gasps of breath. 
Charles's arms went around the little ones and Lyddie put a 
firm grip on her mother's shoulder. It was trembling so Lyddie 
relaxed her fingers and began to stroke. "It's all right" she 
murmured. "He can't reach us."
But could he climb the supports? It didn't seem likely. Could 
he in his frustration take a mighty leap and. . . No she tried 
to breathe deeply and evenly and keep her eyes fixed on those 
of the beast. He fell to all fours and tossing his head broke 
off from her gaze as though embarrassed. He began to explore 
the cabin. He was hungry obviously and looking for the source 
of the smell that had drawn him in. He knocked over the 
churning jug and licked tentatively at the blade but Lyddie]] 
had cleaned it too well after churning that morning and the 
critter soon gave up trying to find nourishment in the wood.
Before he found the great pot of oatmeal in the kettle over 
the fire he had turned over the table and the benches and 
upended the spinning wheel. Lyddie held her breath praying 
that he wouldn't break anything. Charles and she would try to 
mend but he was only ten and she thirteen. They hadn't their 
father's skill or experience. Don't break nothing she begged 
silently. They couldn't afford to replace any of the household 
goods.
Next the beast knocked over a jar of apple butter but the 
skin lid was tied on tightly and flail away at it as he might 
with his awkward paw he could not dislodge it. He smacked 
it across the floor where it hit the overturned bench but thank 
the Lord the heavy pottery did not shatter.
At last he came to the oatmeal bubbling-by the smell of 
it scorching-over the fire. He thrust his head deep into the 
kettle and howled with pain as his nose met the boiling 
porridge. He threw back his head but in doing so jerked the kettle 
off the hook and when he turned he was wearing it over his 
head like a black pumpkin. The bear was too stunned it 
seemed simply to lower his neck and let the kettle fall off. He 
danced about the room in pain on four then two legs the 
kettle covering his head the boiling oatmeal raining down his 
thick neck and coat.
He knocked about searching for the way out but when he 
found the open door managed to push it shut. Battering the 
door with his kettle-covered head he tore it off its leather 
hinges and loped out into the dark. For a long time they could 
hear him crashing through the bush until at last the November 
night gathered about them once more with its accustomed 
quiet.
Then they began to laugh. Rachel first throwing back her 
dark curls and showing the spaces where her pretty little teeth]] 
had been only 'last summer. Then Agnes joined in with her 
shrill four-year-old shout and next Charles's not yet manly 
giggle.
"Whew" Lyddie said. "Lucky I'm so ugly. A pretty girl 
couldn't a scared that old rascal!"
"You ain't ugly!" Rachel cried. But they laughed louder than 
ever Lyddie the loudest of all until the tears of laughter and 
relief ran down her thin cheeks and her belly cramped and 
doubled over. When had she laughed so much? She could not 
remember.
Her mother's shoulders were shaking but Lyddie couldn't 
see her face. Mama must be laughing too. Lyddie dared to 
hope that her mother might laugh. Oh there was the door to 
mend and the mess to be cleaned up and the wasted porridge. 
But tomorrow she and Charles would find the kettle. The bear 
couldn't have taken it far and he was sure to have left more 
than an adequate trail with all that crashing through the 
underbrush. Let her be laughing she prayed.
"Mama" she whispered leaning her mouth close to 
her mother's ear. "You all right ey?"
Her mother whirled toward her. "It's the sign" she said.
"What sign Mama?" Lyddie asked though she did not 
want an answer.
"Clarissa said when the end drew near the devil would walk 
the earth."
"That weren't no devil Mama" Charles said. "It were only 
a black bear."
"'Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring 
lion seeking whom he may devour.'"
"Aunt Clarissa don't know Mama" Lyddie said as firmly 
as she could though a shudder went through her body.
"It were only a black bear." Rachel's anxious little voice 
echoed her brother's and then "Weren't it Lyddie? Weren't 
it a bear?"]] 
Lyddie nodded so as not to seem to be contradicting their 
mother out loud.
"Tomorrow we're going to Poultney" their mother said. "I 
aim to be with the faithful when the end comes."
"I don't want to be with the fate full" Rachel said. "I want 
to be with Lyddie."
"Lyddie will come too" their mother said.
"But how will Papa find us if we've left home?" Charles 
asked.
"Your father went out searching for vain riches. He ain't 
never coming back."
"He will! He will!" Rachel cried. "He promised." Though 
how could she remember? She'd been barely three when he'd 
left.
It was hard for the babies to go to sleep. Their stomachs 
were empty since the porridge had been ruined and Mama 
would not hear of fixing more. Charles helped Lyddie clean 
the cabin. They propped up the door and put the chest against 
it to keep it in place until they could fix it in the morning. 
Then he climbed up the ladder to bed.
Lyddie stayed below. The fire must be banked for the night. 
She knelt down on the hearth. Behind her left shoulder sat Mama 
in the one chair a rocker she had brought from Poultney when 
she came as a bride. Lyddie stole a glance at her. She was rocking 
like one dazed staring unblinking into the fire.
The truth be told Mama had gone somewhat queer in the 
head after their father had left. Lyddie. had to acknowledge it. 
Not so strange as her sister Clarissa and her end-of-the-world
shouting husband Judah-surely not. But now the bear seemed 
to have pushed her too far. "Don't let's go Mama" Lyddie 
pleaded softly. "Please Mama." But her mama only stared at 
the fireplace rocking slowly back and forth her eyes blank 
and still as though her spirit had gone away and left the body 
there rocking on and on.]] 
It was useless to argue and Lyddie gave up hoping that the mood would pass like her mother's times of craziness always had. But the next morning her mother had not forgotten her determination. "If it ain't Clarissa's it will soon be the poor farm" she said.
The only charity Lyddie dreaded more than Aunt Clarissa's was that of the township's poor farm. It was to escape that specter that their father had headed West.
"I can't stop you to go" Lyddie said "but I can't go with you. I can't leave the farm." When her mother opened her mouth to argue Lyddie went on. "The sow won't fetch enough to provide coach fare for the lot of us."
She sent Charles along to make sure her mother and the babies arrived safely at Uncle Judah's farm. Charlie was a funny sight hardly higher than a currant bush but drawn up like a man in his worn boots and his father's old woolen shirt with the sleeves rolled. He loaded up the barrow; they'd sold the horse cart for seeds last year. "It's only ten miles to Cutler's where the coach stops. The little ones can ride when they get too tired" he said. He put in their mother's old skin trunk which had carried her meager trousseau to this mountain and most of the food she'd managed to preserve before she gave up trying. Between them he and Lyddie wrestled the old sow to the ground and tied her squealing to a shaft of the barrow.
"You want I should go with you as far as the village?" she asked him. But they agreed it would be better for her to tend the cow and horse and protect the house from the wild critters.
"You watch out for yourself" he said anxiously.
"I'll do fine" she said. "Now remember you got to get enough for the pig to pay coach fare for everyone.".
"And for me to come back again" he said as a promise that she would not be left alone on the mountain farm. He glanced about to make sure his mother wasn't in hearing ]]
distance. "You mustn't be afraid to go down and ask the Quaker Stevens for help Lyddie. They mean to be good neighbors to us no matter what Mama says."
"Well I'll see how it goes ey?" she said tossing her thin plaits behind her shoulders. He should know she was not going to be beholden to the neighbors for anything so trivial as her own comfort. Their mother didn't approve of heathens or abolitionists and since she considered their Quaker neighbors a bit of both she forbade the children to have anything to do with the Stevenses. "Ain't no Worthen gonna have truck with the devil" she said. Early last summer when Mama was having one of her spells and not paying much attention Charlie had again sneaked the cow down the mountain to the Stevenses' place. As long as Lyddie could remember long before their father' had left they had made use of the Stevenses' bull. If their mother ever wondered about those calves that were born like miracles every spring she never mentioned it. She knew as well as Lyddie and Charles that they could never have managed without the cash money those calves brought in.
Lyddie didn't care one way or the other about the neighbors' radical ideas and peculiar ways she minded mightily being beholden. It couldn't be helped. The use of a bull was a necessity she couldn't manage on her own but she would starve to death rather than go begging before this year's calf was safely born and it was time to mate the cow once more.

She needn't have worried. Charlie came back in about two weeks and together they made it through the winter. They shot rabbits and peeled bark for soup to eke out their scarce provisions. They ran out of flour for bread so the churn stood idle but "I never craved churning" said Lyddie.
When the time for the calving drew near they reluctantly let the cow go dry. They had no need for butter without any]] 
bread but they'd miss the milk and cheese sorely. Nonetheless they were farmers enough to do what was best for their only cow.
The calf was born to great rejoicing and a new abundance of milk and cream. Lyddie and Charles felt rich as townsfolk.
A sweet little heifer she was arriving on the first warm day of
March the same day that they bored holes in the sugar maples and inserted the spills that they had made to catch the sap flow. They were able to make enough syrup and sugar for themselves. Hardly enough for a cash crop but they were learning and in another year after another harvest they would be experienced old farmers and sugarers they told each other.
Years later she would remember that morning. The late May sky was brilliant dare-you-to-wink blue and the cheek of the hillside wore a three-day growth of green. High in one of the apple trees a bluebird warbled his full spring song chera weera wee-it cheerily-cheerily. Lyddie's own spirit rose in reply. Her rough hands were stretched to grasp the satin-smooth wooden shafts of the old plow. With Charles at the horse's head they urged and pushed the heavy metal blade through the rocky earth. The plow cast up the clean damp smell of new turned soil. Cheerily-cheerily.
Then into that perfect spring morning a horse and rider had come round the narrow curve of the road slowly the horse gingerly picking its way across the deep dried ruts of mud left from the thaws of April and early May.
"Charlie" she said quietly hardly daring to move because for a moment she hoped it might be Papa but only for a moment. It was plainly a woman' riding sidesaddle and not their mother either. She never rode since she fell years ago and miscarried the baby that would have come between Lyddie and Charles.
"Charlie" Lyddie repeated. "Someone's coming."
Mrs. Peck for she was the rider had brought a letter from]] 
the general store in the village. "I thought you might be wanting this" she said. Lyddie fetched the coins for the postage from their almost empty cash box. The shopkeeper's wife waited a bit hoping perhaps that Lyddie would read the letter aloud but she didn't. Lyddie was not much of a reader so it was later the short wisps of hair around her face plastered with sweat that she held the letter close to the fire and managed to make out the words in her mother's cramped and painfully childish hand.

Dear Lyddie
The world hay not come to the end yit. But we can stil hop. Meentime I hay hire you out to M. Cutler at the
tavern and fer yr. brother to Bakers mill. The paschur feelds and sugar bush is lent to M. Wescott to repay dets. Also cow and horse. Lv. at wuns you git this.
Yr. loving mother
Mattie M. Worthen

Lyddie burst into tears. "I'm sorry Charlie" she said to her brother's amazed and anxious face. "I never expected this. We were doing so good ey? You and me."
He took a deep breath reached into his pocket and handed her a ragged kerchief.
"It's all right Lyddie" he said. "It's all right." When she kept her tear-streaked face buried in his kerchief he gave one of her braids a tweak. "The world have not come to the end yit ey?" He took the letter from her lap and when she wiped' her face and tried to smile he grinned anxiously and pointed to their mother's primitive spelling. "See we can stil hop."
Lyddie laughed uncertainly. Her spelling was no better than their mother's so she did not really see the joke at first. But Charlie laughed and so she began to laugh though it was the kind of laughter that caught like briars in her chest and felt very much like pain.]]

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: No support

Dialog: Multiple speakers

Dialog: Broken dialogue

Dialog: Unlabeled Speaker

Vocabulary: Many difficult words

Language: Many descriptive words

Sentences: Many Long Complex

Text structure: Story/Poem

Inferences: Several Implications

Complexity: Several ideas - closely related

Concepts: Abstract/Complex Social

Chapters

Author's purpose: Obvious

Features

Character traits

Integral Setting - Historical

Complex Problem/Solution

Mood/tone

Topic

Work

*History

Independence

Chores

*Family & Friends

Responsibility

Low Frequency Words

abolitionists	absolutely	abundance	accustomed	ached
acknowledge	adequate	adversary	ajar	anticipation
anxious	anxiously	approve	barrow	beholden
briars	calves	calving	charity	cheerily
chera	churn	churning	contradicting	craziness
curls	currant	curve	determination	dets
devour	dislodge	doubled	drawn	dreaded
echoed	eke	embarrassed	fault	feelds
fer	fetched	flail	forbade	general
gingerly	git	glance	glared	gonna
grasp	growth	harvest	hearth	heathens
heifer	hind	hinges	hoping	household
idle	inched	inserted	judah	judah's
kerchief	knelt	laughter	lent	likely
loped	lv	lyddie	lyddie's	manage
maples	massive	mattress	mattresses	meager
meentime	mentioned	mightily	minded	miracles
miscarried	momentarily	murmured	mustn't	necessity
needn't	neighbors	nonetheless	nourishment	oatmeal
obeyed	overturned	painfully	paschur	peculiar
plainly	plaits	plastered	pleaded	postage
pottery	poultney	preserve	primitive	propped
provisions	prowls	quaker	racket	radical
ragged	rascal	reared	rejoicing	reluctantly
repay	rough	rungs	rustling	scarce
shaft	shafts	shopkeeper's	shrill	shudder
sidesaddle	smacked	snatched	somewhat	source
sow	specter	squealing	startled	stevenses
stil	stirring	stomachs	streaked	stunned
sugarers	surely	swallowed	sweat	syrup
tavern	tentatively	thaws	thrust	townsfolk
township's	trivial	trousseau	tweak	unblinking
uncertainly	underbrush	upended	urged	vain
warbled	weera	wescott	whimper	whirled
wisps	worthen	wrestled	wuns	yank
yit	yr