Text Leveling System

Sarah, Plain and Tall

RDQ:	1205	Max Word/Sent	35	Total Words	3477		Diff Words	866
Lex	780	Ave Word/.Sent	8	Hi Freq occurs	2590	74.5%	Hi freq	386	44.6%
AR	4.0	Long Sentences	6.2	Low Freq occurs	122	3.5%	Low freq	94	10.9%

"Did Mama sing every day?" asked Caleb. 
"Every-single-day?" He sat close to the fire his 
chin in his hand. It was dusk and the dogs lay 
beside him on the warm hearthstones.
"Every-single-day" I told him for the second 
time this week. For the twentieth time this 
month. The hundredth time this year? And the 
past few years?
"And did Papa sing too?"
"Yes. Papa sang too. Don't get so close Caleb. 
You'll heat up."
He pushed his chair back. It made a hollow 
scraping sound on the hearthstones and the dogs 
stirred. Lottie small and black wagged her tail 
and lifted her head. Nick slept on.]]
I turned the bread dough over and over on
the marble slab on the kitchen table.
"Well Papa doesn't sing anymore" said
Caleb very softly. A log broke apart and crackled
in the fireplace. He looked up at me. "What did
I look like when I was born?"
"You didn't have any clothes on" I told him.
"I know that" he said.
"You looked like this." I held the bread dough
up in a round pale ball.
"I had hair" said Caleb seriously.
"Not enough to talk about" I said.
"And she named me Caleb" he went on filling
in an old familiar story.
"I would have named you Troublesome" I
said making Caleb smile.
"And Mama handed me to you in the yellow
blanked and said  " He waited for me to finish 
the story. "And said  ?"
I sighed. "And Mama said Isn't he beautiful
Anna?' "
"And I was" Caleb finished.
Caleb thought the story was over and I didn't]]
tell him what I had really thought. He was
homely and plain and he had a terrible holler
and a horrid smell. But these were not the 
worst of him. Mama died the next morning. That
was the worst thing about Caleb.
"Isn't he beautiful Anna?" Her last words
to me. I had gone to be thinking how wretched
he looked. And I forgot to say good night.
I wiped my hands on my apron and went to
the window. Outside the prairie reached out and
touched the places where the sky came down.
Though winter was nearly over there were
patches of snow and ice everywhere. I looked 
at the long dirt road that crawled across the
plains remembering the morning that Mama had
died cruel and sunny. They had come for her
in a wagon and taken her away to be buried.
And then the cousins and aunts and uncles had
come and tried to fill up the house. But they
couldn't.
Slowly one by one they left. And then the
days seemed long and dark like winter days even
though it wasn't winter. And Papa didn't sing.]]
Isn't he beautiful Anna? 
No Mama.
It was hard to think of Caleb as beautiful. It 
took three whole days for me to love him sitting 
in the chair by the fire Papa washing up the 
supper dishes Caleb's tiny hand brushing my 
cheek. And a smile. It was the smile I know. 
"Can you remember her songs?" asked Caleb. 
"Mama's songs?"
I turned from the window. "No. Only that 
she sang about flowers and birds. Sometimes 
about the moon at nighttime."
Caleb reached down and touched Lottie's 
head.
"Maybe" he said his voice low if you 
remember the songs then I might remember her 
too."
My eyes widened and tears came. Then the 
door opened and wind blew in with Papa and I 
went to stir the stew. Papa put his arms around 
me and put his nose in my hair.
"Nice soapy smell that stew" he said. 
I laughed. "That's my hair "
Caleb came over and threw his arms around]]
Papa's neck and hung down as Papa swung him 
back and forth and the dogs sat up.
"Cold in town" said Papa. "And Jack was 
feisty." Jack was Papa's horse that he'd raised 
from a colt. "Rascal" murmured Papa smiling 
because no matter what Jack did Papa loved him.
I spooned up the stew and lighted the oil lamp 
and we ate with the dogs crowding under the 
table hoping for spills or handouts.
Papa might not have told us about Sarah that 
night if Caleb hadn't asked him the question. 
After the dishes were cleared and washed and 
Papa was filling the tin pail with ashes Caleb 
spoke up. It wasn't a question really.
"You don't sing anymore" he said. He said 
it harshly. Not because he meant to but because 
he had been thinking of it for so long. "Why?" 
he asked more gently.
Slowly Papa straightened up. There was a long 
silence and the dogs looked up wondering at it. 
"I've forgotten the old songs" said Papa 
quietly. He sat down. "But maybe there's a way 
to remember them." He looked up at us. 
"How?" asked Caleb eagerly.]]
Papa leaned back in the chair. "I've placed an 
advertisement in the newspapers. For help." 
"You mean a housekeeper?" I asked 
surprised.
Caleb and I looked at each other and burst 
out laughing remembering Hilly our old 
housekeeper. She was round and slow and shuffling. 
She snored in a high whistle at night like a 
teakettle and let the fire go out.
"No" said Papa slowly. "Not a housekeeper." 
He paused. "A wife."
Caleb stared at Papa. "A wife? You mean a 
mother?"
Nick slid his face onto Papa's lap and Papa 
stroked his ears.
"That too" said Papa. "Like Maggie.
Matthew our neighbor to the south had 
written to ask for a wife and mother for his 
children. And Maggie had come from Tennessee. 
Her hair was the color of turnips and she 
laughed.
Papa reached into his pocket and unfolded a 
letter written on white paper. "And I have 
received an answer." Papa read to us:]]
"Dear Mr. Jacob Witting
"I am Sarah Wheaton from Maine as you will 
see from my letter. I am answering your 
advertisement. I have never been married though I 
have been asked. I have lived with an older 
brother William who is about to be married. 
His wife-to-be is young and energetic.
"I have always loved to live by the sea but at 
this time I feel a move is necessary. And the 
truth is the sea is as far east as I can go. My 
choice as you can see is limited. This should not 
be taken as an insult. I am strong and I work hard 
and I am willing to travel. But I am not mild 
mannered. If you should still care to write I 
would be interested in your children and about 
where you live. And you.
"Very truly yours
"Sarah Elisabeth Wheaton 
"P.S. Do you have opinions on cats? I have one." 
No one spoke when Papa finished the letter.
He kept looking at it in his hands reading it over 
to himself. Finally I turned my head a bit to]]
sneak a look at Caleb. He was smiling. I smiled 
too.
"One thing" I said in the quiet of the room. 
"What's that?" asked Papa looking up.
I put my arm around Caleb. 
"Ask her if she sings" I said.]]
Caleb and Papa and I wrote letters to Sarah 
and before the ice and snow had melted from 
the fields we all received answers. Mine came 
first.
Dear Anna
Yes I can braid hair and I can make stew and 
bake bread though I prefer to build bookshelves 
and paint.
My favorite colors are the colors of the sea 
blue and gray and green depending on the 
weather. My brother William is a fisherman and 
he tells me that when he is in the middle of a 
fogbound sea the water is a color for which there is 
no name. He catches flounder and sea bass and]]
bluefish. Sometimes he sees whales. And birds 
too of course. I am enclosing a book of sea birds 
so you will see what William and I see every day. 
Very truly yours
Sarah Elisabeth Wheaton 
Caleb read and read the letter so many times 
that the ink began to run and the folds tore. He 
read the book about sea birds over and over. 
"Do you think she'll come?" asked Caleb. 
"And will she stay? What if she thinks we are 
loud and pesky?"
"You are loud and pesky" I told him. But I 
was worried too. Sarah loved the sea I could 
tell. Maybe she wouldn't leave there after all to 
come where there were fields and grass and sky 
and not much else.
"What if she comes and doesn't like our 
house?" Caleb asked. "I told her it was small. 
Maybe I shouldn't have told her it was small." 
"Hush Caleb. Hush."
Caleb's letter came soon after with a picture 
of a cat drawn on the envelope.]]
Dear Caleb
My cat's name is Seal because she is gray like 
the seals that swim offshore in Maine. She is glad 
that Lottie and Nick send their greetings. She 
likes dogs most of the time. She says their 
footprints are much larger than hers (which she is 
enclosing in return).
Your house sounds lovely even though it is 
far out in the country with no close neighbors. 
My house is tall and the shingles are gray because 
of the salt from the sea. There are roses nearby.
Yes I do like small rooms sometimes. Yes I 
can keep a fire going at night. I do not know if 
I snore. Seal has never told me.
Very truly yours
Sarah Elisabeth
"Did you really ask her about fires and 
snoring?" I asked amazed.
"I wished to know" Caleb said.
He kept the letter with him reading it in the 
barn and in the fields and by the cow pond. And 
always in bed at night.]]
One morning early Papa and Caleb and I 
were cleaning out the horse stalls and putting 
down new bedding. Papa stopped suddenly and 
leaned on his pitchfork.
"Sarah has said she will come for a month's 
time if we wish her to" he said his voice loud in 
the dark barn. "To see how it is. Just to see."
Caleb stood by the stall door and folded his 
arms across his chest.
"I think" he began. Then "I think" he said 
slowly "that it would be good - to say yes" he 
finished in a rush.
Papa looked at me.
"I say yes" I told him grinning.
"Yes" said Papa. "Then yes it is."
And the three of us all smiling went to work 
again.
The next day Papa went to town to mail his 
letter to Sarah. It was rainy for days and the 
clouds followed. The house was cool and damp 
and quiet. Once I set four places at the table 
then caught myself and put the extra plate away. 
Three lambs were born one with a black face. 
And then Papa's letter came. It was very short.]] 
Dear Jacob
I will come by train. I will wear a yellow 
bonnet. I am plain and tall.
Sarah
"What's that?" asked Caleb excitedly peering 
over Papa's shoulder. He pointed. "There 
written at the bottom of the letter."
Papa read it to himself. Then he smiled holding 
up the letter for us to see.
Tell them I sing was all it said.]] 
Sarah came in the spring. She came through 
green grass fields that bloomed with Indian 
paintbrush red and orange and blue-eyed grass.
Papa got up early for the long day's trip to the 
train and back. He brushed his hair so slick and 
shiny that Caleb laughed. He wore a clean blue 
shirt and a belt instead of suspenders.
He fed and watered the horses talking to them 
as he hitched them up to the wagon. Old Bess 
calm and kind; Jack wild-eyed reaching over to 
nip Bess on the neck.
"Clear day Bess" said Papa rubbing her nose.
"Settle down Jack." He leaned his head on 
Jack.
 And then Papa drove off along the dirt road]]
to fetch Sarah. Papa's new wife. Maybe. Maybe 
our new mother.
Gophers ran back and forth across the road 
stopping to stand up and watch the wagon. Far 
off in the field a woodchuck ate and listened. 
Ate and listened.
Caleb and I did our chores without talking. 
We shoveled out the stalls and laid down new 
hay. We fed the sheep. We swept and straightened 
and carried wood and water. And then our 
chores were done.
Caleb pulled on my shirt.
"Is my face clean?" he asked. "Can my face 
be too clean?" He looked alarmed.
"No your face is clean but not too clean" I 
said.
Caleb slipped his hand into mine as we stood 
on the porch watching the road. He was afraid.
"Will she be nice?" he asked. "Like Maggie?"
"Sarah will be nice" I told him.
"How far away is Maine?" he asked.
"You know how far. Far away by the sea."
"Will Sarah bring some sea?" he asked.]] 
"No you cannot bring the sea."
The sheep ran in the field and far off the cows 
moved slowly to the pond like turtles.
"Will she like us?" asked Caleb very softly.
I watched a marsh hawk wheel down behind 
the barn.
He looked up at me.
"Of course she will like us." He answered his 
own question. "We are nice" he added making 
me smile.
We waited and watched. I rocked on the 
porch and Caleb rolled a marble on the wood 
floor. Back and forth. Back and forth. The 
marble was blue.
We saw the dust from the wagon first rising 
above the road above the heads of Jack and 
Old Bess. Caleb climbed up onto the porch roof 
and shaded his eyes.
"A bonnet!" he cried. "I see a yellow bonnet!"
The dogs came out from under the porch ears 
up their eyes on the cloud of dust bringing 
Sarah. The wagon passed the fenced field and 
the cows and sheep looked up too. It rounded 
the windmill and the barn and the windbreak of]] 
Russian olive that Mama had planted long ago. 
Nick began to bark then Lottie and the wagon 
clattered into the yard and stopped by the steps.
"Hush" said Papa to the dogs.
And it was quiet.
Sarah stepped down from the wagon a cloth 
bag in her hand. She reached up and took off her 
yellow bonnet smoothing back her brown hair 
into a bun. She was plain and tall.
"Did you bring some sea?" cried Caleb beside 
me.
"Something from the sea" said Sarah smiling. 
"And me." She turned and lifted a black case 
from the wagon. "And Seal too."
Carefully she opened the case and Seal gray 
with white feet stepped out. Lottie lay down 
her head on her paws staring. Nick leaned down 
to sniff. Then he lay down too.
"The cat will be good in the barn" said Papa. 
"For mice."
Sarah smiled. "She will be good in the house too."
Sarah took Caleb's hand then mine. Her hands 
were large and rough. She gave Caleb a shell-]]
a moon snail, she called it-that was curled and smelled of salt.
"The gulls fly high and drop the shells on the rocks below," she told Caleb. "When the
shell is broken, they eat what is inside." "That is very smart," said Caleb.
"For You, Anna," said Sarah, "a sea stone." And she gave me the smoothest and whitest stone I had ever seen.
"The sea washes over and over and around the stone, rolling it until it is round and perfect."
"That is very smart, too," said Caleb. He looked up at Sarah. "We do not have the sea here."
Sarah turned and looked out over the plains.
"No," she said. "There is no sea here. But the land rolls a little like the sea."
My father did not see her look, but I did. And I knew that Caleb had seen it, too. Sarah was not smiling. Sarah was already lonely. In
a month's time the preacher might come to marry Sarah and Papa. And a month was a long time. Time enough for her to change
her mind and leave us.
Papa took Sarah's bags inside, where her room was ready with a quilt on the bed and blue flax dried in a vase on the night table.
Seal stretched and made a small cat sound. I watched her circle the dogs and sniff the air. Caleb came out and stood beside me. "When will we sing?" he whispered.
I shook my head, turning the white stone over and over in my hand. I wished everything was as perfect as the stone. l wished that Papa and Caleb and I were perfect for Sarah. I wished we had a sea of our own.
The dogs loved Sarah first. Lottie slept beside her bed, curled in a soft circle, and Nick leaned his face on the covers in the morning, watching for the first sign that Sarah was awake. No one knew where Seal slept. Seal was a roamer.
Sarah's collection of shells sat on the windowsill.
"A scallop," she told us, picking up the shells one by one, "a sea clam, an oyster, a razor clam. And a conch shell. If you put it to your ear you can hear the sea." She put it to
Caleb's ear, then mine. Papa listened, too. Then Sarah listened once more, with a look so sad and far away that Caleb leaned against me.
"At least Sarah can hear the sea," he whispered.
Papa was quiet and shy with Sarah, and so was I. But Caleb talked to Sarah from morning until the light left the sky.
"Where are you going?" he asked. "To do what?"
"To pick flowers," said Sarah. "I'll hang some of them upside down and dry them so they'll keep some color. And we can have flowers all winter long."
"I'll come, too!" cried Caleb. "Sarah said winter," he said to me. "That means Sarah will stay."
Together we picked flowers, paintbrush and clover and prairie violets. There were buds on the wild roses that climbed up the paddock fence.
"The roses will bloom in early summer," I told Sarah. I looked to see if she knew what I was thinking. Summer was when the wedding would be. Might be. Sarah and Papa's wedding.
We hung the flowers from the ceiling in little bunches. "I've never seen this before," said Sarah. "What is it called?"
"Bride's bonnet," I told her. Caleb smiled at the name.
"We don't have this by the sea," she said. "We have seaside goldenrod and wild asters and woolly ragwort."
"Woolly ragwort!" Caleb whooped. He made up a song.
"Woolly ragwort all around, Woolly ragwort on the ground, Woolly ragwort grows and grows, Woolly ragwort in your nose."
Sarah and Papa laughed, and the dogs lifted their heads and thumped their tails against the wood floor. Seal sat on a kitchen chair and watched us with yellow eyes.
We ate Sarah's stew, the late light coming through the windows. Papa had baked bread that was still warm from the fire.
"The stew is fine," said Papa.
"Ayuh." Sarah nodded. "The bread, too." "What does 'ayuh' mean?" asked Caleb. "In Maine it means yes," said Sarah "Do you want more stew?"
"Ayuh," said Caleb. "Ayuh," echoed my father.
After dinner Sarah told us about William. "He has a gray-and-white boat named Kittiwake." She looked out the window. "That is a small gull found way off the shore where William fishes. There are three aunts who live near us. They wear silk dresses and no shoes. You would love them."
"Ayuh," said Caleb.
"Does your brother look like you?" I asked.
"Yes," said Sarah. "He is plain and tall." At dusk Sarah cut Caleb's hair on the front steps, gathering his curls and scattering them on the fence and ground. Seal batted some hair around the porch as the dogs watched. "Why?" asked Caleb.
"For the birds," said Sarah. "They will use it for their nests. Later we can look for nests of curls."
"Sarah said later,"' Caleb whispered to me as we spread his hair about. "Sarah will stay." Sarah cut Papa's hair, too. No one else saw, but I found him behind the barn, tossing the pieces of hair into the wind for the birds. Sarah brushed my hair and tied it up in back with a rose velvet ribbon she had brought from Maine. She brushed hers long and free and tied it back, too, and we stood
side by side looking into the mirror. I looked taller, like Sarah, and fair and thin. And with my hair pulled back I looked a little like her daughter. Sarah's daughter.

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: No support

Dialog: Multiple speakers

Dialog: Broken dialogue

Dialog: Unlabeled Speaker

Vocabulary: More decoding/definition issues

Language: Many descriptive words

Sentences: Some Long/Complex

Text structure: Story/Poem

Inferences: Some implications

Complexity: Several ideas - closely related

Concepts: Concrete/Simple Social

Chapters

Features

Character traits

Integral Setting - Historical

Simple Plot

First Person

Topic

Mothers

*Family & Friends

*Feelings, Behaviors

Relationships

Sea

Low Frequency Words

advertisement	asters	ayuh	bass	blanked
conch	cousins	cruel	curled	curls
drawn	echoed	elisabeth	enclosing	energetic
excitedly	eyed	familiar	feisty	fenced
flax	flounder	fogbound	gathering	goldenrod
gophers	gull	gulls	handouts	harshly
hearthstones	holler	hollow	hoping	horrid
hundredth	insult	kittiwake	mannered	marsh
murmured	neighbor	neighbors	nighttime	olive
opinions	oyster	paddock	patches	paused
peering	pitchfork	plains	prairie	ragwort
rascal	razor	roamer	rough	rounded
scallop	seaside	seriously	shaded	shingles
shoveled	shuffling	smoothing	spooned	stall
stalls	stirred	straightened	suspenders	swept
teakettle	tennessee	troublesome	truly	turnips
twentieth	unfolded	velvet	violets	watered
wheaton	whooped	widened	windbreak	windmill
windowsill	witting	woodchuck	woolly	wretched