Margret Howth: A Story of To-Day

Margret Howth: A Story of To-Day Summary | Chapter 1 Summary

Margret Howth: A Story of To-Day is Rebecca Harding Davis' novel of life in a textile mill town in Indiana, in the early 1860's. Contrary to most popular novels written in this time period, the author presents the unattractive side of the emerging Industrial Age and the imminent Civil War in America.

The novel begins with the narrator, Margret Howth, explaining that she is about to tell a story of To-Day. Margret's world is a bleak one, where hunger and poverty rule, and hope is a distant memory. Margret hopes that her story will be told when she is dead, so that people will know the anguish of the time in which she lived.

Margret shares that the reason that she is writing this book is because the sight of some old journals today has prodded her memory back to October 1860, and her life in a mill town in Indiana. The ledger is the record of the mill where she worked, Knowles & Co., a woolen manufacturing company.

Margret describes the meticulous writing in the ledger, and how its style indicates that a woman wrote it. Even if history does not remember her name, they will know that it was she who wrote on those pages.

Margret has taken the position in the accounting office at the mill that is owned by Dr. Knowles, a friend of Margret's father. On her first day at this job, which also happens to be her twentieth birthday, Margret climbs the steep ladder to the tiny, dark office that she shares with a scrawny chicken in a cage.

Margret's first day is a short one of methodical transferring of figures from one ledger to another. Although the work is tedious, there is a sense of satisfaction when Dr. Knowles comes to the office to send her home.

Dr. Knowles has known Margret all her life and knows that she has given up the idea of love and marriage for the sake of working to support her mother and newly blind father. Margret knows that the fleshy doctor watches her with more than a friendly intent, yet she takes her time putting on her hat and shawl and climbing back down the ladder to the main floor of the mill. Tomorrow, she will work a full day like the others, sweating at these machines. However, for now, Margret is happy to be once more outside in the fresh air.

The walk back home is long, past the rowhouses, through the suburbs, and finally into the country. Margret is aware that Dr. Knowles follows her at a comfortable distance. The old doctor stops and waits, as Margret reaches her home and embraces her father, who sits on the porch awaiting her return.

Having given Margret and her father some time alone, Dr. Knowles makes his way to the stone cottage for his nightly visit to the family. Dr. Knowles studies Margret intently, as she moves about the cottage in her household tasks, even as her father and the doctor engage in one of their ritual arguments. Dr. Knowles had been coming to the house every day during the last month to tend to Margret's father, a schoolteacher who has gone blind. Now, the doctor continues to come, even though his medical skills are not urgently required.

Margret watches the doctor and her father walk outside and notes with tenderness how the doctor holds back any intrusive tree branches that her father cannot see. Margret hears her father tell Dr. Knowles that some new plan of the doctor's is bound to fail, but Margret is unaware of the scheme and continues with her chores.

Margret looks lovingly at her mother dozing in a chair, the burden of poverty and illness having stripped her vitality over the past few months. Margret also silently gives thanks that her father cannot see that she and her mother have sold many of the family's possessions, such as house wares and artwork, so that they could have a little money to run the household.

When evening comes, the warm light from the fireplace casts a lovely glow on the now sparsely furnished room. For these few minutes, it seems that the house is as it used to be. Margret wills the old feelings of comfort and beauty to return and feels within herself that it will happen.