Janet Phillips
5 October 1999

                               Dreaming in Color: Mary E. W. Freeman’s A New England Nun and Other  Stories

    Mary E.W. Freeman is another tragic yet blessed writer who gained her fame and title of a ‘local colorist’ from the recollections of the bleakness of her life. During the Civil War, in the year 1867, Freeman  was born in Massachusetts. Freeman learned at an early age what it meant to worry about money and the constant fear of the quantity of food  available to feed the entire family. This unoriginal, all too common background inspired and gave rise to A New England Nun and Other Stories, a collection of several short stories of poverty-stricken households and people who try to overlook their depressing atmosphere with a façade of  past and future elegance.

    This collection of stories are a romanticist’s dream world, of dusty rose wall colors, delicate, yet intricate lace curtains, silk  dresses, stories of sisters that never leave each other as well as the lovers who would do anything for their counter. It’s a world in which the readers feel almost compelled to divulge his or her self into the typical cliché of curling up with a good book and a nice hot cup of cocoa on a cold winters day. Through this collection of short stories, Freeman is
able to create a sense of comfort and well being before crushing the readers with the realm of reality. At times though, her realistic endings are often duplicated answers to the pretentious, over melodramatic situations.

    There is no one common character repeated in this collection. However, many of these characters are constructed with the same idiosyncrasies. These manufactured characters are usually good-natured at heart and religious, though they are shamelessly tempted by evil and at times act upon it. This classic mannerism ranges from envying a pair of “…
elegant Nottingham-lace draperies…” (322), to stealing a package because he or she is too poor to buy presents at Christmas. Therefore, like other realistic writers of her day, Freeman has captured the true essence of
humans who are veiled in a blanket of doom. At the same time, being a ‘local colorist,’ Freeman has the ability to mimic language; “‘you look as if you were turnin’ Injun by inches…’” (396) and attitude, which was present during this point in history. The readers, as well, are caught in the whirlwind of drama and soon these characters win the love and
respect from the readers, who, by the way, cheer these pitiful characters into victory. For you see, these fictional characters surprisingly gather enough strength to defeat their problems. Once again, there is a fairy tale ending with a little bleakness mixed in for flavor.

    In one story, “The Gala Dress," the readers are introduced to two sisters, Emily and Elizabeth Babcock, who are preparing for a Forth of July picnic. This pair of sisters share one black silk dress for they feel, “…their notions of etiquette, black silk was as sacred a necessity as feathers at the English court” (44). All in all, Emily is the chosen
one to wear this endangered dress to the picnic. Once there, she is bombarded with accusations of only owning one silk dress by Matilda Jennings, a noisy, envious neighbor, (for she did not have the financial ability to own such a dress). Emily, who dodges answering this question, runs home, only to step over a patch of fireworks. Thus, creating a hole
in the bottom of her favorite dress. Both sisters are distraught, but lucky enough to receive two black silk dresses from their recently deceased aunt. Ashamed of hiding the truth, these moral characters reveal the truth to Matilda and allow her to wear the old, holed dress. So, like a fairy-tale story, the good characters always win and the bad must revel
with their own outcome.

    Surprisingly enough though, Freeman has an uncanny ability to keep the readers entertained and wanting to read more. Similar to Poe, she throws an extra character or a repeated image into the story. So, the reader knows at the beginning that there is a foreshadowing that something is going to happen. In, “The Twelfth Guest,” and extra plate is set out
by accident for Christmas dinner. And therefore, “it’s a sign somebody’s comin’…” (54). Later that night, a young girl appeared on their doorstep and entered the family’s lives forever. Now, as the reader’s full attention is being sucked into these short stories, the readers’ minds are reinvented and they emerge as a newly born detective and they cannot stop
reading until all secrets, mysteries and twisting turn of events are unlocked. However, all macho men in the world who have problems connecting with their more emotional, feminine side need not bother trying to read this collection of short stories. If they do, they might choke on the stories that talk of giddy matrimony, lace and velvet trims on black silk dresses, who’s coming a courting, piano/singing wars and rose scented homemade potpourri.    

    Though this is not one of the more popular, boring books deemed as a classic and shoved down the throats of those who, at one point, attended high school, there is a chance for this collection of short stories to rise to greatness. This compilation of short stories all have a similar, realistic plot the readers can easily identify with and understand. Though it is more directed toward and appreciated by women, anyone who takes the time to be intellectually challenge by reading, rather than waiting for the movie, cannot help but fall in love with the characters and gain a sense of the hardship that they, as well as Freeman, have lived through.