year of wonders

Merry Wickford is a nine-year-old Quaker girl who is the last of her family and the heir to the Wickford mine. She is bubbly and cheerful despite the deaths of her parents and siblings. In order to enable Merry to keep the family’s mine, Anna and Elinor take up picks and give Merry enough lead to meet her quota. Otherwise, Merry would have been forced to forfeit the mine. This shows Anna to bewilling to give, even in the form of hard labor.