Quote 10
I knew he'd say no. Why had I even asked? I stared at my hands—red, cracked, old woman's hands—and saw what was in store for me: a whole summer of drudgery and no money for it. Cooking, cleaning, washing, sewing, feeding chickens, slopping pigs, milking cows, churning cream, salting butter, making soap, plowing, planting, hoeing, weeding, harvesting, haying, threshing, canning—doing everything that fell on the eldest in a family of four girls, a dead mother, and a pissant brother who took off to drive boats on the Erie Canal and refused to come back and work the farm like he ought to.
I was yearning, and so I had more courage than was good for me. "Pa, they pay well," I said. "I thought I could keep back some of the money for myself and give the rest to you. I know you need it." (2.fractious.115-116)
Think about all the duties Mattie lists on the farm. Previously, her father has stated that he can't run the farm alone, and it becomes clear here that running a farm in the early twentieth century Adirondacks requires a ton of hard labor, long days, and self-sacrifice. Mattie is the only one who can help Pa as much as he needs it, and she's torn between her desire to do so and her desire to earn money to go to college.
Quote 11
"But you can't break a promise to anyone who's dead. They'll come back and haunt you if you do. Why are you asking?"
Ada blinks at me with her huge, dark eyes, and even though it's boiling hot in our room, I suddenly feel cold. I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling. "No reason," I say. (11.22-23)
Mattie made two promises to dead people: She promised her mother she would stay, and she promised Grace she would burn her letters. Does this fall in the components of duty and responsibility, and how is Mattie haunted for eventually breaking both of these promises? (Boo.)
Quote 12
And then one moved higher and before I knew what was happening, he was kneading my breast, pushing and pulling on it like he might a cow's teat.
"Stop it, Royal," I said, breaking away, my face flaming.
"What's wrong?" he asked. "You saving them?"
I couldn't look at him.
"For who, Matt?"
And then he laughed and started back home. (13.xerophilous.37-42)
Mattie likens the way Royal touches her to how he touches a cow—instead of flowery language and intimate caresses, Royal treats her like a farm animal, a commodity. And then he has the audacity to ask Mattie why she wants him to stop and laugh at her, as though it's funny she has an opinion on this interaction. If we didn't dislike Royal and his treatment of women, we sure do now. Clearly, he doesn't value Mattie for more than her body.