Hitty: Her First Hundred Years

What is the setting of the story, Hitty: Her First Hundred Years?

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If not the entire world, at least a great portion of it is the setting for this lively tale of adventure narrated from the point of view of a doll. Perhaps the setting that makes the most lasting impression is the Preble farm on the Maine coast, where Hitty comes is created by the old peddler, and to where she returns, perhaps a hundred years later. It is a comforting, ideal place, and Rachel Field presents it with carefully chosen details that make it sound like a place where any child would like to grow up. Hardly less absorbing ,is the depiction of the Diana-Kate, the whaling vessel on which the entire Preble family, including Hitty, takes to the sea, from Boston to the South Pacific. Thereafter, the scenes shift rapidly from the island on which the Prebles are marooned, to Bombay, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and with many places in between. Although many of these place descriptions are brief, they are all vivid. Even the locales where Hitty spends many inactive years, such as between the cushions of a sofa or in the hayloft of a bam, are entirely believable: It was far from unpleasant in the hayloft. A softer bed I could not have found one more sweet and warm in winter ... . I saw whole generations of field mice grow from babyhood to maturity . . . Sometimes the mice took pity on my sad state and when they were washing their babies' faces, they would wash mine, too.

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