{"id":36468,"date":"2021-05-25T11:54:41","date_gmt":"2021-05-25T15:54:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=36468"},"modified":"2021-06-02T23:29:24","modified_gmt":"2021-06-03T03:29:24","slug":"polly-fever-1793","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/polly-fever-1793\/","title":{"rendered":"Polly: Fever 1793’s First Yellow Fever Victim"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Who is Polly in Fever<\/em> 1793? Why was Polly’s death significant to the story?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Fever 1793, <\/em>Polly was the first person Matilda knew of to die of yellow fever. Polly was Matilda’s childhood friend and she was shocked to hear the news. At the time, they didn’t know that Polly’s death would be the first of many.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep reading to learn more about Polly in Fever 1793.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Who Is Polly in Fever 1793<\/em><\/strong>?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Who is Polly in Fever 1793?<\/em> Here is her story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Downstairs, Matilda found Eliza in the large kitchen preparing gingerbread for the day. Matilda loved Eliza for more than her cooking abilities. Eliza was kind and often slipped a sugar cube in the bottom of her bowl of oatmeal. Eliza was born into slavery in Virginia. When she married, her husband used his savings to buy her freedom. Eliza had been saving up to buy his, but he was killed by a wild horse. Eliza stopped speaking and went into a deep mourning, something Lucille knew well. The two women became connected through their sorrow. After a few years, Eliza\u2019s light finally turned back on inside, but Lucille\u2019s never did.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The kitchen was the smaller of the two downstairs rooms. The largest was the serving room for their customers. That morning, Grandpa was also nowhere to be found. Matilda offered to search for him and Polly, but her mother ordered her to tend to the dying garden. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matilda hated taking orders. Now that she was getting older, Lucille treated her more like a servant than a daughter. Matilda couldn\u2019t wait until she could leave home. She wanted to move to Paris and bring back French fineries, like cloth and jewelry, to sell to Philadelphia\u2019s elite. She wanted to buy a city block and open a restaurant, a pharmacy, a school, or maybe a hatter\u2019s shop. She had big dreams<\/a> and believed she would reach them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But for now, she was a daughter stuck in the house. She begrudgingly went to water the scorched garden, which is where her mother found her when she returned from searching for Polly. Lucille told Matilda that Polly fell ill the night before and collapsed. She was dead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Disbelief<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Matilda couldn\u2019t believe the news about Polly\u2019s death. The two were close friends before Polly became their servant. They\u2019d played with dolls and made up songs while churning butter. Matilda closed her eyes and tried to conjure the memory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matilda, Lucille, and Eliza sat at the kitchen table, letting the news sink in. Polly hadn\u2019t suffered. She came down with a fever, and an hour later, she died. There had been no time for a doctor. Eliza worried about the other seven children in the house and thought Matilda should take some food over to ease their suffering. But Lucille wouldn’t hear of it. She forbade Matilda from going anywhere near the house or to the funeral.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Matilda was livid. She accused her mother of being cruel but immediately regretted it. Her mother had once been gentle and full of laughter and smiles. But since her husband\u2019s death, Lucille had become a worn captain in the battle for their lives. Matilda was merely a soldier required to obey.<\/strong> She apologized at once.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who is Polly in Fever 1793? Why was Polly’s death significant to the story? In Fever 1793, Polly was the first person Matilda knew of to die of yellow fever. Polly was Matilda’s childhood friend and she was shocked to hear the news. At the time, they didn’t know that Polly’s death would be the first of many. Keep reading to learn more about Polly in Fever 1793.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":36478,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,33],"tags":[298],"class_list":["post-36468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-people","tag-fever-1793","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nPolly: Fever 1793's First Yellow Fever Victim - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In Fever 1793, Polly was the first casualty of the yellow fever epidemic. 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