Hello all,
I wrote this piece as part of an extra credit assignment for my AP English Language class my junior year of high school. I found it sitting in my google drive and thought that it would make a good addition here. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Cheers,
jJustadreamer
Hester Prynne. Such was the name that identified the young woman who lived alone in the small cottage on the outskirts of town. Strikingly beautiful the dame was, yet grief marred her heart. It is said that happiness does not come easy to those whose features have been directly favored by the Heavenly Father.
The young woman's living conditions were fair, for she was a talented seamstress whose hands were a result of the best blessings of God. Men and women from all over the vast Massachusetts Bay Colony came to have even a single garment made by the hands of the skilled seamstress, for the work's quality was revered to be the best in the Puritan land. And yet the young dame looked upon her gift as a source of shame, something that she had used to quell her inconsolable grief instead of by the righteous words of the Heavenly Father in the Bible. Hester tried to atone for her selfishness of her needlework, her sin, by rejecting the extra money of those who she believed admired her work too highly, telling them to instead put their money to good use for the betterment of their virtuous families looked upon by the eyes of God.
Hester was almost always pitied by her fellow townspeople, saddened by the burden they knew she had to carry throughout her days. She kept her head down when she left her cottage for the market or for chapel to avoid the glances and condolences her fellow puritans tried to offer her. She did not need the sympathy of her fellow townspeople as she knew that her misfortune couldn't be changed. Her heavenly father had cemented her fate, and if He had decided that she would live unhappy and widowed for the rest of her days in Puritan Boston, she would happily oblige to His will.
It seemed as if Hester Prynne's life was continually marred by struggle, as if the Lord were testing her devotion at every turn. You see, her husband had bought a piece of land in the colony with the promise that he would arrive in a short couple month's time. But months, and eventually years, had passed with no sign of contact from him. The townspeople had speculated what had happened to the man and conspiracies ranged from the his death on the perilous voyage to his abandonment due to a new maiden back in the Old World. But the latter claim was often regarded just as foolishness as Hester Prynne was known throughout the town for the halo of beauty that surrounded her. But it was not a delicate beauty that surrounded Hester, although she possessed deep, dark eyes and glossy brown hair. It was her dignity and strength of character despite misfortune that truly enamored the townspeople.
And that beauty served Hester well on that fateful Sunday, the one in which the town was buzzing with excitement over the arrival of a new minister. As Hester traveled upon her usual route to the Sunday service at the Chapel, the townspeople hardly spared her a glance, too preoccupied with talking about speculations.
Hester took her seat in the Chapel, hearing bits of the conversations of those around her. The woman in the town chattered about the marriageability of the new minister, as there were plenty of young maidens in the town in need of good husbands in order to eventually bear their virtuous, Puritan sons for the success of the colony.
"Goodwives," bellowed a hard-featured women of about fifty seated near Hester, "I'd say our new minister is of marriageable age to any of our girls. What think ye, gossips. It would be for the public behoof if new babes were born, new sons to lead the colony on the path of righteousness." The youngest of the women blushed softly, for she knew she was the one being addressed.
Hester resigned herself from the conversation, only focused on the sermon the new minister would give. Perhaps it would be about sin of unfaithfulness? Or the sanctity of marriage? But alas, it did not matter, for Hester Prynne knew she was not destined to be married again, or to bear a child to be raised or cherished. It was true that she had not loved her husband, but perhaps a child would have served as her happiness, her sole joy in this bleak world.
The townspeople grew hush as the new minister entered the chapel, his dark, melancholy eyes and tremulous mouth suggesting great kindness and sensitivity. The minister's strong frame stood out against the crowd of the broad-shouldered Puritans, not yet as delicate as they would be in future generations. The cadence of the minister's voice was almost alluring in his sermon, as if he were speaking the words of God himself, and Hester, along with the rest of the town, was enamored.
Hester had never heard such a powerful sermon before, although it seemed as if she could not remember the exact topic it was about. All she could think about was how the minister's eyes, dark and handsome, spotted only her through the entire crowd. Perhaps they could meet again?