When they found out that Fidelia was lost, they set out in the buggy to search for her, picking up Aunt Maria midway.

The narrative captures the dynamics between the two as they prepare for Thanksgiving, with Ann Mary keeping a watchful eye on her grandmother’s cooking endeavours.

That week the parson's wife visited Mrs. Jennings, and Ann Lizy noticed that she was carrying grandmother's green embroidered bag.

Since Dorothy's only family member is an old grandmother at the almshouse, she lives off the table scraps of Dame Betsey and her daughters, but still willingly shares her food with the poor little boy next door.

At the beginning of the story, Benjamin Wellman, who lives with his mother and his grandfather, brings back a puppy and asks to keep it as a pet.

His domineering grandfather refuses to let the puppy stay because his own seven-toed cat, Seventoes is afraid of dogs.

Grandfather sent mother to fish the cat out of the well, but before she could do it, Seventoes walked into the house, unhurt, because his extra toes had enabled him to climb up the well.

Mirandy managed to fill her bucket in Captain Moseby's lot, and started back towards the rest of her siblings, but when she tried to get through the vines separating Captain Moseby's lot and the rest of the pasture, a vine scratched Jonathan's leg, and he started kicking and screaming.

Mrs. Whitman is worried that the parsnip stew she is cooking would not be enough to feed her husband, children and brothers Caleb and Silas.

One day, Hiram Fairbanks, her brother, arrives with a boy he introduces as the orphaned son of the Dickeys, a lower-class family associated with questionable morals.

One day, Mrs. Rose realizes she could not find one of her silver teaspoons so she accuses the Dickey boy of thievery.

All week, Nancy worked hard picking blackberries, eventually earning the amount she needed to buy the basket.

Nancy obeyed her mother, leaving the money and the basket with the princess, but she remained sad, sobbing through supper.

Hannah Maria Green, a slim teenage girl, is sitting on the doorstep sewing a seam in a sheet when her younger friend, Mehitable Lamb, arrives to visit.

Then, Hannah remembers that her Uncle Timothy and Aunt Jenny had an orchard with early apples a little ways away from where they were.

Hannah met her mother's anger with grief, expressing remorse and saying she thought Mehitable would’ve told the adults where she was.

Freeman often sets her stories in small, local, close-knit towns where neighbors share common values and often interact.

At times Freeman highlights the localism of her towns through dialect, as seen in the way her characters often drop the ends of their words.

Now I'd be willin' to ventur' consider'ble that child don't have a thing on't.”[4] A common theme in Freeman's stories is the struggle in women between being a submissive woman, who adheres to traditional feminine roles, and being the domineering woman, who gains a more dominant role because she is unable to, or refuses to submit to men.

[5] Another example of the submissive woman fulfilling feminine roles is found in “The Little Persian Princess.” In the story, the princess sacrifices her royal position and becomes a cat to follow her brother—the male figure in her life.

In the same way, in stories such as “The Dickey Boy” and “Where Sarah Jane's Doll Went”, characters are identified according to their marital status.

Here, you’d better take her; I’ve got to finish my sewin’.” This scene demonstrates that Hannah Maria learns the roles of a woman from her domineering mother’s instructions.

[9] Similarly, the female characters that rebel against male dominance ultimately submit to gender roles when they are reminded of their social conditions.

Ultimately, Hannah is remorseful and again exhibits selflessness, a trait belonging to the submissive woman, when she gives her apples to Mehitable.

Their distant presence ultimately allows the children to recognize their wrong actions and feel remorse.

[9] Unlike her contemporaries, Freeman's stories do not feature overly wicked villains or external influences of industrialized metropolis.

[14] Similarly, Freeman herself highlights this racial hierarchical difference through her environmental descriptions; she sets whites in towns and houses and Indians in swamps and tents.

Due to the fact that Nancy buys the basket on Sunday, she breaks the Sabbath, an established cultural rule.

However, Freeman did not disappoint, and the Athenaeum gave Young Lucretia and Other Stories a positive review, commenting on the "artful simplicity of the style" and the "dramatic boldness of the narrative".

[20] Some scholars have criticized some of Freeman's depictions of minorities, such as showing "a gnomish Black man as weak, easily fooled, and child-like".