“A few blocks south lay the Walnut Street Prison, where Blanchard had flown that remarkable balloon. From the prison’s courtyard it rose, a yellow silk bubble escaping the earth. I vowed to do that one day, slip free of the ropes that held me. Nathaniel Benson had heard me say it, but he did not laugh. He understood.”

At the beginning of the novel, Matilda’s main goal is to escape the limitations of her life: the constant chores, her mother’s demands, and a sense that she is not allowed to make her own decisions. The hot-air balloon symbolizes her desires to achieve independence and freedom through traveling and running her own business.

“When I was eight, she got a letter saying her husband had been killed by a runaway horse. That was her worst day. She didn’t say a word for months. My father had only been dead two years, so Mother knew just what lay in Eliza’s heart. They both supped sorrow with a big spoon, that’s what Mother said. It took years, but the smile slowly returned to Eliza’s face. She didn’t turn sour like Mother did.”

Anderson provides an early introduction to the theme of death and the varieties of human response. Mother and Eliza both suffered the loss of their husbands. In Mother’s case, she loses hopes, “turn[s] sour,” and always expects the worst in a life she believes is full of hardship—an attitude that also “sour[s]” her relationship with Matilda, whom she criticizes harshly. Eliza, on the other hand, regains hope and positivity after tragedy. Throughout the novel, the author examines reactions to loss and sorrow in the context of a great epidemic.

“If I was going to work as hard as a mule, it might as well be for my own benefit. I was going to travel to France and bring back fabric and combs and jewelry that the ladies of Philadelphia would swoon over. And that was just for the dry goods store. I wanted to own an entire city block—a proper restaurant, an apothecary, maybe a school, or a hatter’s shop. Grandfather said I was a Daughter of Liberty, a real American girl. I could steer my own ship. No one would call me little Mattie. They would call me ‘Ma’am.’”

Matilda expresses her desire for independence, an unusual goal for a teenage girl in 1793. Like her new country, America, Matilda wants “Liberty,” and she chafes against being called “little Mattie” by those who still see her as a child. While most young women of the time focused on marriage—and, in fact, Matilda’s mother tries to find a suitable match for her in the first part of the novel—Matilda has almost limitless dreams for her future, none of which involve being under the control of a man.