Part One: Chapter I, Just Loaned Summary and Analysis

The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, by Maria Augusta Trapp, inspires stage and screen adaptations known to theatergoers as The Sound of Music. In her memoir, Maria is a recent graduate from Teacher's College. She is reviewing fifth grade workbooks when Reverend Mother Abess summons her. Novitiate candidates only see the Reverend Mother from afar. Worried over being in trouble over her tomboy antics, Maria takes a longer route to examine her conscience on her way to her superior's quarters.

Reverend Mother's sacred presence eases Maria's mind; however, a doctor prescribes time away from the convent to cure Maria's headaches. It is the Will of God that Maria leaves the abbey for a year to teach the bedridden child of a former sea captain, known as Baron von Trapp. Maria...