Apple Picking Season Summary

The novel begins in the Fall of 1666. The main character, Anna Frith, is a servant to the village priest, who she tries to get to eat some apples, but he is despondent and broken. Everyone looks weary and Anna thinks back to happier times when she married Sam Frith at age fifteen and left a drunken father and stepmother who overworked Anna. Sam dies, but she has two sons. She cares for Michael Mompellion, the preacher, because his wife, Elinor, is dead. Anna is lonely at night when her empty house gives her no comfort, her children having died in the plague. The next morning, she milks her cow and carries some milk to Michael. At the rectory, she encounters Elizabeth Bradford, whose family fled the village and the plague. When Anna announces Elizabeth's presence, Mompellion tells Anna to...