Right in front of you

I often read old children's books when I'm looking for something undemanding. So while I was on the plane to the US for work^[1] I read Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher, an orphan story from 1916 with some not particularly subtle Montessori propaganda mixed in.

Overall I found the book enjoyable but not spectacular. But there was one early scene that particularly stood out for me. It's a wonderful description of dropping out of useless overthinking into sudden clarity.

First, a quick bit of setup. Elizabeth Ann lives in the city with her aunt and great-aunt. They're kind and well-meaning neurotic messes who spend their time stressing out about every tiny aspect of the child's life. They keep up with the latest psychological theories, consult the doctor about every potential illness, and make sure the teacher knows how sensitive and delicate she is. Elizabeth Ann is unsurprisingly also a neurotic mess.

For reasons that don't matter here, she gets sent to live with relatives who are their polar opposites, big solid farm people who just get on with life. She gets picked up from the station by her Great-uncle Henry and expects a long series of solicitous questions about how the journey went and how she's feeling. Instead, he just bundles her into the wagon and tells her to drive it herself:

"I've got some figgering to do. You pull on the left-hand rein to make 'em go to the left and t'other way for the other way, though 'taint likely we'll meet any teams."

Elizabeth Ann is very anxious to follow the instructions correctly, but keeps getting in a muddle. She has to remember which is her left hand and which is her right hand, and whether the horses are currently going too far left or too far right, and use all this information to track which rein she currently needs to pull. It's all very complicated and stressful, and she makes a mistake and nearly drives them off the road. Great-uncle Henry just keeps on going with his arithmetic.

Finally she has a revelation:

And then suddenly something inside Elizabeth Ann's head stirred and moved. It came to her, like a clap, that she needn't know which was right or left at all. If she just pulled the way she wanted them to go—the horses would never know whether it was the right or the left rein!

The author makes a big deal about how this is Elizabeth Ann's first original thought that isn't regurgitated book-learning from school. I can see that too, but what I like is the sudden jump into directly seeing what needs to happen. Everything she needs to know is right in front of her.