This re-telling of Mary Bradbury’s story from the perspective of the vegetables emphasizes power shifts. The vegetables are the assumed voice in the text. When allowed the power to read and write (given to them by the Colonial Vegetables Sewn Sampler Book), the veggies articulate their story of what they saw happen in Mary’s garden.
“With cheerful mind we leave to men.
The higher honors of the pen.
With a needle and thread we aim to please.
Ignore the words within and hear only these:”
Cabbage: I saw Ms. Bradbery
Houseleeks: As I daily Do.
Potato: Enter Our Patch to pick Tubers for Stew
Radish: She had gathered an armful of potato and radish
Onion: When a brown boar trot by looking wild and maddish
Foxglove: The fast-passing boar filled the old woman with fright.
She fell on her back and she lay there all night.
With her RUMP on the tansy And her HEAD by the teasel.
That horse spooked the boar. He’s a perjuring weasel.
The book includes two piezo speakers which tell a different story than the text. The speakers are separated into two channels, one behind the front cover and one before the back cover. The audio in the front speaker is emitted from behind the colorful embroidery which illustrates the Horse’s imagined in-court testimony:
While moving through the quilted pages, the front audio is slowly dampened and the rear audio emerges. Coming from the back speaker, we hear Mary’s words, directly from her trial: