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Mr. Lapham
Mrs. Lapham is Mr. Lapham’s daughter-in-law. She has four daughters, Madge, Dorcas, Cilla, and Isannah, and she manages her father-in-law’s apprentices as well. A coarse, thick woman who’s very loud, Johnny appreciates Mrs. Lapham but doesn’t like her much. Mrs. Lapham is extremely interested in securing her family’s future, so she encourages Johnny to work on the Sabbath so he can finish John Hancock’s sugar basin on time. When this backfires and Johnny burns his hand, rendering him unable to work silver, Mrs. Lapham becomes cold and cruel to him—she uses the same mean names for Johnny as Johnny once used against his fellow apprentices. She also begins entertaining a Mr. Tweedie to become Mr. Lapham’s business partner and marry one of her daughters—though ultimately, she marries him herself. All of this leads Johnny to hate Mrs. Lapham. It’s only after he’s been out of the Lapham house for a while that Johnny can appreciate how hard Mrs. Lapham works for her family, making sure everyone is fed and that there’s enough money coming through the silver shop to support everyone.
Mrs. Lapham Quotes in Johnny Tremain
The Johnny Tremain quotes below are all either spoken by Mrs. Lapham or refer to Mrs. Lapham. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 1
Quotes
Fetching water, sweeping, helping in the kitchen, tending the annealing furnace in the shop were the unskilled work the boys did. Already Johnny was so useful at the bench he could never be spared for such labor. It was over a year since he had carried charcoal or a bucket of water, touched a broom or helped Mrs. Lapham brew ale. His ability made him semi-sacred. He knew his power and reveled in it. He could have easily made friends with stupid Dove, for Dove was lonely and admired Johnny as well as envied him. Johnny preferred to bully him.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7
Quotes
Even Mrs. Lapham now did not seem so bad. Poor woman, how she had struggled and worked for that good, plentiful food, the clean shirts her boys had worn, the scrubbed floors, polished brass! No, she had never been the ogress he had thought her a year ago. There never had been a single day when she had not been the first up in the morning. He, like a child, had thought this was because she liked to get up. Now he realized that there must have been many a day when she was as anxious to lie abed as Dove himself.
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Mrs. Lapham Quotes in Johnny Tremain
The Johnny Tremain quotes below are all either spoken by Mrs. Lapham or refer to Mrs. Lapham. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 1
Quotes
Fetching water, sweeping, helping in the kitchen, tending the annealing furnace in the shop were the unskilled work the boys did. Already Johnny was so useful at the bench he could never be spared for such labor. It was over a year since he had carried charcoal or a bucket of water, touched a broom or helped Mrs. Lapham brew ale. His ability made him semi-sacred. He knew his power and reveled in it. He could have easily made friends with stupid Dove, for Dove was lonely and admired Johnny as well as envied him. Johnny preferred to bully him.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7
Quotes
Even Mrs. Lapham now did not seem so bad. Poor woman, how she had struggled and worked for that good, plentiful food, the clean shirts her boys had worn, the scrubbed floors, polished brass! No, she had never been the ogress he had thought her a year ago. There never had been a single day when she had not been the first up in the morning. He, like a child, had thought this was because she liked to get up. Now he realized that there must have been many a day when she was as anxious to lie abed as Dove himself.
