This Other Eden

by

Paul Harding

Eha is the son of Esther and her white father. Because Esther eventually kills her father (and Eha’s father as well), Zachary Hand becomes like a father to Eha instead. In one of Eha’s most formative memories, Zachary Hand takes him out to the woods on the mainland off Apple Island and teaches him about harvesting lumber and doing carpentry. Eha is the one who builds the Honey shack that the other Honeys like Esther live in, and he’s also the one who tears the shack down and preserves all the pieces when the Apple Islanders get evicted. His preservation of the house shows the commitment of a new generation to upholding the traditions of the island community.

Eha Honey Quotes in This Other Eden

The This Other Eden quotes below are all either spoken by Eha Honey or refer to Eha Honey. 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:
Family Theme Icon
).
Part 1 Quotes

So Theophilus poked around the shack and brooded over the pile of sleeping children like a mother robin, wearing the dress and shopkeeper’s apron, and whenever any islander passed by he paused at his aimless chores or rose from the chair outside the door and came to the edge of the dirt yard and wrung his hands in an old red rag he took from the apron’s front pocket, nodded at the passerby and said, What lack ye, Mr. Diamond? What lack ye, Eha Honey? To the children he asked, What lack ye, my little salted cods? What lack ye, my little oysters?

Candace Lark never liked housekeeping and was no good at it anyway. A particular squalor surrounded the Larks’ shack when she had been in charge of domestic order. Much of that had been due to the children, who arrived one after another for eight years, counting the five that didn’t live. But even considering mothering and scant means and the necessity of staying home while Theophilus fished, Candace lacked instinct for tending her kids and shack.

Related Characters: Theophilus Lark (speaker), Matthew Diamond, Eha Honey, Candace Lark
Page Number: 27
Explanation and Analysis:

Esther watched Tabby and Lotte and Ethan come up the path. The memory of curling up on her side, still-unnamed Eha in her arms, the water by then alternately pulling and pushing them both toward the depths and back onto the rocks, and her thinking that was cruel—Just drown us now, quick—as ever overwhelmed her, not because it was vague and dim and made her feel like she’d suffered some awful half-recollected disfigurement while practically still a child herself, but because she remembered every single detail of it all and because she did it all on purpose. She shuddered, at the shame of almost having murdered her son and therefore her three grandchildren, but also in gratitude for God having taken all their fates out of her selfish hands.

Or Zachary, she corrected herself. Gratitude for Zachary—or God through Zachary—having taken all their fates out of her selfish young hands.

Related Characters: Esther Honey (speaker), Ethan Honey, Eha Honey, Zachary Hand, Tabitha Honey, Charlotte Honey
Page Number: 84
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3 Quotes

Matthew answered, Yes, certainly, a well would do wonders, new, sounder cabins would help with the cold, woodstoves, too. I know two men here who are marvelous carpenters, and I am half decent myself. A bridge would help the islanders feel more connected to the town, and help people on the main come here with their washing or fishing lines that need mending. They could have horses and wagons, even, perhaps. They could even attend a proper church. Well, I, perhaps not right in town, then. There’s a Negro meeting house—church—the—it’s called the Abyssinian Meeting House—in Portland—they could get to more easily.

Related Characters: Matthew Diamond (speaker), Eha Honey, Zachary Hand, The Governor
Page Number: 155
Explanation and Analysis:

You have to leave the island.

Related Characters: Matthew Diamond (speaker), Ethan Honey, Esther Honey, Bridget, Eha Honey, The Governor
Page Number: 164
Explanation and Analysis:

There’d been no real need to get onto the tree, but Zachary had said to Eha, Well, get up onto it and see if it’s sound. It’s going to be your house.

Zachary interlocked his hands into a stirrup and Eha put a foot in it and Zachary launched him up onto the trunk. Zachary clambered up like he was a bear scrambling for a beehive full of honey. There was no need for the man and the boy to stand on top of the tree other than for the man to take pleasure in the work and the boy to thrill at the work and his part in it and for the view, for the simple novelty of standing eight feet up on top of the tree they’d just felled with the old saw. Zachary looked at the tree, smiling with transparent pleasure, thinking maybe about the first time he himself had cut down a tree with his father, and he seemed to Eha from that moment on like his own father, his real, blood father.

Related Characters: Zachary Hand (speaker), Esther Honey, Eha Honey
Page Number: 177
Explanation and Analysis:

While the girls helped Bridget, Eha circled a length of rope around Esther’s middle, threading it in and out of the chair’s backrest splats.

Related Characters: Esther Honey, Eha Honey, Rabbit, Tabitha Honey, Charlotte Honey
Page Number: 205
Explanation and Analysis:

And Esther, sleeping in her rocking chair in the house—as she did now, lashed to the deck of the raft—would awaken at the commotion and know it was Ethan come back and cry out, Is that our boy? Bring him here! Bring him here so I can see his beautiful face!

Related Characters: Esther Honey (speaker), Ethan Honey, Eha Honey
Page Number: 212
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 4 Quotes

As the light left the sky, John Thorpe saw Zachary Hand to God wading away from the island across the channel, chest-deep in the water. Zachary held what looked like an old faded and patched flag bundled and knotted together by the corners above his head. His silhouette cut through the invisible current of the tide and to Thorpe he looked like a threadbare angel abandoning the wrecked ship over which he’d once been guardian, light fanning across the water behind him as he pushed against the incoming flood.

Related Characters: Patience Honey, Eha Honey, Zachary Hand
Related Symbols: Flag
Page Number: 221
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire This Other Eden LitChart as a printable PDF.
This Other Eden PDF

Eha Honey Quotes in This Other Eden

The This Other Eden quotes below are all either spoken by Eha Honey or refer to Eha Honey. 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:
Family Theme Icon
).
Part 1 Quotes

So Theophilus poked around the shack and brooded over the pile of sleeping children like a mother robin, wearing the dress and shopkeeper’s apron, and whenever any islander passed by he paused at his aimless chores or rose from the chair outside the door and came to the edge of the dirt yard and wrung his hands in an old red rag he took from the apron’s front pocket, nodded at the passerby and said, What lack ye, Mr. Diamond? What lack ye, Eha Honey? To the children he asked, What lack ye, my little salted cods? What lack ye, my little oysters?

Candace Lark never liked housekeeping and was no good at it anyway. A particular squalor surrounded the Larks’ shack when she had been in charge of domestic order. Much of that had been due to the children, who arrived one after another for eight years, counting the five that didn’t live. But even considering mothering and scant means and the necessity of staying home while Theophilus fished, Candace lacked instinct for tending her kids and shack.

Related Characters: Theophilus Lark (speaker), Matthew Diamond, Eha Honey, Candace Lark
Page Number: 27
Explanation and Analysis:

Esther watched Tabby and Lotte and Ethan come up the path. The memory of curling up on her side, still-unnamed Eha in her arms, the water by then alternately pulling and pushing them both toward the depths and back onto the rocks, and her thinking that was cruel—Just drown us now, quick—as ever overwhelmed her, not because it was vague and dim and made her feel like she’d suffered some awful half-recollected disfigurement while practically still a child herself, but because she remembered every single detail of it all and because she did it all on purpose. She shuddered, at the shame of almost having murdered her son and therefore her three grandchildren, but also in gratitude for God having taken all their fates out of her selfish hands.

Or Zachary, she corrected herself. Gratitude for Zachary—or God through Zachary—having taken all their fates out of her selfish young hands.

Related Characters: Esther Honey (speaker), Ethan Honey, Eha Honey, Zachary Hand, Tabitha Honey, Charlotte Honey
Page Number: 84
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3 Quotes

Matthew answered, Yes, certainly, a well would do wonders, new, sounder cabins would help with the cold, woodstoves, too. I know two men here who are marvelous carpenters, and I am half decent myself. A bridge would help the islanders feel more connected to the town, and help people on the main come here with their washing or fishing lines that need mending. They could have horses and wagons, even, perhaps. They could even attend a proper church. Well, I, perhaps not right in town, then. There’s a Negro meeting house—church—the—it’s called the Abyssinian Meeting House—in Portland—they could get to more easily.

Related Characters: Matthew Diamond (speaker), Eha Honey, Zachary Hand, The Governor
Page Number: 155
Explanation and Analysis:

You have to leave the island.

Related Characters: Matthew Diamond (speaker), Ethan Honey, Esther Honey, Bridget, Eha Honey, The Governor
Page Number: 164
Explanation and Analysis:

There’d been no real need to get onto the tree, but Zachary had said to Eha, Well, get up onto it and see if it’s sound. It’s going to be your house.

Zachary interlocked his hands into a stirrup and Eha put a foot in it and Zachary launched him up onto the trunk. Zachary clambered up like he was a bear scrambling for a beehive full of honey. There was no need for the man and the boy to stand on top of the tree other than for the man to take pleasure in the work and the boy to thrill at the work and his part in it and for the view, for the simple novelty of standing eight feet up on top of the tree they’d just felled with the old saw. Zachary looked at the tree, smiling with transparent pleasure, thinking maybe about the first time he himself had cut down a tree with his father, and he seemed to Eha from that moment on like his own father, his real, blood father.

Related Characters: Zachary Hand (speaker), Esther Honey, Eha Honey
Page Number: 177
Explanation and Analysis:

While the girls helped Bridget, Eha circled a length of rope around Esther’s middle, threading it in and out of the chair’s backrest splats.

Related Characters: Esther Honey, Eha Honey, Rabbit, Tabitha Honey, Charlotte Honey
Page Number: 205
Explanation and Analysis:

And Esther, sleeping in her rocking chair in the house—as she did now, lashed to the deck of the raft—would awaken at the commotion and know it was Ethan come back and cry out, Is that our boy? Bring him here! Bring him here so I can see his beautiful face!

Related Characters: Esther Honey (speaker), Ethan Honey, Eha Honey
Page Number: 212
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 4 Quotes

As the light left the sky, John Thorpe saw Zachary Hand to God wading away from the island across the channel, chest-deep in the water. Zachary held what looked like an old faded and patched flag bundled and knotted together by the corners above his head. His silhouette cut through the invisible current of the tide and to Thorpe he looked like a threadbare angel abandoning the wrecked ship over which he’d once been guardian, light fanning across the water behind him as he pushed against the incoming flood.

Related Characters: Patience Honey, Eha Honey, Zachary Hand
Related Symbols: Flag
Page Number: 221
Explanation and Analysis: