Lily Norris' Enemy — Story, Setting & Ideas

A Voice of Impatience and Affection

The opening lines capture a tone of affectionate exasperation. Maggie calls Lily “trying to our patience,” and Bessie adds that Lily is “tryinger than any child we know.” The grammar itself—tryinger—signals a child’s perspective, not an adult’s. Mathews sustains this voice throughout the excerpt: the girls speak in short, emphatic sentences, with interjections like “Yes, I b'lieve she just is.” The narrator occasionally steps in to clarify, but the dialogue drives the scene. This technique keeps the prose lively and immediate, matching the impatience the characters feel.

Pacing Through Embedded Stories

Tom’s story about Will Sturges introduces a marked shift in pace. The narrative slows as Tom recounts Will’s chronic tardiness, his broken promises, and the eventual accident. The sentences lengthen, and the tone becomes more serious. Mathews uses this inset tale to illustrate the consequences of procrastination without halting the main plot. The story-within-a-story structure allows the moral to emerge naturally, while the return to Lily’s own struggles with delay keeps the pacing varied. The reader moves from the quick exchanges of the girls to the measured, cautionary rhythm of Tom’s narrative, then back to Lily’s immediate reactions.

Recurring Details of Delay

Throughout the excerpt, small details reinforce the theme of procrastination. Will “always thought it was time enough to put [things] in their places by and by”; he loses books, papers, and pencils; he is late for trains and picnics. These concrete examples build a pattern. The phrase “by and by” recurs, as does the idea of “plenty of time.” Mathews does not simply tell the reader that procrastination is harmful—she shows it through a series of specific, relatable failures. The repeated emphasis on time—watches, clocks, mail schedules—anchors the abstract vice in everyday experience, making the lesson tangible for young readers.

Readers attentive to shifts in tempo will notice how Mathews alternates between rapid dialogue and slower, reflective passages. The embedded story of Will Sturges is the novel’s moral center, but it is delivered through a character’s voice, not the narrator’s. This layered storytelling rewards careful reading: the lesson is earned, not imposed. Pay attention to how Lily responds to Tom’s tale—her curiosity and doubt hint at her own struggle with the very vice being described.

Reading Lily Norris' Enemy, I kept noticing how its gentle lessons linger in quiet conversations rather than bold declarations. That same unhurried warmth drifted back to me later, like a familiar tune, when I revisited The Overall Boys in Switzerland — A Closer Reading. Both carry that patient, almost parental tone, where small moments teach more than any grand event ever could.