For example, she uses her petticoat as a fishing net. She uses some of these to enable her weakened grandfather to survive when they’re abandoned in the Pennsylvania countryside-“Find a willow tree and you’ll soon find water nearby Raspberry bushes mean rabbits are about”-but she also has to improvise off of these basic skills using the objects she has at hand. From childhood, Mattie has been taught “old soldier’s tricks” and basic survival skills by her veteran grandfather.
When the epidemic turns ordinary life upside down, adaptability proves to be a potentially lifesaving trait, both for Mattie and for the Philadelphia medical establishment. By showcasing Mattie and the doctors’ “American” traits of ingenuity and ambition in this way, Anderson suggests that characteristics like these, especially when directed toward the good of others and society at large, can help struggling people come together, survive, and thrive. A similar adaptability saves the day on a broader scale, helping Philadelphia doctors conquer the outbreak. However, Mattie still puts her ambition and ingenuity to work, proving herself adaptable and thereby surviving the fever, even helping others survive.
Grandfather said I was a Daughter of Liberty, a real American girl.” The yellow fever epidemic disrupts all such dreams, making even ordinary survival seem an unlikely achievement. At the beginning of Fever 1793, Mattie Cook daydreams about her business ambitions: “I wanted to own an entire city block-a proper restaurant, an apothecary, maybe a school, or a hatter’s shop.
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