The Scarlet Letter: Easy-read Edition

A crowd of serious-looking men with long beards, wearing dull-colored clothes and tall, pointy hats, stood outside a wooden building. Women joined them, some with hoods over their heads and others bareheaded. They were gathered in front of a heavy oak door reinforced with iron spikes. Whenever people start a new colony, no matter how hopeful and idealistic their plans might be, they always make sure to set aside land for two things: a graveyard and a prison. It was no different for the founders of Boston. Early on, they built a jail near Cornhill and established a burial ground nearby, around the grave of Isaac Johnson. By now, fifteen or twenty years after the town was settled, the wooden jail already looked old and weathered. Its dark, grim exterior seemed even more forbidding with stains and rust covering the thick ironwork on the door. The prison looked like it had never been new, as if it had always belonged to a world of crime and punishment. In front of the prison, between its door and the street, was a patch of wild grass overrun with scraggly weeds like burdock and pigweed. These ugly plants thrived in the soil, as though drawn to the grim purpose of the place—the prison, the “black flower” of society. But right next to the door, almost as if planted on purpose, stood a wild rosebush. It was in full bloom that June, its soft, beautiful flowers seeming out of place in such a harsh setting. The roses gave off a sweet scent, almost as if they were trying to offer comfort to prisoners entering the jail or to those walking out to face their punishment. It felt like nature’s quiet way of showing kindness and pity. This rosebush has become a small legend. Some say it was just a leftover from the wild forest that once surrounded the area. Others believe it grew under the footsteps of Ann Hutchinson, a woman known for her bravery and beliefs, as she walked into the prison long ago. Whatever its origin, this rosebush stands at the start of our story, as if offering one of its blossoms to the reader. Let’s hope it represents a small bit of beauty or hope that might appear in this tale of human weakness and suffering.