Sampler

The Sampler is an embroidered textile piece that Norma Crandall works on during a quiet evening at the Creed house on November 30, 1984, less than ten weeks before her death. It depicts a sun going down behind a small county meeting house, with the cross on the roof tree silhouetted black against the setting sun. Norma intends to sell it at the church sale the week before Christmas, an event she describes as "always a big event." The Sampler serves as a marker of Norma's final period of relative health and activity, and its creation is embedded in a scene of domestic peace that contrasts sharply with the horrors to come.

Creation and Context

Norma works on the Sampler while sitting with Jud Crandall and Louis Creed in the Creed living room, watching television. Her fingers move well, pushing the needle through the cloth and pulling it up through the steel circle; her arthritis is barely noticeable that night. Louis observes that she has recovered nicely from her heart attack and looks less haggard and actually younger, seeing the girl she had been. The evening is calm: Jud and Norma go home around ten o'clock, and the Creeds see the New Year in together in front of the TV. This is the last time Norma is in the Creed house.

Narrative Significance

The Sampler embodies the fragile normalcy of the Crandalls' and Creeds' lives before the accelerating tragedies. Norma's ability to work on it with steady hands, her plan to sell it at a church sale, and the quiet domestic scene all underscore the ordinary world that the Micmac burying ground's power will shatter. Louis's observation that Norma looks younger and healthier on this evening creates a poignant contrast with her sudden death from a cerebral accident, which occurs right after breakfast on a later morning. The Sampler itself—a handmade object destined for a community sale—represents the kind of simple, meaningful human activity that the novel's supernatural horror ultimately destroys.