A Lion to Guard Us

“‘Will it be a story?’ asked the boy. ‘It will be like a story,’ said Amanda, and she shut the door.”

As Amanda transitions from a dependent child into independence, she finds herself responsible for the physical and mental well-being of her siblings due to her father’s absence and her mother’s illness. Amanda relays information and gives hope to her siblings through storytelling, reminding them of their family’s history, their future with their father in America, and the exciting occurrences of the day (like the sailor’s visit).

“‘There is a land called America,’ said Amanda, ‘Some call it the New World. It’s across the sea, and it’s a beautiful land with rivers and trees and birds. Indians live there, and they wear feathers and shoot bows and arrows.’”

For the children, the “New World” is both a real place where they know their father is and an imaginary idyllic place where there is the promise of a better life than the one they have in London. Amanda describes America in almost fairytale terms as a land where their family could have a happy ending.

“‘There was a door knocker on the house where we used to live. Before Father went away, he took it off and gave it to us.’ ‘He gave it to me,’ said Jemmy. ‘He gave it to all of us. It was a lion’s head. He said it was a lion to guard us while he was gone.’”

The lion’s head door knocker is the symbol of the united family, and the children associate it with their father’s protection and the better life he has promised to provide them in America. It is the lion who guards them in the book’s title. Jemmy’s insistence that their father gave it to him foreshadows his role in retrieving it later in the book.