Sentence No. 142 · 16 August 2026
As we looked upward, the tops of the firs came sharp against the blue sky.
Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs
Sarah Orne Jewett — The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896) · Read it at Project Gutenberg
What holds this sentence together
A dependent clause opening with 'As' sets the scene and must be followed by a comma before the main clause arrives. Once you spot 'As we looked upward,' the rest describes what appeared — so the subject 'the tops of the firs' must come next.
How it appears in Sentle
On Sentle this sentence arrives in 7 pieces, shuffled, with the lines that lead up to it for context. A visitor gazes up at pointed firs on a small island. Putting it back in the author’s order is the puzzle — and the order is rarely arbitrary, which is what the note above is about.
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