The Country of the Pointed Firs and Selected Short Fiction Read online

  Table of Contents

  FROM THE PAGES OF THE COUNTRY OF THE POINTED FIRS AND SELECTED SHORT FICTION

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  SARAH ORNE JEWETT

  THE WORLD OF SARAH ORNE JEWETT AND THE COUNTRY OF THE POINTED FIRS

  Introduction

  THE COUNTRY OF THE POINTED FIRS

  Chapter 1. - The Return.

  Chapter 2. - Mrs. Todd.

  Chapter 3. - The Schoolhouse.

  Chapter 4. - At the Schoolhouse Window.

  Chapter 5. - Captain Littlepage.

  Chapter 6. - The Waiting Place.

  Chapter 7. - The Outer Island.

  Chapter 8 . - Green Island.

  Chapter 9 . - William.

  Chapter 10. - Where Pennyroyal Grew.

  Chapter 11. - The Old Singers.

  Chapter 12. - A Strange Sail.

  Chapter 13. - Poor Joanna.

  Chapter 14. - The Hermitage.

  Chapter 15. - On Shell-heap Island.

  Chapter 16. - The Great Expedition.

  Chapter 17. - A Country Road.

  Chapter 18. - The Bowden Reunion.

  Chapter 19. - The Feast’s End.

  Chapter 20. - Along Shore.

  Chapter 21. - The Backward View.

  FOUR DUNNET LANDING STORIES

  THE QUEEN’S TWIN

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  A DUNNET SHEPHERDESS

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  THE FOREIGNER

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  WILLIAM’S WEDDING

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  SELECTED OTHER STORIES

  A WHITE HERON

  I

  II

  THE DULHAM LADIES

  THE COURTING OF SISTER WISBY

  A WINTER COURTSHIP

  A NATIVE OF WINBY

  I

  II

  III

  DECORATION DAY

  I

  II

  III

  THE PASSING OF SISTER BARSETT

  THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  THE HILTONS’ HOLIDAY

  I

  II

  THE GUESTS OF MRS. TIMMS

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  NON-FICTION

  THE WHITE ROSE ROAD

  FOR THE COMPANION - LOOKING BACK ON GIRLHOOD

  FIRST PAPER

  ENDNOTES

  INSPIRED BY SARAH ORNE JEWETT

  COMMENTS & QUESTIONS

  FOR FURTHER READING

  FROM THE PAGES OF

  THE COUNTRY OF THE POINTED FIRS

  AND SELECTED SHORT FICTION

  We were standing where there was a fine view of the harbor and its long stretches of shore all covered by the great army of the pointed firs, darkly cloaked and standing as if they waited to embark. As we looked far seaward among the outer islands, the trees seemed to march seaward still, going steadily over the heights and down to the water’s edge. (from The Country of the Pointed Firs, page 29)

  Her hospitality was something exquisite; she had the gift which so many women lack, of being able to make themselves and their houses belong entirely to a guest’s pleasure,—that charming surrender for the moment of themselves and whatever belongs to them.

  (from The Country of the Pointed Firs, page 43)

  In the life of each of us, I said to myself, there is a place remote and islanded, and given to endless regret or secret happiness.

  (from The Country of the Pointed Firs, page 73)

  “You can never tell beforehand how it’s goin’ to be, and ’t ain’t worth while to wear a day all out before it comes.”

  (from The Country of the Pointed Firs, page 76)

  The ease that belongs to simplicity is charming enough to make up for whatever a simple life may lack, and the gifts of peace are not for those who live in the thick of battle.

  (from The Country of the Pointed Firs, page 111)

  So we die before our own eyes; so we see some chapters of our lives come to their natural end.

  (from The Country of the Pointed Firs, page 112)

  One can never be so certain of good New England weather as in the days when a long easterly storm has blown away the warm late-summer mists, and cooled the air so that however bright the sunshine is by day, the nights come nearer and nearer to frostiness.

  (from “The Queen’s Twin,” page 123)

  So the day did not begin very well, and I began to recognize that it was one of the days when nothing could be done without company.

  (from “A Dunnet Shepherdess,” page 141)

  “I can’t think of anything I should like so much as to find that heron’s nest.” (from “A White Heron,” page 202)

  To be leaders of society in the town of Dulham was as satisfactory to Miss Dobin and Miss Lucinda Dobin as if Dulham were London itself. (from “The Dulham Ladies,” page 207)

  “When you remember, in years to come, that I came here to see the old school-house, remember that I said: Wish for the best things, and work hard to win them; try to be good men and women, for the honor of the school and the town, and the noble young country that gave you birth; be kind at home and generous abroad. Remember that I, an old man who had seen much of life, begged you to be brave and good.” (from “A Native of Winby,” page 253)

  “I can forgive a person, but when I’m done with ’em, I’m done.”

  (from “The Guests of Mrs. Timms,” page 341)

  Being a New Englander, it is natural that I should first speak about the weather. (from “The White Rose Road,” page 349)

  Published by Barnes & Noble Books

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  The Country of the Pointed Firs was first published in 1896.

  See For Further Reading (p. 383) for detailed information on the original

  publication of all texts in this edition.

  Published in 2005 by Barnes & Noble Classics with new Introduction,

  Notes, Biography, Chronology, Inspired By, Comments & Questions,

  and For Further Reading.

  Introduction, Notes, and For Further Reading

  Copyright © 2005 by Ted Olson.

  Note on Sarah Orne Jewett, The World of Sarah Orne Jewett

  and The Country of the Pointed Firs, Inspired by

  Sarah Orne Jewett, and Comments & Questions

  Copyright © 2005 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

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  without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Barnes & Noble Classics and the Barnes & Noble Classics colophon are

  trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc.

  The Country of the Pointed Firs and Selected Short Fiction

  ISBN 1-59308-262-2

&nbs
p; eISBN : 978-1-411-43167-6

  LC Control Number 2004112691

  Produced and published in conjunction with:

  Fine Creative Media, Inc.

  322 Eighth Avenue

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  Michael J. Fine, President and Publisher

  Printed in the United States of America

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  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  FIRST PRINTING

  SARAH ORNE JEWETT

  Sarah Orne Jewett was born on September 3, 1849, in South Berwick, Maine. Her family lived in a comfortable house next door to her paternal grandparents. From an early age her educated family and especially her father instilled in her a love of literature, and she read widely. Sarah’s father, a country doctor, took her in his horse-drawn carriage to see patients, often as an alternative to attending a village school; she also frequently failed to attend school because of recurring bouts of rheumatism. On their trips together Sarah’s father taught her to carefully observe the Maine countryside and coastal towns and the country folk who lived there. Sarah’s travels with her father and the time she spent listening to the local sailors who swapped stories in her grandfather’s general store fed her talent for storytelling; by age eighteen Sarah had published her first piece of fiction, “Jenny Garrow’s Lovers (1868),” under the pen name A. C. Eliot. Having received an inheritance from her grandfather, she was free to pursue a writer’s life without financial worries.

  William Dean Howells, then editor of the acclaimed Atlantic Monthly, accepted the story “Mr. Bruce” in 1869, thereby launching Jewett’s career. While in her imagination and writing Jewett may have remained loyal to her native state, her literary circle stretched far beyond the borders of South Berwick and included some of the most distinguished authors of the era. Through Howells, and later her lifelong friend Annie Fields, Jewett came to know such figures as Mark Twain, Matthew Arnold, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Alfred Tennyson, Henry James, and Charles Dickens.

  In 1873 the Atlantic Monthly published “The Shore House,” a sketch about life in the fictional Maine town of Deephaven, which resembled South Berwick. (The magazine first published most of the short works that Jewett later published in book form.) With this sketch Jewett began to find her voice as a “local color” writer—that is, one who focuses on the unique qualities of a particular region and its people. With Howell’s editorial guidance, these sketches and others were later collected in Jewett’s first book, Deephaven (1877).

  Jewett was greatly saddened by her father’s death in 1878 and eventually dedicated two books to him: Country By-Ways (1881), a book of nonfiction sketches, and A Country Doctor (1884), a novel whose main character is based on her father. By the mid-1880s Jewett was producing the work for which she is best known. In 1886 she published A White Heron and Other Stories, a book of short fiction. The title story is one of the most anthologized in America. Her short story collections from this fruitful time include The King of Folly Island, and Other People (1888) and A Native of Winby, and Other Tales (1893).

  Jewett’s quiet life in South Berwick was often interrupted by travels in America and abroad. She frequently divided her time between her own home and Fields’s residences in Boston and Manchester-by-the-Sea on the Massachusetts coast. She made four major journeys to Europe with Fields, as well as numerous excursions to visit friends in the New England area.

  When her masterpiece, The Country of the Pointed Firs, was serialized in the Atlantic Monthly and then published in book form by Houghton Mifflin in 1896, Jewett was at the height of her literary powers. Glowing reviews from the likes of Henry James and Rudyard Kipling and excellent book sales helped cement her reputation as a leading author of the time. In 1900 Jewett received an honorary doctorate from Bowdoin College—the first the institution had ever given to a woman.

  A carriage accident on her birthday in 1902 left Jewett too physically incapacitated to write, thus effectively ending her literary career. She did, however, maintain her numerous friendships; in her final years she became a mentor to the promising young writer Willa Cather, who was inspired by Jewett’s writing. In 1909 Sarah Orne Jewett was partly paralyzed by a stroke but still expressed good spirits and humor in her letters. She died of a second stroke on June 24 in South Berwick.

  THE WORLD OF SARAH ORNE JEWETT AND THE COUNTRY OF THE POINTED FIRS

  1849 Sarah Orne Jewett is born on September 3 in South Berwick, Maine. The second of three daughters, she will spend most of her childhood in the spacious family house adjacent to her paternal grandparents’ home.

  1850 Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter appears. The Fugitive Slave Law is enacted.

  1851 Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville, is published.

  1852 Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, is published.

  1854 Walden, by Henry David Thoreau, is published.

  1855 Caroline Augusta, Jewett’s sister, is born. Walt Whitman’s slim first edition of Leaves of Grass is published.

  1861 After attending a village school irregularly (because of rheumatism, which she suffers from girlhood), Jewett enters Berwick Academy. The American Civil War begins.

  1862 Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book The Pearl of Orr’s Island—a local color work that later inspires Jewett’s writing—is pub lished.

  1863 Abraham Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation.

  1865 Jewett graduates from Berwick Academy and ends her for mal education. She considers pursuing a career in medicine but decides against it because of frail health. She begins to write short fiction. The Civil War ends. President Lincoln is assassinated. Whitman’s Drum-Taps, a book of Civil War poetry, is published.

  1868 Jewett’s first story to be accepted for publication, “Jenny Garrow’s Lovers,” appears in the Flag of Our Union under the pen name A. C. Eliot. Jewett travels to Cincinnati, where she stays with relatives for several months. She frequently travels to Boston and New York. Louisa May Alcott pub lishes Little Women.

  1869 Following the rejection of several other stories, Jewett’s story “Mr. Bruce” is accepted by the Atlantic Monthly and pubished under the name A. C. Eliot. The Union Pacific Railroad is completed, linking the east and west coasts of the United States. Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad is published.

  early 1870s William Dean Howells, editor of the Atlantic Monthly, introduces Jewett to a number of Boston-area literati.

  1873 “The Shore House,” the first of a number of sketches set in the fictional town of Deephaven, Maine, is published in the Atlantic Monthly. During this period she forms lasting bonds with her Cambridge and Boston friends.

  1875 She travels to Philadelphia, Chicago, and Wisconsin.

  1876 Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is published. Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone.

  1877 With Howell’s editorial guidance, Jewett refines and pub lishes her first book, Deephaven, a collection of previously published sketches and other writings.

  1878 Jewett is deeply saddened by the death of her father. Play Days, a book of children’s stories, is published.

  1880 Jewett develops a lifelong friendship with Boston literary figure Annie Fields (1834-1915), the wife of Atlantic Monthly publisher and editor James T. Fields.

  1881 Fields’s husband dies. Jewett and Fields will spend part of each year together until Jewett’s death. They will travel widely in the United States and Europe and will meet many prominent American and European writers, including Mark Twain, Henry James, John Greenleaf Whittier, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Alfred Tennyson, Rudyard Kipling, and Charles Dickens. Country By-Ways, a book of nonfiction sketches dedicated to Jewett’s father, is published.

  1882 Jewett and Fields sail for Europe, the first of four major trips they will take to the continent.

  1884 Jewett’s first novel, A Country Doctor, whose main character is based on her father, is published. Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn appears.

  1885 Jewett’s second novel, A Marsh Island, is published in book for
m.

  1886 Jewett publishes A White Heron, and Other Stories, a collection of short fiction that includes the popular satiric story “The Dulham Ladies.”

  1888 The King of Folly Island, and Other People, one of Jewett’s finest short-story collections, is published.

  1890 A novel for younger readers, Betty Leicester, is published. William James’s Principles of Psychology is published.

  1892 Jewett and Fields make a second trip to Europe. Jewett’s au tobiographical essay “Looking Back on Girlhood” is pub lished in the magazine Youth’s Companion.

  1893 A Native of Winby, and Other Tales is published.

  1895 The Life of Nancy is published.

  1896 Jewett and Fields take a cruise through the Caribbean. Jewett’s masterpiece, The Country of the Pointed Firs, is serialized in the Atlantic Monthly and then published in book form by Houghton Mifflin. The reviews are overwhelmingly positive, and the book earns the admiration of such writers as Henry James and Rudyard Kipling.

  1898 Jewett and Fields travel to Europe a third time.

  1899 The Queen’s Twin, and Other Stories is published. It contains two stories that take place in Dunnet Landing, the fictional town of The Country of the Pointed Firs.

  1900 Jewett and Fields make a fourth visit to Europe. The Atlantic Monthly publishes “The Foreigner,” another Dunnet Landing story and one that some consider Jewett’s best story.

  1901 Jewett is the first woman to receive an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Bowdoin College in Maine. The Tory Lover, the final major volume of her work published during her lifetime, is published following its serialization in the Atlantic Monthly.