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The Country of the Pointed FirsFirst Edition, 1896
Sarah Orne Jewett
To Alice Greenwood Howe
Alice Greenwood Howe was a close Boston and Manchester friend and sometimes neighbor of Jewett, Mrs. Howe expressed great admiration for The Country of the Pointed Firs when it first appeared in serial form in The Atlantic. Biographer Elizabeth Silverthorne says that Jewett's dedication was a surprise to her friend.
More Stories of Mrs. Todd and the Blacketts
The Queen's Twin
A Dunnet Shepherdess
The Foreigner
William's Wedding
From a letter by Sarah Orne Jewett to Mary E. Mulholland, 23 December 1899, as reprinted in Sarah Orne Jewett Letters, ed. Richard Cary, 1967. Cary says that Mary was thirteen when she received this letter.
I thank you sincerely for your most kind letter, and I wish to tell you how much pleasure it gives me to know that you like my stories, and especially that you are such a friend of Miss Betty Leicester! I must own that I took a great liking to her myself when I was writing her, and that she has always seemed to me to be a real person. And it is just the same way with Mrs. Todd.
I cannot tell you just where Dunnet Landing is except that it must be somewhere 'along shore' between the regions of Tenants Harbor and Boothbay, or it might be farther to the eastward in a country that I know less well. It is not any real 'landing' or real 'harbor' but I am glad to think that you also know that beautiful stretch of seacoast country, and so we can feel when we think about it, as if we were neighbours. If you ever read the Atlantic Monthly magazine you will find a new chapter about Mrs. Todd and one of her friends in this new February number, and I hope that you will like it. [Cary identifies this story as "The Queen's Twin."]
I am sure that you must like a great many other books since you like these stories of mine. And I am so glad, because you will always have the happiness of finding friendships in books, and it grows pleasanter and pleasanter as one grows older. And then the people in books are apt to make us understand 'real' people better, and to know why they do things, and so we learn sympathy and patience and enthusiasm for those we live with, and can try to help them in what they are doing, instead of being half suspicious and finding fault. It is just the same way that a beautiful picture makes us quicker to see the same things in a landscape, to look for rich clouds and trees, and see their beauty.
The Country of the Pointed Firs
Sarah Orne Jewett
I. THE RETURN.
[ Contents ]
THERE WAS SOMETHING about the coast town of Dunnet* which made it seem more attractive than other maritime villages of eastern Maine. Perhaps it was the simple fact of acquaintance with that neighborhood which made it so attaching, and gave such interest to the rocky shore and dark woods, and the few houses which seemed to be securely wedged and tree-nailed* in among the ledges by the Landing. These houses made the most of their seaward view, and there was a gayety and determined floweriness in their bits of garden ground; the small-paned high windows in the peaks of their steep gables were like knowing eyes that watched the harbor and the far sea-line beyond, or looked northward all along the shore and its background of spruces and balsam firs.* When one really knows a village like this and its surroundings, it is like becoming acquainted with a single person. The process of falling in love at first sight is as final as it is swift in such a case, but the growth of true friendship may be a lifelong affair.
After a first brief visit made two or three summers before in the course of a yachting cruise, a lover of Dunnet Landing returned to find the unchanged shores of the pointed firs, the same quaintness of the village with its elaborate conventionalities; all that mixture of remoteness, and childish certainty of being the centre of civilization of which her affectionate dreams had told. One evening in June, a single passenger landed upon the steamboat wharf. The tide was high, there was a fine crowd of spectators, and the younger portion of the company followed her with subdued excitement up the narrow street of the salt-aired, white-clapboarded little town.
Notes for Chapter 1
Many of the following notes are adapted from the Oxford UP World's Classics edition of The Country of the Pointed Firs, edited by Terry Heller.Dunnet: Dunnet Landing is a fictional town, though its readers have associated it with the area of Martinsville and Port Clyde, Maine, where Jewett summered in 1895. See "Letters and Photographs."
spruces and balsam firs: Spruces and balsam firs are both types of evergreen trees. The 1913 Webster's unabridged says, The fragrant herb Dracocephalum Canariense is familiarly called balm of Gilead, and so are the American trees, Populus balsamifera, variety candicans (balsam poplar), and Abies balsamea (balsam fir). For the phrase "balm in Gilead," see Jeremiah 8:21-2.
tree-nailed: tree-nails are wooden pegs for joining timbers. They swell when dampened, and so are useful in ship-building.
II. MRS. TODD.
[ Contents ]LATER, THERE WAS only one fault to find with this choice of a summer lodging-place, and that was its complete lack of seclusion. At first the tiny house of Mrs. Almira Todd, which stood with its end to the street, appeared to be retired and sheltered enough from the busy world, behind its bushy bit of a green garden, in which all the blooming things, two or three gay hollyhocks and some London-pride, were pushed back against the gray-shingled wall. It was a queer little garden and puzzling to a stranger, the few flowers being put at a disadvantage by so much greenery; but the discovery was soon made that Mrs. Todd was an ardent lover of herbs, both wild and tame, and the sea-breezes blew into the low end-window of the house laden with not only sweet-brier and sweet-mary, but balm and sage and borage and mint, wormwood and southernwood. If Mrs. Todd had occasion to step into the far corner of her herb plot, she trod heavily upon thyme,* and made its fragrant presence known with all the rest. Being a very large person, her full skirts brushed and bent almost every slender stalk that her feet missed. You could always tell when she was stepping about there, even when you were half awake in the morning, and learned to know, in the course of a few weeks' experience, in exactly which corner of the garden she might be.
At one side of this herb plot were other growths of a rustic pharmacopœia, great treasures and rarities among the commoner herbs. There were some strange and pungent odors that roused a dim sense and remembrance of something in the forgotten past. Some of these might once have belonged to sacred and mystic rites, and have had some occult knowledge handed with them down the centuries; but now they pertained only to humble compounds brewed at intervals with molasses or vinegar or spirits in a small caldron on Mrs. Todd's kitchen stove. They were dispensed to suffering neighbors, who usually came at night as if by stealth, bringing their own ancient-looking vials to be filled. One nostrum was called the Indian remedy, and its price was but fifteen cents; the whispered directions could be heard as customers passed the windows. With most remedies the purchaser was allowed to depart unadmonished from the kitchen, Mrs. Todd being a wise saver of steps; but with certain vials she gave cautions, standing in the doorway, and there were other doses which had to be accompanied on their healing way as far as the gate, while she muttered long chapters of directions, and kept up an air of secrecy and importance to the last. It may not have been only the common ails of humanity with which she tried to cope; it seemed sometimes as if love and hate and jealousy and adverse winds at sea might also find their proper remedies among the curious wild-looking plants in Mrs. Todd's garden.
The village doctor and this learned herbalist were upon the best of terms. The good man may have counted upon the unfavorable effect of certain potions which he should find his opportunity in counteracting; at any rate, he now and then stopped and exchanged greetings with Mrs. Todd over the picket fence. The conversation became at once professional after the briefest preliminaries, and he would stand twirling a sweet-scented sprig in his fingers, and make suggestive jokes, perhaps about her faith in a too persistent course of thoroughwort elixir,* in which my landlady professed such firm belief as sometimes to endanger the life and usefulness of worthy neighbors.
To arrive at this quietest of seaside villages late in June, when the busy herb-gathering season was just beginning, was also to arrive in the early prime of Mrs. Todd's activity in the brewing of old-fashioned spruce beer.* This cooling and refreshing drink had been brought to wonderful perfection through a long series of experiments; it had won immense local fame, and the supplies for its manufacture were always giving out and having to be replenished. For various reasons, the seclusion and uninterrupted days which had been looked forward to proved to be very rare in this otherwise delightful corner of the world. My hostess and I had made our shrewd business agreement on the basis of a simple cold luncheon at noon, and liberal restitution in the matter of hot suppers, to provide for which the lodger might sometimes be seen hurrying down the road, late in the day, with cunner line in hand.* It was soon found that this arrangement made large allowance for Mrs. Todd's slow herb-gathering progresses through woods and pastures. The spruce-beer customers were pretty steady in hot weather, and there were many demands for different soothing syrups and elixirs with which the unwise curiosity of my early residence had made me acquainted. Knowing Mrs. Todd to be a widow, who had little beside this slender business and the income from one hungry lodger to maintain her, one's energies and even interest were quickly bestowed, until it became a matter of course that she should go afield every pleasant day, and that the lodger should answer all peremptory knocks at the side door.
In taking an occasional wisdom-giving stroll in Mrs. Todd's company, and in acting as business partner during her frequent absences, I found the July days fly fast, and it was not until I felt myself confronted with too great pride and pleasure in the display, one night, of two dollars and twenty-seven cents which I had taken in during the day, that I remembered a long piece of writing, sadly belated now, which I was bound to do. To have been patted kindly on the shoulder and called "darlin'," to have been offered a surprise of early mushrooms for supper, to have had all the glory of making two dollars and twenty-seven cents in a single day, and then to renounce it all and withdraw from these pleasant successes, needed much resolution. Literary employments are so vexed with uncertainties at best, and it was not until the voice of conscience sounded louder in my ears than the sea on the nearest pebble beach that I said unkind words of withdrawal to Mrs. Todd. She only became more wistfully affectionate than ever in her expressions, and looked as disappointed as I expected when I frankly told her that I could no longer enjoy the pleasure of what we called "seein' folks." I felt that I was cruel to a whole neighborhood in curtailing her liberty in this most important season for harvesting the different wild herbs that were so much counted upon to ease their winter ails.
"Well, dear," she said sorrowfully, "I've took great advantage o' your bein' here. I ain't had such a season for years, but I have never had nobody I could so trust. All you lack is a few qualities, but with time you'd gain judgment an' experience, an' be very able in the business. I'd stand right here an' say it to anybody."
Mrs. Todd and I were not separated or estranged by the change in our business relations; on the contrary, a deeper intimacy seemed to begin. I do not know what herb of the night it was that used sometimes to send out a penetrating odor late in the evening, after the dew had fallen, and the moon was high, and the cool air came up from the sea. Then Mrs. Todd would feel that she must talk to somebody, and I was only too glad to listen. We both fell under the spell, and she either stood outside the window, or made an errand to my sitting-room, and told, it might be very commonplace news of the day, or, as happened one misty summer night, all that lay deepest in her heart. It was in this way that I came to know that she had loved one who was far above her.
"No, dear, him I speak of could never think of me," she said. "When we was young together his mother didn't favor the match, an' done everything she could to part us; and folks thought we both married well, but 't wa'n't what either one of us wanted most; an' now we're left alone again, an' might have had each other all the time. He was above bein' a seafarin' man, an' prospered more than most; he come of a high family, an' my lot was plain an' hard-workin'. I ain't seen him for some years; he's forgot our youthful feelin's, I expect, but a woman's heart is different; them feelin's comes back when you think you've done with 'em, as sure as spring comes with the year. An' I've always had ways of hearin' about him."
She stood in the centre of a braided rug, and its rings of black and gray seemed to circle about her feet in the dim light. Her height and massiveness in the low room gave her the look of a huge sibyl, while the strange fragrance of the mysterious herb blew in from the little garden.
Notes for Chapter 2Hollyhocks, London Pride, sweet-brier, sweet-mary, balm, sage, borage, mint, wormwood, southernwood:
Most of the information about plants and trees here and in later chapter notes comes from the following sources.
Nancy Wetzel, "Reading the Gardens at the Sarah Orne Jewett House," a 2005 guide to plantings at the Jewett House in South Berwick. Wetzel provides species names, physical descriptions and other information about many of the herbs and flowers, and she also lists some medicinal uses.
Ted Eden, "A Jewett Pharmacopoeia," Colby Quarterly 28:3, September 1992, pp. 140-143. Eden provides information about medicinal uses of plants, especially herbs and trees, and some physical descriptions. He is the only source for the "language of flowers" information.
Other sources are identified in individual notes.Hollyhocks are tall garden flowers with many blossoms. Alcea, flowers of pink, white and yellow in July to August, growing to 7 feet.
London Pride, see essay by Nancy M. Wetzel
Sweet-brier is a European rose with big, strong thorns and a single pink blossom; rose hips (the fruit) are a source of vitamin C and are used for jellies and sauces; stands for `poetry' in the nineteenth-century language of flowers. Rosa eglanteria.
Sweet-mary. Eden identifies this as sweet marjoram, an herb used for cooking; as a mouthwash and gargle for sore throat; for rheumatism; used as snuff to relieve headaches. Wetzel speculates: "May refer to Chrysanthemum balsamita var. tanacetoides, costmary, or Monarda fistulosa, also known as beebalm, Oswego tea and bergamot. M. fistulosa is a native perennial, lilac flowers in July-August, 36 inches. Used by native Americans."
Balm refers to a wide variety of plants and trees. See notes for Chapter 1. Balm of the mint family is an herb used as a stimulant and to soothe cuts and headaches. Bergamot, Monarda fistulosa, (also known as bee balm) is used to soothe sore throats and as a mild sedative.
Sage is an herb used to flavor meats; as a hot drink for coughs, colds, and constipation, as a tonic tea; symbolic connotation, wisdom. Wetzel adds: Salvia officinalis, perennial with silver leaves, 36 inches; "herb for the aged that is good for the brain and the palsy."
Borage is used medicinally to reduce fevers, relieve liver and kidney troubles, as a laxative; also used in salads. Wetzel says this is a “tame” herb in Mrs. Todd’s garden, not found in the wild. Borago officinalis, an annual with broad silver leaves and blue star flowers, 30”. “The herb of gladness”, according to tradition; reduces fevers.
Mint comes in a variety of kinds and is used for flavor; mint tea relieves morning sickness during pregnancy.
Wormwood is an herb used medicinally and to make absinthe (an alcoholic liqueur); symbolizes gall and bitterness; stands for 'absence' in the language of flowers. Artemisia absinthium, perennial with silver foliage, growing to 15”. Remedy for worms and moth repellent.
Southernwood. Abrotanum or southernwood is a species of evergreen; used to make beer; also used as an antiseptic and stimulant; said to cure baldness. Wetzel adds, "Artemisia abrotanum, perennial with silver foliage that smells like camphor. Used for worms, splinters, baldness, drowsiness, moth repellent."
Thyme. A shrubby plant of the mint family, thyme is an herb used for cooking; as an antiseptic rinse for cuts; to treat asthma; for clearing up skin spots and pimples; symbolic connotations include strength, happiness, remembrance, time, and virginity. Wetzel says, "Thymus vulgaris. Thymes are low woody or creeping plants. Used for swelling, warts, labor, sciatica gouts, flatulence, headache from inebriation."thoroughwort elixir: Thoroughwort is an herb used to induce sweating (for treatment of fever). Wetzel adds, "Eupatorium perfoliatum, also known as boneset, feverwort and sweating plant, is a perennial with white flowers in July-August, 36 inches."
spruce beer: a non-alcoholic drink made from the bark of spruce trees, with a spearmint flavor.
cunner line: a cunner is a small, salt-water food fish found along the coast of eastern North America.
III. THE SCHOOLHOUSE.
[ Contents ]FOR SOME DAYS after this, Mrs. Todd's customers came and went past my windows, and, haying-time being nearly over, strangers began to arrive from the inland country, such was her widespread reputation. Sometimes I saw a pale young creature like a white windflower* left over into midsummer, upon whose face consumption* had set its bright and wistful mark; but oftener two stout, hard-worked women from the farms came together, and detailed their symptoms to Mrs. Todd in loud and cheerful voices, combining the satisfactions of a friendly gossip with the medical opportunity. They seemed to give much from their own store of therapeutic learning. I became aware of the school in which my landlady had strengthened her natural gift; but hers was always the governing mind, and the final command, "Take of hy'sop one handful"* (or whatever herb it was), was received in respectful silence. One afternoon, when I had listened, -- it was impossible not to listen, with cottonless ears, -- and then laughed and listened again, with an idle pen in my hand, during a particularly spirited and personal conversation, I reached for my hat, and, taking blotting-book and all under my arm, I resolutely fled further temptation, and walked out past the fragrant green garden and up the dusty road. The way went straight uphill, and presently I stopped and turned to look back.
The tide was in, the wide harbor was surrounded by its dark woods, and the small wooden houses stood as near as they could get to the landing. Mrs. Todd's was the last house on the way inland. The gray ledges of the rocky shore were well covered with sod in most places, and the pasture bayberry* and wild roses grew thick among them. I could see the higher inland country and the scattered farms. On the brink of the hill stood a little white schoolhouse, much wind-blown and weather-beaten, which was a landmark to seagoing folk; from its door there was a most beautiful view of sea and shore. The summer vacation now prevailed, and after finding the door unfastened, and taking a long look through one of the seaward windows, and reflecting afterward for some time in a shady place near by among the bayberry bushes, I returned to the chief place of business in the village, and, to the amusement of two of the selectmen, brothers and autocrats of Dunnet Landing, I hired the schoolhouse for the rest of the vacation for fifty cents a week.
Selfish as it may appear, the retired situation seemed to possess great advantages, and I spent many days there quite undisturbed, with the sea-breeze blowing through the small, high windows and swaying the heavy outside shutters to and fro. I hung my hat and luncheon-basket on an entry nail as if I were a small scholar, but I sat at the teacher's desk as if I were that great authority, with all the timid empty benches in rows before me. Now and then an idle sheep came and stood for a long time looking in at the door. At sundown I went back, feeling most businesslike, down toward the village again, and usually met the flavor, not of the herb garden, but of Mrs. Todd's hot supper, halfway up the hill. On the nights when there were evening meetings or other public exercises that demanded her presence we had tea very early, and I was welcomed back as if from a long absence.
Once or twice I feigned excuses for staying at home, while Mrs. Todd made distant excursions, and came home late, with both hands full and a heavily laden apron. This was in pennyroyal time, and when the rare lobelia was in its prime and the elecampane was coming on.* One day she appeared at the schoolhouse itself, partly out of amused curiosity about my industries; but she explained that there was no tansy* in the neighborhood with such snap to it as some that grew about the schoolhouse lot. Being scuffed down all the spring made it grow so much the better, like some folks that had it hard in their youth, and were bound to make the most of themselves before they died.
Notes for Chapter 3
white windflower: An anemone, a flower with no petals but brightly colored sepals; in the nineteenth-century language of flowers anemones represented sickness.
consumption: Usually tuberculosis.
Take of hy'sop: Hyssop is an herb used to make holy water (in the Catholic Church) and as a charm; used medicinally for colds, coughs, catarrh; as an expectorant (to clear out lungs and mucous membranes); for bruises and sprains. Wetzel says, "Hyssopus officinalis, perennial with dark blue spikes July to September, 18”. Used for colds, lung diseases, bruises."
bayberry: A short, thick wild bush which grows along the coast in New England; the wax from its berries is used to make scented candles; represents `instruction' in the nineteenth-century language of flowers.
pennyroyal ... rare lobelia ...elecampane:
Pennyroyal a minty herb used for mosquito repellent, to improve digestion and relieve flatulence, for bronchial ailments, to purify water, and to promote expulsion of the placenta in childbirth. Mentha pulegium.
Lobelias are plants of the "bellflower" family, sources of latex. These include cardinal flowers, a North American lobelia with a spike of brilliant red flowers, which represent `distinction' in the nineteenth-century language of flowers. Ted Eden also says the lobelia represents 'arrogance' in the nineteenth-century language of flowers. Wetzel adds that Lobelia cardinalis, cardinal flower is red in August. She says this may also refer to Lobelia siphlitica, great lobelia, a perennial with blue spires in August-September, 36”.
Elecampane is hardy common herb; used to make sweetmeats (which are something like nuts) and for sore muscles. Its juice has been used medicinally as a diuretic and to induce perspiration. Wetzel says, "Enula helenium, perennial with yellow flowers in July-August, 48”. Used for coughs, worms, digestion, itch and manginess, eyesight."tansy: Many species of this bitter aromatic herb are found in the United States. It is used as a tonic; the name comes from the Greek word for immortality; stands for `resistance' in the language of flowers. Wetzel adds, "Tanacetum vulgare, perennial with scented, fern-like foliage, grows to 36”; used as a medicinal, as ant repellent and a preservative in New England coffins."
IV. AT THE SCHOOLHOUSE WINDOW.
[ Contents ]ONE DAY I reached the schoolhouse very late, owing to attendance upon the funeral of an acquaintance and neighbor, with whose sad decline in health I had been familiar, and whose last days both the doctor and Mrs. Todd had tried in vain to ease. The services had taken place at one o'clock, and now, at quarter past two, I stood at the schoolhouse window, looking down at the procession as it went along the lower road close to the shore. It was a walking funeral, and even at that distance I could recognize most of the mourners as they went their solemn way. Mrs. Begg had been very much respected, and there was a large company of friends following to her grave. She had been brought up on one of the neighboring farms, and each of the few times that I had seen her she professed great dissatisfaction with town life. The people lived too close together for her liking, at the Landing, and she could not get used to the constant sound of the sea. She had lived to lament three seafaring husbands, and her house was decorated with West Indian curiosities, specimens of conch shells and fine coral which they had brought home from their voyages in lumber-laden ships. Mrs. Todd had told me all our neighbor's history. They had been girls together, and, to use her own phrase, had "both seen trouble till they knew the best and worst on 't." I could see the sorrowful, large figure of Mrs. Todd as I stood at the window. She made a break in the procession by walking slowly and keeping the after-part of it back. She held a handkerchief to her eyes, and I knew, with a pang of sympathy, that hers was not affected grief.
Beside her, after much difficulty, I recognized the one strange and unrelated person in all the company, an old man who had always been mysterious to me. I could see his thin, bending figure. He wore a narrow, long-tailed coat and walked with a stick, and had the same "cant to leeward" as the wind-bent trees on the height above.
This was Captain Littlepage, whom I had seen only once or twice before, sitting pale and old behind a closed window; never out of doors until now. Mrs. Todd always shook her head gravely when I asked a question, and said that he wasn't what he had been once, and seemed to class him with her other secrets. He might have belonged with a simple which grew in a certain slug-haunted corner of the garden, whose use she could never be betrayed into telling me, though I saw her cutting the tops by moonlight once, as if it were a charm, and not a medicine, like the great fading bloodroot leaves.*
I could see that she was trying to keep pace with the old captain's lighter steps. He looked like an aged grasshopper of some strange human variety. Behind this pair was a short, impatient, little person, who kept the captain's house, and gave it what Mrs. Todd and others believed to be no proper sort of care. She was usually called "that Mari' Harris" in subdued conversation between intimates, but they treated her with anxious civility when they met her face to face.
The bay-sheltered islands and the great sea beyond stretched away to the far horizon southward and eastward; the little procession in the foreground looked futile and helpless on the edge of the rocky shore. It was a glorious day early in July, with a clear, high sky; there were no clouds, there was no noise of the sea. The song sparrows sang and sang,* as if with joyous knowledge of immortality, and contempt for those who could so pettily concern themselves with death. I stood watching until the funeral procession had crept round a shoulder of the slope below and disappeared from the great landscape as if it had gone into a cave.
An hour later I was busy at my work. Now and then a bee blundered in and took me for an enemy; but there was a useful stick upon the teacher's desk, and I rapped to call the bees to order as if they were unruly scholars, or waved them away from their riots over the ink, which I had bought at the Landing store, and discovered too late to be scented with bergamot,* as if to refresh the labors of anxious scribes. One anxious scribe felt very dull that day; a sheep-bell tinkled near by, and called her wandering wits after it. The sentences failed to catch these lovely summer cadences. For the first time I began to wish for a companion and for news from the outer world, which had been, half unconsciously, forgotten. Watching the funeral gave one a sort of pain. I began to wonder if I ought not to have walked with the rest, instead of hurrying away at the end of the services. Perhaps the Sunday gown I had put on for the occasion was making this disastrous change of feeling, but I had now made myself and my friends remember that I did not really belong to Dunnet Landing.
I sighed, and turned to the half-written page again.
Notes for Chapter 4
bloodroot roots: a plant with red root and sap, bearing a single white flower in early spring; related to the poppy; used to induce vomiting.
song sparrows: common North American song-bird of the genus Melospiza, esp. M. fasciata (or melodia) and cinerea. (Source: Oxford English Dictionary).
Bergamot: (also known as bee balm) used to soothe sore throats and as a mild sedative.
V. CAPTAIN LITTLEPAGE.
[ Contents ]IT WAS A long time after this; an hour was very long in that coast town where nothing stole away the shortest minute. I had lost myself completely in work, when I heard footsteps outside. There was a steep footpath between the upper and the lower road, which I climbed to shorten the way, as the children had taught me, but I believed that Mrs. Todd would find it inaccessible, unless she had occasion to seek me in great haste. I wrote on, feeling like a besieged miser of time, while the footsteps came nearer, and the sheep-bell tinkled away in haste as if someone had shaken a stick in its wearer's face. Then I looked, and saw Captain Littlepage passing the nearest window; the next moment he tapped politely at the door.
"Come in, sir," I said, rising to meet him; and he entered, bowing with much courtesy. I stepped down from the desk and offered him a chair by the window, where he seated himself at once, being sadly spent by his climb. I returned to my fixed seat behind the teacher's desk, which gave him the lower place of a scholar.
"You ought to have the place of honor, Captain Littlepage," I said.
"A happy, rural seat of various views,"
he quoted, as he gazed out into the sunshine and up the long wooded shore. Then he glanced at me, and looked all about him as pleased as a child.
"My quotation was from Paradise Lost: the greatest of poems,* I suppose you know?" and I nodded. "There's nothing that ranks, to my mind, with Paradise Lost; it's all lofty, all lofty," he continued. "Shakespeare was a great poet;* he copied life, but you have to put up with a great deal of low talk."
I now remembered that Mrs. Todd had told me one day that Captain Littlepage had overset his mind with too much reading; she had also made dark reference to his having "spells" of some unexplainable nature. I could not help wondering what errand had brought him out in search of me. There was something quite charming in his appearance: it was a face thin and delicate with refinement, but worn into appealing lines, as if he had suffered from loneliness and misapprehension. He looked, with his careful precision of dress, as if he were the object of cherishing care on the part of elderly unmarried sisters, but I knew Mari' Harris to be a very commonplace, inelegant person, who would have no such standards; it was plain that the captain was his own attentive valet. He sat looking at me expectantly. I could not help thinking that, with his queer head and length of thinness, he was made to hop along the road of life rather than to walk. The captain was very grave indeed, and I bade my inward spirit keep close to discretion.
"Poor Mrs. Begg has gone," I ventured to say. I still wore my Sunday gown by way of showing respect.
"She has gone," said the captain, -- "very easy at the last, I was informed; she slipped away as if she were glad of the opportunity."
I thought of the Countess of Carberry, and felt that history repeated itself.*
"She was one of the old stock," continued Captain Littlepage, with touching sincerity. "She was very much looked up to in this town, and will be missed."
I wondered, as I looked at him, if he had sprung from a line of ministers; he had the refinement of look and air of command which are the heritage of the old ecclesiastical families of New England. But as Darwin says in his autobiography, "there is no such king as a sea-captain; he is greater even than a king or a schoolmaster!"*
Captain Littlepage moved his chair out of the wake of the sunshine, and still sat looking at me. I began to be very eager to know upon what errand he had come.
"It may be found out some o' these days," he said earnestly. "We may know it all, the next step; where Mrs. Begg is now, for instance. Certainty, not conjecture, is what we all desire."
"I suppose we shall know it all some day," said I.
"We shall know it while yet below," insisted the captain, with a flush of impatience on his thin cheeks. "We have not looked for truth in the right direction. I know what I speak of; those who have laughed at me little know how much reason my ideas are based upon." He waved his hand toward the village below. "In that handful of houses they fancy that they comprehend the universe."
I smiled, and waited for him to go on.
"I am an old man, as you can see," he continued, "and I have been a shipmaster the greater part of my life, -- forty-three years in all. You may not think it, but I am above eighty years of age."
He did not look so old, and I hastened to say so.
"You must have left the sea a good many years ago, then, Captain Littlepage?" I said.
"I should have been serviceable at least five or six years more," he answered. "My acquaintance with certain -- my experience upon a certain occasion, I might say, gave rise to prejudice. I do not mind telling you that I chanced to learn of one of the greatest discoveries that man has ever made."
Now we were approaching dangerous ground, but a sudden sense of his sufferings at the hands of the ignorant came to my help, and I asked to hear more with all the deference I really felt. A swallow flew into the schoolhouse at this moment as if a kingbird were after it, and beat itself against the walls for a minute, and escaped again to the open air; but Captain Littlepage took no notice whatever of the flurry.
"I had a valuable cargo of general merchandise from the London docks to Fort Churchill, a station of the old company on Hudson's Bay,"* said the captain earnestly. "We were delayed in lading, and baffled by head winds and a heavy tumbling sea all the way north-about and across. Then the fog kept us off the coast; and when I made port at last, it was too late to delay in those northern waters with such a vessel and such a crew as I had. They cared for nothing, and idled me into a fit of sickness; but my first mate was a good, excellent man, with no more idea of being frozen in there until spring than I had, so we made what speed we could to get clear of Hudson's Bay and off the coast. I owned an eighth of the vessel, and he owned a sixteenth of her. She was a full-rigged ship, called the Minerva,* but she was getting old and leaky. I meant it should be my last v'y'ge in her, and so it proved. She had been an excellent vessel in her day. Of the cowards aboard her I can't say so much."
"Then you were wrecked?" I asked, as he made a long pause.
"I wa'n't caught astern o' the lighter by any fault of mine,"* said the captain gloomily. "We left Fort Churchill and run out into the Bay with a light pair o' heels; but I had been vexed to death with their red-tape rigging at the company's office, and chilled with stayin' on deck an' tryin' to hurry up things, and when we were well out o' sight o' land, headin' for Hudson's Straits, I had a bad turn o' some sort o' fever, and had to stay below. The days were getting short, and we made good runs, all well on board but me, and the crew done their work by dint of hard driving."
I began to find this unexpected narrative a little dull. Captain Littlepage spoke with a kind of slow correctness that lacked the longshore high flavor to which I had grown used; but I listened respectfully while he explained the winds having become contrary, and talked on in a dreary sort of way about his voyage, the bad weather, and the disadvantages he was under in the lightness of his ship, which bounced about like a chip in a bucket, and would not answer the rudder or properly respond to the most careful setting of sails.
"So there we were blowin' along anyways," he complained; but looking at me at this moment, and seeing that my thoughts were unkindly wandering, he ceased to speak.
"It was a hard life at sea in those days, I am sure," said I, with redoubled interest.
"It was a dog's life," said the poor old gentleman, quite reassured, "but it made men of those who followed it. I see a change for the worse even in our own town here; full of loafers now, small and poor as 'tis, who once would have followed the sea, every lazy soul of 'em. There is no occupation so fit for just that class o' men who never get beyond the fo'cas'le. I view it, in addition, that a community narrows down and grows dreadful ignorant when it is shut up to its own affairs, and gets no knowledge of the outside world except from a cheap, unprincipled newspaper. In the old days, a good part o' the best men here knew a hundred ports and something of the way folks lived in them. They saw the world for themselves, and like 's not their wives and children saw it with them. They may not have had the best of knowledge to carry with 'em sight-seein', but they were some acquainted with foreign lands an' their laws, an' could see outside the battle for town clerk here in Dunnet; they got some sense o' proportion. Yes, they lived more dignified, and their houses were better within an' without. Shipping's a terrible loss to this part o' New England from a social point o' view, ma'am."
"I have thought of that myself," I returned, with my interest quite awakened. "It accounts for the change in a great many things, -- the sad disappearance of sea-captains, -- doesn't it?"
"A shipmaster was apt to get the habit of reading," said my companion, brightening still more, and taking on a most touching air of unreserve. "A captain is not expected to be familiar with his crew, and for company's sake in dull days and nights he turns to his book. Most of us old shipmasters came to know 'most everything about something; one would take to readin' on farming topics, and some were great on medicine, -- but Lord help their poor crews! -- or some were all for history, and now and then there'd be one like me that gave his time to the poets. I was well acquainted with a shipmaster that was all for bees an' bee-keepin'; and if you met him in port and went aboard, he'd sit and talk a terrible while about their havin' so much information, and the money that could be made out of keepin' 'em. He was one of the smartest captains that ever sailed the seas, but they used to call the Newcastle, a great bark he commanded for many years, Tuttle's beehive. There was old Cap'n Jameson: he had notions of Solomon's Temple, and made a very handsome little model of the same, right from the Scripture measurements,* same 's other sailors make little ships and design new tricks of rigging and all that. No, there's nothing to take the place of shipping in a place like ours. These bicycles offend me dreadfully;* they don't afford no real opportunities of experience such as a man gained on a voyage. No: when folks left home in the old days they left it to some purpose, and when they got home they stayed there and had some pride in it. There's no large-minded way of thinking now: the worst have got to be best and rule everything; we're all turned upside down and going back year by year."
"Oh no, Captain Littlepage, I hope not," said I, trying to soothe his feelings.
There was a silence in the schoolhouse, but we could hear the noise of the water on a beach below. It sounded like the strange warning wave that gives notice of the turn of the tide. A late golden robin,* with the most joyful and eager of voices, was singing close by in a thicket of wild roses.
Notes for Chapter 5
Paradise Lost: "Happy, rural seat..." comes from John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667), Book 4, line 247.
Shakespeare: William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English dramatist and poet.
Countess of Carberry: Countess of Carberry: Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), an Anglican bishop, wrote "A Funeral Sermon Preached at the Obsequies of... the Lady Frances, Countess of Carbery, 1650," published in 1667. In the eulogy of the second part of the sermon, Taylor says, "I know not by what instrument it happened; but when death drew near, before it made any show upon her body, or revealed itself by a natural signification, it was conveyed to her spirit; she had a strange secret persuasion that that the bringing this child should be her last scene of life: and we have known, that the soul when she is about to disrobe herself of her upper garment, sometimes speaks rarely,...; sometimes it is Prophetical; sometimes God by a superinduced persuasion wrought by instruments, or accidents of his own, serves the ends of his own providence and the salvation of the soul: But so it was, that the thought of death dwelt long with her, and grew from the first steps of fancy and fear, to a consent, from thence to a strange credulity, and expectation of it; and without the violence of sickness she died, as if she had done it voluntarily, and by design, and for fear her expectation should have been deceived, or that she should seem to have had an unreasonable fear, or apprehension; or rather..., she died, as if she had been glad of the opportunity."
Taylor characterizes Lady Frances as an exceptionally good and pious person. At one point he describes her in a way that may suggestion Mrs. Blackett: "For though she had the greatest judgment, and the greatest experience of things and persons that I ever yet knew in a person of her youth, and sex, and circumstances; yet as if she knew nothing of it, she had the meanest opinion of herself; and like a fair taper, when she shined to all the room, yet round about her own station she had cast a shadow and a cloud, and she shined to everybody but herself." [I have modernized the spelling.]Darwin . . . schoolmaster!: This quotation is slightly changed from its appearance in Charles Darwin's (1809-1882) letter to C. Whitley of 23 July 1834. See Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1887), edited by Francis Darwin.
Fort Churchill ... Hudson's Bay: At the mouth of the North River on the west side of Hudson Bay in Canada. For images, visit the tourist booth at the Town of Churchill web site: http://www.townofchurchill.ca/cim/75.dhtm
Minerva: The ship is named for the Roman goddess of handicrafts and trades.
astern o' the lighter: the sense of this nautical metaphor is to arrive in harbor last and late, either behind or at the rear of a barge that does not travel under its own power, but is pushed or towed by another vessel.
Solomon's Temple: see 1 Kings 6.
bicycles: Perhaps the captain is offended by women riding bicycles. Only after the invention of the safety bicycle in about 1880 did bicycles become frequent sights on American roads. Harvey Green in The Light of the Home, suggests that the Victor "women's" bicycle of 1887 was a key to making bicycling easy for women (160).
golden robin: The golden robin is a Baltimore oriole.
VI. THE WAITING PLACE.
[ Contents ]"HOW DID YOU manage with the rest of that rough voyage on the Minerva?" I asked.
"I shall be glad to explain to you," said Captain Littlepage, forgetting his grievances for the moment. "If I had a map at hand I could explain better. We were driven to and fro 'way up toward what we used to call Parry's Discoveries, and lost our bearings.* It was thick and foggy, and at last I lost my ship; she drove on a rock, and we managed to get ashore on what I took to be a barren island, the few of us that were left alive. When she first struck, the sea was somewhat calmer than it had been, and most of the crew, against orders, manned the long-boat and put off in a hurry, and were never heard of more. Our own boat upset, but the carpenter kept himself and me above water, and we drifted in. I had no strength to call upon after my recent fever, and laid down to die; but he found the tracks of a man and dog the second day, and got along the shore to one of those far missionary stations that the Moravians support.* They were very poor themselves, and in distress; 'twas a useless place. There were but few Esquimaux left in that region. There we remained for some time, and I became acquainted with strange events."
The captain lifted his head and gave me a questioning glance. I could not help noticing that the dulled look in his eyes had gone, and there was instead a clear intentness that made them seem dark and piercing.
"There was a supply ship expected, and the pastor, an excellent Christian man, made no doubt that we should get passage in her. He was hoping that orders would come to break up the station; but everything was uncertain, and we got on the best we could for a while. We fished, and helped the people in other ways; there was no other way of paying our debts. I was taken to the pastor's house until I got better; but they were crowded, and I felt myself in the way, and made excuse to join with an old seaman, a Scotchman, who had built him a warm cabin, and had room in it for another. He was looked upon with regard, and had stood by the pastor in some troubles with the people. He had been on one of those English exploring parties that found one end of the road to the north pole, but never could find the other. We lived like dogs in a kennel, or so you'd thought if you had seen the hut from the outside; but the main thing was to keep warm; there were piles of birdskins to lie on, and he'd made him a good bunk, and there was another for me. 'Twas dreadful dreary waitin' there; we begun to think the supply steamer was lost, and my poor ship broke up and strewed herself all along the shore. We got to watching on the headlands; my men and me knew the people were short of supplies and had to pinch themselves. It ought to read in the Bible, 'Man cannot live by fish alone,' if they'd told the truth of things; 'taint bread that wears the worst on you!* First part of the time, old Gaffett, that I lived with, seemed speechless, and I didn't know what to make of him, nor he of me, I dare say; but as we got acquainted, I found he'd been through more disasters than I had, and had troubles that wa'n't going to let him live a great while. It used to ease his mind to talk to an understanding person, so we used to sit and talk together all day, if it rained or blew so that we couldn't get out. I'd got a bad blow on the back of my head at the time we came ashore, and it pained me at times, and my strength was broken, anyway; I've never been so able since."
Captain Littlepage fell into a reverie.
"Then I had the good of my reading," he explained presently. "I had no books; the pastor spoke but little English, and all his books were foreign; but I used to say over all I could remember. The old poets little knew what comfort they could be to a man. I was well acquainted with the works of Milton, but up there it did seem to me as if Shakespeare was the king; he has his sea terms very accurate, and some beautiful passages were calming to the mind. I could say them over until I shed tears; there was nothing beautiful to me in that place but the stars above and those passages of verse.
"Gaffett was always brooding and brooding, and talking to himself; he was afraid he should never get away, and it preyed upon his mind. He thought when I got home I could interest the scientific men in his discovery: but they're all taken up with their own notions; some didn't even take pains to answer the letters I wrote. You observe that I said this crippled man Gaffett had been shipped on a voyage of discovery. I now tell you that the ship was lost on its return, and only Gaffett and two officers were saved off the Greenland coast, and he had knowledge later that those men never got back to England; the brig they shipped on was run down in the night. So no other living soul had the facts, and he gave them to me. There is a strange sort of a country 'way up north beyond the ice, and strange folks living in it. Gaffett believed it was the next world to this."
"What do you mean, Captain Littlepage?" I exclaimed. The old man was bending forward and whispering; he looked over his shoulder before he spoke the last sentence.
"To hear old Gaffett tell about it was something awful," he said, going on with his story quite steadily after the moment of excitement had passed. "'Twas first a tale of dogs and sledges, and cold and wind and snow. Then they begun to find the ice grow rotten; they had been frozen in, and got into a current flowing north, far up beyond Fox Channel,* and they took to their boats when the ship got crushed, and this warm current took them out of sight of the ice, and into a great open sea; and they still followed it due north, just the very way they had planned to go. Then they struck a coast that wasn't laid down or charted, but the cliffs were such that no boat could land until they found a bay and struck across under sail to the other side where the shore looked lower; they were scant of provisions and out of water, but they got sight of something that looked like a great town. 'For God's sake, Gaffett!' said I, the first time he told me. 'You don't mean a town two degrees farther north than ships had ever been?' for he'd got their course marked on an old chart that he'd pieced out at the top; but he insisted upon it, and told it over and over again, to be sure I had it straight to carry to those who would be interested. There was no snow and ice, he said, after they had sailed some days with that warm current, which seemed to come right from under the ice that they'd been pinched up in and had been crossing on foot for weeks."
"But what about the town?" I asked. "Did they get to the town?"
"They did," said the captain, "and found inhabitants; 'twas an awful condition of things. It appeared, as near as Gaffett could express it, like a place where there was neither living nor dead. They could see the place when they were approaching it by sea pretty near like any town, and thick with habitations; but all at once they lost sight of it altogether, and when they got close inshore they could see the shapes of folks, but they never could get near them, -- all blowing gray figures that would pass along alone, or sometimes gathered in companies as if they were watching. The men were frightened at first, but the shapes never came near them, -- it was as if they blew back; and at last they all got bold and went ashore, and found birds' eggs and sea fowl, like any wild northern spot where creatures were tame and folks had never been, and there was good water. Gaffett said that he and another man came near one o' the fog-shaped men that was going along slow with the look of a pack on his back, among the rocks, an' they chased him; but, Lord! he flittered away out o' sight like a leaf the wind takes with it, or a piece of cobweb. They would make as if they talked together, but there was no sound of voices, and 'they acted as if they didn't see us, but only felt us coming towards them,' says Gaffett one day, trying to tell the particulars. They couldn't see the town when they were ashore. One day the captain and the doctor were gone till night up across the high land where the town had seemed to be, and they came back at night beat out and white as ashes, and wrote and wrote all next day in their notebooks, and whispered together full of excitement, and they were sharp-spoken with the men when they offered to ask any questions.
"Then there came a day," said Captain Littlepage, leaning toward me with a strange look in his eyes, and whispering quickly. "The men all swore they wouldn't stay any longer; the man on watch early in the morning gave the alarm, and they all put off in the boat and got a little way out to sea. Those folks, or whatever they were, come about 'em like bats; all at once they raised incessant armies, and come as if to drive 'em back to sea. They stood thick at the edge o' the water like the ridges o' grim war; no thought o' flight, none of retreat. Sometimes a standing fight, then soaring on main wing tormented all the air.* And when they'd got the boat out o' reach o' danger, Gaffett said they looked back, and there was the town again, standing up just as they'd seen it first, comin' on the coast. Say what you might, they all believed 'twas a kind of waiting-place between this world an' the next."*
The captain had sprung to his feet in his excitement, and made excited gestures, but he still whispered huskily.
"Sit down, sir," I said as quietly as I could, and he sank into his chair quite spent.
"Gaffett thought the officers were hurrying home to report and to fit out a new expedition when they were all lost. At the time, the men got orders not to talk over what they had seen," the old man explained presently in a more natural tone.
"Weren't they all starving, and wasn't it a mirage or something of that sort?" I ventured to ask. But he looked at me blankly.
"Gaffett had got so that his mind ran on nothing else," he went on. "The ship's surgeon let fall an opinion to the captain, one day, that 'twas some condition o' the light and the magnetic currents that let them see those folks. 'Twa'n't a right-feeling part of the world, anyway; they had to battle with the compass to make it serve, an' everything seemed to go wrong. Gaffett had worked it out in his own mind that they was all common ghosts, but the conditions were unusual favorable for seeing them. He was always talking about the Ge'graphical Society,* but he never took proper steps, as I view it now, and stayed right there at the mission. He was a good deal crippled, and thought they'd confine him in some jail of a hospital. He said he was waiting to find the right men to tell, somebody bound north. Once in a while they stopped there to leave a mail or something. He was set in his notions, and let two or three proper explorin' expeditions go by him because he didn't like their looks; but when I was there he had got restless, fearin' he might be taken away or something. He had all his directions written out straight as a string to give the right ones. I wanted him to trust 'em to me, so I might have something to show, but he wouldn't. I suppose he's dead now. I wrote to him, an' I done all I could. 'Twill be a great exploit some o' these days."
I assented absent-mindedly, thinking more just then of my companion's alert, determined look and the seafaring, ready aspect that had come to his face; but at this moment there fell a sudden change, and the old, pathetic, scholarly look returned. Behind me hung a map of North America, and I saw, as I turned a little, that his eyes were fixed upon the northernmost regions and their careful recent outlines with a look of bewilderment.*
Notes for Chapter 6
Parry's Discoveries: The English explorer William Edward Parry (1790-1855) made three voyages into the Arctic to look for a Northwest Passage between Europe and Asia.
Moravian: "A member or adherent of the 'Unity of Moravian brethren', a Protestant sect, founded early in the 18th c. in Saxony by emigrants from Moravia, and continuing the tradition of the Unitas Fratrum, a body holding Hussite doctrines, which had its chief seat in Moravia and Bohemia. "The virtual founder of the body was Count Zinzendorf, who was the patron of the Moravian refugees, and embraced their doctrines. The Moravians early obtained many adherents in England and the American colonies." The church began missionary work among the Inuit of Labrador in the late 18th Century. (Sources: Encarta, Oxford English Dictionary and http://www.heritage.nf.ca/aboriginal/inuit.html).
fish alone: Jesus tells that the Tempter in the wilderness that "Man shall not live by bread alone." See Matthew 4:4 and Deuteronomy 8:3.
Fox Channel: Foxe Channel connects Hudson Bay with Foxe Basin, west of Baffin Island in the Northwest Territories of Canada.
The details here about the warm current and the open sea at the North Pole correspond to the theory of John Cleves Symmes, published in 1818. He asserted that the earth was hollow, with habitable concentric spheres within, and that this interior space could be entered at the poles, where there were warm polar seas. See David Standish, Hollow Earth, (2006). For a discussion of such theories that Jewett is likely to have read, see the Atlantic review of William F. Warren's Paradise Found: The Cradle of the Human Races at the North Pole (1885).raised incessant armies: For this and other later lines in Littlepage's description see Milton's Paradise Lost, Book VI, lines 138, 235-36, 242-44, which tells about a battle between the Heavenly Hosts and the rebel angels.
between this world an' the next: This may echo Jewett's thoughts about connections between mortal life and the afterlife. At about the time Jewett began this novel, her close friend Celia Thaxter died. On this occasion, she wrote to Sarah Wyman Whitman on August 29, 1894:
"I must write you out of loneliness and pretty deep-down sadness tonight. I had a telegram Monday morning that Celia Thaxter had died, dear old Sandpiper, as was my foolish and fond name, these many years. We were more neighbours and compatriots than most people. I knew the island, the Portsmouth side of her life, better than did others, and those days we spent together last month brought me to know better than ever a truly generous and noble heart. When her old mother lay dying, she called her boys, and said, 'Be good to sister, she has had a very hard time'; and it was all true. She was past it all when I was with her in July. Life had come to be quite heavenly to her and -- oh, how often I think of Sir Thomas Browne, his way of saying, 'And seeing that there is something of us that must still live on, let us join both lives together and live in one but for the other.'"
Like the Spiritualist beliefs that interested Thaxter, Captain Littlepage's story finds consolation for human mortality and the loss of friends in the belief that some actual communication with the dead seems possible.Ge'graphical Society: The Royal Geographical Society was founded in London in 1830.
recent outlines: Most of the Arctic regions had been mapped thoroughly by the mid-19th-Century. The Northwest Passage was first navigated in 1903-1906. (Source: Encarta).
VII. THE OUTER ISLAND.
[ Contents ]GAFFETT WITH HIS good bunk and the bird-skins, the story of the wreck of the Minerva, the human-shaped creatures of fog and cobweb, the great words of Milton with which he described their onslaught upon the crew, all this moving tale had such an air of truth that I could not argue with Captain Littlepage. The old man looked away from the map as if it had vaguely troubled him, and regarded me appealingly.
"We were just speaking of" -- and he stopped. I saw that he had suddenly forgotten his subject.
"There were a great many persons at the funeral," I hastened to say.
"Oh yes," the captain answered, with satisfaction. "All showed respect who could. The sad circumstances had for a moment slipped my mind. Yes, Mrs. Begg will be very much missed. She was a capital manager for her husband when he was at sea. Oh yes, shipping is a very great loss."* And he sighed heavily. "There was hardly a man of any standing who didn't interest himself in some way in navigation. It always gave credit to a town. I call it low-water mark now here in Dunnet."
He rose with dignity to take leave, and asked me to stop at his house some day, when he would show me some outlandish things that he had brought home from sea. I was familiar with the subject of the decadence of shipping interests in all its affecting branches, having been already some time in Dunnet, and I felt sure that Captain Littlepage's mind had now returned to a safe level.
As we came down the hill toward the village our ways divided, and when I had seen the old captain well started on a smooth piece of sidewalk which would lead him to his own door, we parted, the best of friends. "Step in some afternoon," he said, as affectionately as if I were a fellow-shipmaster wrecked on the lee shore of age like himself. I turned toward home, and presently met Mrs. Todd coming toward me with an anxious expression.
"I see you sleevin' the old gentleman down the hill," she suggested.*
"Yes. I've had a very interesting afternoon with him," I answered; and her face brightened.
"Oh, then he's all right. I was afraid 'twas one o' his flighty spells, an' Mari' Harris wouldn't" --
"Yes," I returned, smiling, "he has been telling me some old stories, but we talked about Mrs. Begg and the funeral beside, and Paradise Lost."
"I expect he got tellin' of you some o' his great narratives," she answered, looking at me shrewdly. "Funerals always sets him goin'. Some o' them tales hangs together toler'ble well," she added, with a sharper look than before. "An' he's been a great reader all his seafarin' days. Some thinks he overdid, and affected his head, but for a man o' his years he's amazin' now when he's at his best. Oh, he used to be a beautiful man!"
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.
It had been growing gray and cloudy, like the first evening of autumn, and a shadow had fallen on the darkening shore. Suddenly, as we looked, a gleam of golden sunshine struck the outer islands, and one of them shone out clear in the light, and revealed itself in a compelling way to our eyes. Mrs. Todd was looking off across the bay with a face full of affection and interest. The sunburst upon that outermost island made it seem like a sudden revelation of the world beyond this which some believe to be so near.
"That's where mother lives," said Mrs. Todd. "Can't we see it plain? I was brought up out there on Green Island.* I know every rock an' bush on it."
"Your mother!" I exclaimed, with great interest.
"Yes, dear, cert'in; I've got her yet, old 's I be. She's one of them spry, light-footed little women; always was, an' light-hearted, too," answered Mrs. Todd, with satisfaction. "She's seen all the trouble folks can see, without it's her last sickness; an' she's got a word of courage for everybody. Life ain't spoilt her a mite. She's eighty-six an' I'm sixty-seven, and I've seen the time I've felt a good sight the oldest. 'Land sakes alive!' says she, last time I was out to see her. 'How you do lurch about steppin' into a bo't!' I laughed so I liked to have gone right over into the water; an' we pushed off, an' left her laughin' there on the shore."
The light had faded as we watched. Mrs. Todd had mounted a gray rock, and stood there grand and architectural, like a caryatide. Presently she stepped down, and we continued our way homeward.
"You an' me, we'll take a bo't an' go out some day and see mother," she promised me. "'Twould please her very much, an' there's one or two sca'ce herbs grows better on the island than anywheres else. I ain't seen their like nowheres here on the main."
"Now I'm goin' right down to get us each a mug o' my beer," she announced as we entered the house, "an' I believe I'll sneak in a little mite o' camomile.* Goin' to the funeral an' all, I feel to have had a very wearin' afternoon."
I heard her going down into the cool little cellar, and then there was considerable delay. When she returned, mug in hand, I noticed the taste of camomile, in spite of my protest; but its flavor was disguised by some other herb that I did not know, and she stood over me until I drank it all and said that I liked it.
"I don't give that to everybody," said Mrs. Todd kindly; and I felt for a moment as if it were part of a spell and incantation, and as if my enchantress would now begin to look like the cobweb shapes of the arctic town. Nothing happened but a quiet evening and some delightful plans that we made about going to Green Island, and on the morrow there was the clear sunshine and blue sky of another day.
Notes for Chapter 7bird-skins: This text is inconsistent about hyphenating these words. I have followed the first-edition, not correcting this inconsistency.
very great loss: "Jefferson's" Embargo Act of 1807 hastened the decline of shipping in New England. Intended to punish England and France for capturing neutral ships and impressing sailors for use in their fiercely contested war, but the embargo was a costly, much resented strategy in New England.
sleevin': hanging upon someone else's sleeve for assistance; probably intended ironically here.
Green Island: Though Jewett was reticent about identifying Dunnet Landing with any specific town in Maine, it seems clear that she associated it with the area around Martinsville, between Tenants Harbor and Port Clyde, south of Thomaston, where she composed parts of the book. Evidence for this comes from her use of some local place names. Little Green Island and Large Green Island are about twelve miles by sea east of Martinsville. Burnt Island, mentioned in "On Shell-Heap Island" is about eight miles south of Martinsville. The Port, mentioned several times as within long walking distance of Dunnet Landing, suggests Port Clyde, which, on foot, is about 2 miles south of Martinsville.
camomile: an herb used to induce sweating (for treatment of fever), for upset stomachs and indigestion, as an eye bath to refresh eyes, for cramps, and as a tonic (a kind of general pick-me-up). Wetzel adds that "Chamaemelum nobile, Roman chamomile, has feathery leaves and daisy flowers, both apple scented”; it is a calming herb also used for sleeplessness and head-pain.
Edited and annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.