of instinct while no obstacles opposed themselves to his decisions,
and quite another thing to be brought face to face with such an
emergency. Dr. Leslie wished first to be able to distinctly explain to
himself his reasons for the opinions he held; he knew that he must
judge for Nan herself in some measure; she would surely appeal to him;
she would bring this great question to him, and look for sympathy and
relief in the same way she had tearfully shown him a wounded finger in
her childhood. He seemed to see again the entreating eyes, made large
with the pain which would not show itself in any other way, and he
felt the rare tears fill his own eyes at the thought. "Poor little
Nan," he said to himself, "she has been hurt in the great battle, but
she is no skulking soldier." He would let her tell her story, and then
give her the best help he could; and so when the afternoon shadows
were very long across the country, and the hot summer day was almost
done, the doctor drove down the wide street and along East Road to the
railroad station. As he passed a group of small houses he looked at
his watch and found that there was more than time for a second visit
to a sick child whose illness had been most serious and perplexing at
first, though now she was fast recovering. The little thing smiled as
her friend came in, and asked if the young lady were coming to-morrow,
for Dr. Leslie had promised a visit and a picture-book from Nan, whom
he wished to see and understand the case. They had had a long talk
upon such ailments as this just before she went away, and nothing had
seemed to rouse her ambition so greatly as her experiences at the
children's hospitals the winter before. Now, this weak little creature
seemed to be pleading in the name of a great army of sick children,
that Nan would not desert their cause; that she would go on, as she
had promised them, with her search for ways that should restore their
vigor and increase their fitness to take up the work of the world. And
yet, a home and children of one's very own,--the doctor, who had held
and lost this long ago, felt powerless to decide the future of the
young heart which was so dear to him.
Nan saw the familiar old horse and carriage waiting behind the
station, and did not fail to notice that the doctor had driven to meet
her himself. He almost always did, but her very anxiety to see him
again had made her doubtful. The train had hardly stopped before she
was standing on the platform and had hastily dropped her checks into
the hand of the nearest idle boy, who looked at them doubtfully, as if
he hardly dared to hope that he had been mistaken for the hackman. She
came quickly to the side of the carriage; the doctor could not look at
her, for the horse had made believe that some excitement was
necessary, and was making it difficult for the welcome passenger to
put her foot on the step. It was all over in a minute. Nan sprang to
the doctor's side and away they went down the road. He had caught a
glimpse of her shining eyes and eager face as she had hurried toward
him, and had said, "Well done!" in a most cheerful and every-day
fashion, and then for a minute there was silence.
"Oh, it is so good to get home," said the girl, and her companion
turned toward her; he could not wait to hear her story.
"Yes," said Nan, "it is just as well to tell you now. Do you remember
you used to say to me when I was a little girl, 'If you know your
duty, don't mind the best of reasons for not doing it'?" And the
doctor nodded. "I never thought that this reason would come to me for
not being a doctor," she went on, "and at first I was afraid I should
be conquered, though it was myself who fought myself. But it came to
me clearer than ever after a while. I think I could have been fonder
of some one than most people are of those whom they marry, but the
more I cared for him the less I could give him only part of myself; I
knew that was not right. Now that I can look back at it all I am so
glad to have had those days; I shall work better all my life for
having been able to make myself so perfectly sure that I know my way."
The unconsidered factor had asserted itself in the doctor's favor. He
gave the reins to Nan and leaned back in the carriage, but as she bent
forward to speak to a friend whom they passed she did not see the look
that he gave her.
"I am sure you knew what was right," he said, hastily. "God bless you,
dear child!"
Was this little Nan, who had been his play-thing? this brave young
creature, to whose glorious future all his heart and hopes went out.
In his evening it was her morning, and he prayed that God's angels
should comfort and strengthen her and help her to carry the burden of
the day. It is only those who can do nothing who find nothing to do,
and Nan was no idler; she had come to her work as Christ came to his,
not to be ministered unto but to minister.
The months went by swiftly, and through hard work and much study, and
many sights of pain and sorrow, this young student of the business of
healing made her way to the day when some of her companions announced
with melancholy truth that they had finished their studies. They were
pretty sure to be accused of having had no right to begin them, or to
take such trusts and responsibilities into their hands. But Nan and
many of her friends had gladly climbed the hill so far, and with every
year's ascent had been thankful for the wider horizon which was spread
for their eyes to see.
Dr. Leslie in his quiet study almost wished that he were beginning
life again, and sometimes in the twilight, or in long and lonely
country drives, believed himself ready to go back twenty years so that
he could follow Nan into the future and watch her successes. But he
always smiled afterward at such a thought. Twenty years would carry
him back to the time when his ward was a little child, not long before
she came to live with him. It was best as God had planned it. Nobody
had watched the child's development as he had done, or her growth of
character, of which all the performances of her later years would be
to him only the unnecessary proofs and evidences. He knew that she
would be faithful in great things, because she had been faithful in
little things, and he should be with her a long time yet, perhaps. God
only knew.
There was a great change in the village; there were more small
factories now which employed large numbers of young women, and though
a new doctor had long ago come to Oldfields who had begun by trying to
supersede Dr. Leslie, he had ended by longing to show his gratitude
some day for so much help and kindness. More than one appointment had
been offered the heroine of this story in the city hospitals. She
would have little trouble in making her way since she had the
requisite qualities, natural and acquired, which secure success. But
she decided for herself that she would neither do this, nor carry out
yet the other plan of going on with her studies at some school across
the sea. Zurich held out a great temptation, but there was time enough
yet, and she would spend a year in Oldfields with the doctor, studying
again with him, since she knew better than ever before that she could
find no wiser teacher. And it was a great pleasure to belong to the
dear old town, to come home to it with her new treasures, so much
richer than she had gone away that beside medicines and bandages and
lessons in general hygiene for the physical ails of her patients, she
could often be a tonic to the mind and soul; and since she was trying
to be good, go about doing good in Christ's name to the halt and
maimed and blind in spiritual things.
Nobody sees people as they are and finds the chance to help poor
humanity as a doctor does. The decorations and deceptions of character
must fall away before the great realities of pain and death. The
secrets of many hearts and homes must be told to this confessor, and
sadder ailments than the text-books name are brought to be healed by
the beloved physicians. Teachers of truth and givers of the laws of
life, priests and ministers,--all these professions are joined in one
with the gift of healing, and are each part of the charge that a good
doctor holds in his keeping.
One day in the beginning of her year at Oldfields, Nan, who had been
very busy, suddenly thought it would be well to give herself a
holiday; and with a sudden return of her old sense of freedom was
going out at the door and down toward the gateway, which opened to a
pleasantly wide world beyond. Marilla had taken Nan's successes rather
reluctantly, and never hesitated to say that she only hoped to see her
well married and settled before she died; though she was always ready
to defend her course with even virulence to those who would deprecate
it. She now heard Nan shut the door, and called at once from an upper
window to know if word had been left where she was going, and the
young practitioner laughed aloud as she answered, and properly
acknowledged the fetter of her calling.
The leaves were just beginning to fall, and she pushed them about with
her feet, and sometimes walked and sometimes ran lightly along the
road toward the farm. But when she reached it, she passed the lane and
went on to the Dyer houses. Mrs. Jake was ailing as usual, and Nan had
told the doctor before she came out that she would venture another
professional visit in his stead. She was a great help to him in this
way, for his calls to distant towns had increased year by year, and he
often found it hard to keep his many patients well in hand.
The old houses had not changed much since she first knew them, and
neither they nor their inmates were in any danger of being forgotten
by her; the old ties of affection and association grew stronger
instead of weaker every year. It pleased and amused the old people to
be reminded of the days when Nan was a child and lived among them, and
it was a great joy to her to be able to make their pain and discomfort
less, and be their interpreter of the outside world.
It was a most lovely day of our heroine's favorite weather. It has
been said that November is an epitome of all the months of the year,
but for all that, no other season can show anything so beautiful as
the best and brightest November days. Nan had spent her summer in a
great hospital, where she saw few flowers save human ones, and the
warmth and inspiration of this clear air seemed most delightful. She
had been somewhat tempted by an offer of a fine position in Canada,
and even Dr. Leslie had urged her acceptance, and thought it an
uncommonly good chance to have the best hospital experience and
responsibility, but she had sent the letter of refusal only that
morning. She could not tell yet what her later plans might be; but
there was no place like Oldfields, and she thought she had never loved
it so dearly as that afternoon.
She looked in at Mrs. Martin's wide-open door first, but finding the
kitchen empty, went quickly across to the other house, where Mrs. Jake
was propped up in her rocking-chair and began to groan loudly when she
saw Nan; but the tonic of so gratifying a presence soon had a most
favorable effect. Benignant Mrs. Martin was knitting as usual, and the
three women sat together in a friendly group and Nan asked and
answered questions most cordially.
"I declare I was sort of put out with the doctor for sending you down
here day before yesterday instead of coming himself," stated Mrs. Jake
immediately, "but I do' know's I ever had anything do me so much good
as that bottle you gave me."
"Of course!" laughed Nan. "Dr. Leslie sent it to you himself. I told
you when I gave it to you."
"Well now, how you talk!" said Mrs. Jake, a little crestfallen. "I
begin to find my hearing fails me by spells. But I was bound to give
you the credit, for all I've stood out against your meddling with a
doctor's business."
Nan laughed merrily. "I am going to steal you for my patient," she
answered, "and try all the prescriptions on your case first."
"Land, if you cured her up 'twould be like stopping the leaks in a
basket," announced Mrs. Martin with a beaming smile, and clicking her
knitting-needles excitedly. "She can't hear of a complaint anywheres
about but she thinks she's got the mate to it."
"I don't seem to have anything fevery about me," said Mrs. Jake, with
an air of patient self-denial; and though both her companions were
most compassionate at the thought of her real sufferings, they could
not resist the least bit of a smile. "I declare you've done one
first-rate thing, if you're never going to do any more," said Mrs.
Jake, presently. "'Liza here's been talking for some time past, about
your straightening up the little boy's back,--the one that lives down
where Mis' Meeker used to live you know,--but I didn't seem to take it
in till he come over here yisterday forenoon. Looks as likely as any
child, except it may be he's a little stunted. When I think how he
used to creep about there, side of the road, like a hopper-toad, it
does seem amazin'!"
Nan's eyes brightened. "I have been delighted about that. I saw him
running with the other children as I came down the road. It was a long
bit of work, though. The doctor did most of it; I didn't see the child
for months, you know. But he needs care yet; I'm going to stop and
have another talk with his mother as I go home."
"She's a pore shiftless creature," Mrs. Martin hastened to say.
"There, I thought o' the doctor, how he'd laugh, the last time I was
in to see her; her baby was sick, and she sent up to know if I'd lend
her a variety of herbs, and I didn't know but she might p'isen it, so
I stepped down with something myself. She begun to flutter about like
she always does, and I picked my way acrost the kitchen to the cradle.
'There,' says she, 'I have been laying out all this week to go up to
the Corners and git me two new chairs.' 'I should think you had plenty
of chairs now,' said I, and she looked at me sort of surprised, and
says she, 'There ain't a chair in this house but what's full.'"
And Nan laughed as heartily as could have been desired before she
asked Mrs. Jake a few more appreciative questions about her ailments,
and then rose to go away. Mrs. Martin followed her out to the gate;
she and Nan had always been very fond of each other, and the elder
woman pointed to a field not far away where the brothers were watching
a stubble-fire, which was sending up a thin blue thread of smoke into
the still air. "They were over in your north lot yisterday," said Mrs.
Martin. "They're fullest o' business nowadays when there's least to
do. They took it pretty hard when they first had to come down to
hiring help, but they kind of enjoy it now. We're all old folks
together on the farm, and not good for much. It don't seem but a year
or two since your poor mother was playing about here, and then you
come along, and now you're the last o' your folks out of all the
houseful of 'em I knew. I'll own up sometimes I've thought strange of
your fancy for doctoring, but I never said a word to nobody against
it, so I haven't got anything to take back as most folks have. I
couldn't help thinking when you come in this afternoon and sat there
along of us, that I'd give a good deal to have Mis' Thacher step in
and see you and know what you've made o' yourself. She had it hard for
a good many years, but I believe 't is all made up to her; I do
certain."
Nan meant to go back to the village by the shorter way of the little
foot-path, but first she went up the grass-grown lane toward the old
farm-house. She stood for a minute looking about her and across the
well-known fields, and then seated herself on the door-step, and
stayed there for some time. There were two or three sheep near by,
well covered and rounded by their soft new winter wool, and they all
came as close as they dared and looked at her wonderingly. The narrow
path that used to be worn to the door-step had been overgrown years
ago with the short grass, and in it there was a late little dandelion
with hardly any stem at all. The sunshine was warm, and all the
country was wrapped in a thin, soft haze.
She thought of her grandmother Thacher, and of the words that had just
been said; it was beginning to seem a very great while since the days
of the old farm-life, and Nan smiled as she remembered with what tones
of despair the good old woman used to repeat the well-worn phrase,
that her grandchild would make either something or nothing. It seemed
to her that she had brought all the success of the past and her hopes
for the future to the dear old place that afternoon. Her early life
was spreading itself out like a picture, and as she thought it over
and looked back from year to year, she was more than ever before
surprised to see the connection of one thing with another, and how
some slight acts had been the planting of seeds which had grown and
flourished long afterward. And as she tried to follow herself back
into the cloudy days of her earliest spring, she rose without knowing
why, and went down the pastures toward the river. She passed the old
English apple-tree, which still held aloft a flourishing bough. Its
fruit had been gathered, but there were one or two stray apples left,
and Nan skillfully threw a stick at these by way of summons.
Along this path she had hurried or faltered many a time. She
remembered her grandmother's funeral, and how she had walked, with an
elderly cousin whom she did not know, at the head of the procession,
and had seen Martin Dyer's small grandson peeping like a rabbit from
among the underbrush near the shore. Poor little Nan! she was very
lonely that day. She had been so glad when the doctor had wrapped her
up and taken her home.
She saw the neighborly old hawthorn-tree that grew by a cellar, and
stopped to listen to its rustling and to lay her hand upon the rough
bark. It had been a cause of wonder once, for she knew no other tree
of the kind. It was like a snow-drift when it was in bloom, and in the
grass-grown cellar she had spent many an hour, for there was a good
shelter from the wind and an excellent hiding-place, though it seemed
very shallow now when she looked at it as she went by.
The burying-place was shut in by a plain stone wall, which she had
long ago asked the Dyers to build for her, and she leaned over it now
and looked at the smooth turf of the low graves. She had always
thought she would like to lie there too when her work was done. There
were some of the graves which she did not know, but one was her poor
young mother's, who had left her no inheritance except some traits
that had won Nan many friends; all her evil gifts had been buried with
her, the neighbors had said, when the girl was out of hearing, that
very afternoon.
There was a strange fascination about these river uplands; no place
was so dear to Nan, and yet she often thought with a shudder of the
story of those footprints which had sought the river's brink, and then
turned back. Perhaps, made pure and strong in a better world, in which
some lingering love and faith had given her the true direction at
last, where even her love for her child had saved her, the mother had
been still taking care of little Nan and guiding her. Perhaps she had
helped to make sure of the blessings her own life had lost, of truth
and whiteness of soul and usefulness; and so had been still bringing
her child in her arms toward the great shelter and home, as she had
toiled in her fright and weakness that dark and miserable night toward
the house on the hill.
And Nan stood on the shore while the warm wind that gently blew her
hair felt almost like a hand, and presently she went closer to the
river, and looked far across it and beyond it to the hills. The eagles
swung to and fro above the water, but she looked beyond them into the
sky. The soft air and the sunshine came close to her; the trees stood
about and seemed to watch her; and suddenly she reached her hands
upward in an ecstasy of life and strength and gladness. "O God," she
said, "I thank thee for my future."
* * * * *
SELECTED STORIES AND SKETCHES
by Sarah Orne Jewett
* * * * *
CONTENTS
STORIES FROM _Strangers and Wayfarers_, Published 1890
A WINTER COURTSHIP (_Atlantic Monthly_, Feb., 1889)
GOING TO SHREWSBURY (_Atlantic Monthly_, July, 1889)
THE WHITE ROSE ROAD (_Atlantic Monthly_, Sept., 1889)
THE TOWN POOR (_Atlantic Monthly_, July, 1890)
STORIES FROM _A Native of Winby and Other Tales_, Published 1893
A NATIVE OF WINBY (_Atlantic Monthly_, May, 1891)
LOOKING BACK ON GIRLHOOD, _Youth's Companion_, January 7, 1892
MORE STORIES FROM _A Native of Winby and Other Tales_, Published 1893
THE PASSING OF SISTER BARSETT (_Cosmopolitan Magazine_, May, 1892)
DECORATION DAY (_Harper's Magazine_, June, 1892)
THE FLIGHT OF BETSEY LANE (_Scribner's Magazine_, Aug. 1893)
THE GRAY MILLS OF FARLEY, _Cosmopolitan Magazine_, June, 1898
* * * * *
_A Winter Courtship_
The passenger and mail transportation between the towns of North Kilby
and Sanscrit Pond was carried on by Mr. Jefferson Briley, whose
two-seated covered wagon was usually much too large for the demands of
business. Both the Sanscrit Pond and North Kilby people were
stayers-at-home, and Mr. Briley often made his seven-mile journey in
entire solitude, except for the limp leather mail-bag, which he held
firmly to the floor of the carriage with his heavily shod left foot.
The mail-bag had almost a personality to him, born of long
association. Mr. Briley was a meek and timid-looking body, but he held
a warlike soul, and encouraged his fancies by reading awful tales of
bloodshed and lawlessness in the far West. Mindful of stage robberies
and train thieves, and of express messengers who died at their posts,
he was prepared for anything; and although he had trusted to his own
strength and bravery these many years, he carried a heavy pistol under
his front-seat cushion for better defense. This awful weapon was
familiar to all his regular passengers, and was usually shown to
strangers by the time two of the seven miles of Mr. Briley's route had
been passed. The pistol was not loaded. Nobody (at least not Mr.
Briley himself) doubted that the mere sight of such a weapon would
turn the boldest adventurer aside.
Protected by such a man and such a piece of armament, one gray Friday
morning in the edge of winter, Mrs. Fanny Tobin was traveling from
Sanscrit Pond to North Kilby. She was an elderly and feeble-looking
woman, but with a shrewd twinkle in her eyes, and she felt very
anxious about her numerous pieces of baggage and her own personal
safety. She was enveloped in many shawls and smaller wrappings, but
they were not securely fastened, and kept getting undone and flying
loose, so that the bitter December cold seemed to be picking a lock
now and then, and creeping in to steal away the little warmth she had.
Mr. Briley was cold, too, and could only cheer himself by remembering
the valor of those pony-express drivers of the pre-railroad days, who
had to cross the Rocky Mountains on the great California route. He
spoke at length of their perils to the suffering passenger, who felt
none the warmer, and at last gave a groan of weariness.
"How fur did you say 't was now?"
"I do' know's I said, Mis' Tobin," answered the driver, with a frosty
laugh. "You see them big pines, and the side of a barn just this way,
with them yellow circus bills? That's my three-mile mark."
"Be we got four more to make? Oh, my laws!" mourned Mrs. Tobin. "Urge
the beast, can't ye, Jeff'son? I ain't used to bein' out in such bleak
weather. Seems if I couldn't git my breath. I'm all pinched up and
wigglin' with shivers now. 'T ain't no use lettin' the hoss go
step-a-ty-step, this fashion."
"Landy me!" exclaimed the affronted driver. "I don't see why folks
expects me to race with the cars. Everybody that gits in wants me to
run the hoss to death on the road. I make a good everage o' time, and
that's all I _can_ do. Ef you was to go back an' forth every day but
Sabbath fur eighteen years, _you_'d want to ease it all you could, and
let those thrash the spokes out o' their wheels that wanted to. North
Kilby, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; Sanscrit Pond, Tuesdays,
Thu'sdays, an' Saturdays. Me an' the beast's done it eighteen years
together, and the creatur' warn't, so to say, young when we begun it,
nor I neither. I re'lly didn't know's she'd hold out till this time.
There, git up, will ye, old mar'!" as the beast of burden stopped
short in the road.