The Country of the Pointed Firs and Selected Short Fiction

by Sarah Orne Jewett

  “But these are très simple,”bu protested the Frenchman. “We have nothing younger;” and Miss Dobin and Miss Lucinda blushed, and said no more. The Frenchman had his own way; he persuaded them that nothing was so suitable as some conspicuous forelocks that matched their hair as it used to be. They would have given anything rather than leave their breakfast caps at home, if they had known that their proper winter bonnets must come off. They hardly listened to the wig merchant’s glib voice as Miss Dobin stood revealed before the merciless mirror at the back of the shop.

  He made everything as easy as possible, the friendly creature, and the ladies were grateful to him. Beside, now that the bonnet was on again there was a great improvement in Miss Dobin’s appearance. She turned to Miss Lucinda, and saw a gleam of delight in her eager countenance. “It really is very becoming. I like the way it parts over your forehead,” said the younger sister, “but if it were long enough to go behind the ears”—“Non, non,” entreated the Frenchman. “To make her the old woman at once would be cruelty!” And Lucinda who was wondering how well she would look in her turn, succumbed promptly to such protestations. Yes, there was no use in being old before their time. Dulham was not quite keeping pace with the rest of the world in these days, but they need not drag behind everybody else, just because they lived there.

  The price of the little arrangements was much less than the sisters expected, and the uncomfortable expense of their reverend father’s wigs had been, it was proved, a thing of the past. Miss Dobin treated her polite Frenchman with great courtesy; indeed, Miss Lucinda had more than once whispered to her to talk French, and as they were bowed out of the shop the gracious Bong-surebv of the elder lady seemed to act like the string of a showerbathbw and bring down an awesome torrent of foreign words upon the two guileless heads. It was impossible to reply; the ladies bowed again, however, and Miss Lucinda caught a last smile from the handsome wax countenance in the window. He appeared to regard her with fresh approval, and she departed down the street with mincing steps.

  “I feel as if anybody might look at me now, sister,” said gentle Miss Lucinda. “I confess, I have really suffered sometimes, since I knew I looked so distressed.”

  “Yours is lighter than I thought it was in the shop,” remarked Miss Dobin, doubtfully, but she quickly added that perhaps it would change a little. She was so perfectly satisfied with her own appearance that she could not bear to dim the pleasure of any one else. The truth remained that she never would have let Lucinda choose that particular arrangement if she had seen it first in a good light. And Lucinda was thinking exactly the same of her companion.

  “I am sure we shall have no more neuralgia,” said Miss Dobin. “I am sorry we waited so long, dear,” and they tripped down the main street of Westbury, confident that nobody would suspect them of being over thirty. Indeed, they felt quite girlish, and unconsciously looked sideways as they went along, to see their satisfying reflections in the windows. The great panes made excellent mirrors, with not too clear or lasting pictures of these comforted passers-by.

  The Frenchman in the shop was making merry with his assistants. The two great frisettes had long been out of fashion; he had been lying in wait with them for two unsuspecting country ladies, who could be cajoled into such a purchase.

  “Sister,” Miss Lucinda was saying, “you know there is still an hour to wait before our train goes. Suppose we take a little longer walk down the other side of the way;” and they strolled slowly back again. In fact, they nearly missed the train, naughty girls! Hetty would have been so worried, they assured each other, but they reached the station just in time.

  “Lutie,” said Miss Dobin, “put up your hand and part it from your forehead; it seems to be getting out of place a little;” and Miss Lucinda, who had just got breath enough to speak, returned the information that Miss Dobin’s was almost covering her eyebrows. They might have to trim them a little shorter; of course it could be done. The darkness was falling; they had taken an early dinner before they started, and now they were tired and hungry after the exertion of the afternoon, but the spirit of youth flamed afresh in their hearts, and they were very happy. If one’s heart remains young, it is a sore trial to have the outward appearance entirely at variance. It was the ladies’ nature to be girlish, and they found it impossible not to be grateful to the flimsy, ineffectual disguise which seemed to set them right with the world. The old conductor, who had known them for many years, looked hard at them as he took their tickets, and, being a man of humor and compassion, affected not to notice anything remarkable in their appearance. “You ladies never mean to grow old, like the rest of us,” he said gallantly, and the sisters fairly quaked with joy.

  “Bless us!” the obnoxious Mrs. Woolden was saying, at the other end of the car. “There’s the old maid Dobbinses, and they’ve bought ’em some bangs. I expect they wanted to get thatched in a little before real cold weather; but don’t they look just like a pair o’ poodle dogs.”

  The little ladies descended wearily from the train. Somehow they did not enjoy a day’s shopping as much as they used. They were certainly much obliged to Hetty for sending her niece’s boy to meet them, with a lantern; also for having a good warm supper ready when they came in. Hetty took a quick look at her mistresses, and returned to the kitchen. “I knew somebody would be foolin’ of ’em,” she assured herself angrily, but she had to laugh. Their dear, kind faces were wrinkled and pale, and the great frizzes had lost their pretty curliness, and were hanging down, almost straight and very ugly, into the ladies’ eyes. They could not tuck them up under their caps, as they were sure might be done.

  Then came a succession of rainy days, and nobody visited the rejuvenated household. The frisettes looked very bright chestnut by the light of day, and it must be confessed that Miss Dobin took the scissors and shortened Miss Lucinda’s half an inch, and Miss Lucinda returned the compliment quite secretly, because each thought her sister’s forehead lower than her own. Their dear gray eyebrows were honestly displayed, as if it were the fashion not to have them match with wigs. Hetty at last spoke out, and begged her mistresses, as they sat at breakfast, to let her take the frizzes back and change them. Her sister’s daughter worked in that very shop, and, though in the work-room, would be able to oblige them, Hetty was sure.

  But the ladies looked at each other in pleased assurance, and then turned together to look at Hetty, who stood already a little apprehensive near the table, where she had just put down a plateful of smoking drop-cakes.bx The good creature really began to look old.

  “They are worn very much in town,” said Miss Dobin. “We think it was quite fortunate that the fashion came in just as our hair was growing a trifle thin. I dare say we may choose those that are a shade duller in color when these are a little past. Oh, we shall not want tea this evening, you remember, Hetty. I am glad there is likely to be such a good night for the sewing circle.” And Miss Dobin and Miss Lucinda nodded and smiled.

  “Oh, my sakes alive!” the troubled handmaiden groaned. “Going to the circle, be they, to be snickered at! Well, the Dobbin girls they was born, and the Dobbin girls they will remain till they die; but if they ain’t innocent Christian babes to those that knows ’em well, mark me down for an idjit myself! They believe them front-pieces has set the clock back forty year or more, but if they’re pleased to think so, let ’em!”

  Away paced the Dulham ladies, late in the afternoon, to grace the parish occasion, and face the amused scrutiny of their neighbors. “I think we owe it to society to observe the fashions of the day,” said Miss Lucinda. “A lady cannot afford to be unattractive. I feel now as if we were prepared for anything!”

  THE COURTING OF SISTER WISBY

  ALL THE MORNING THERE had been an increasing temptation to take an out-door holiday, and early in the afternoon the temptation outgrew my power of resistance. A far-away pasture on the long southwestern slope of a high hill was persistently present to my mind, yet there seemed to be no particular reason wh
y I should think of it. I was not sure that I wanted anything from the pasture, and there was no sign, except the temptation, that the pasture wanted anything of me. But I was on the farther side of as many as three fences before I stopped to think again where I was going, and why.

  There is no use in trying to tell another person about that afternoon unless he distinctly remembers weather exactly like it. No number of details concerning an Arctic ice-blockade will give a single shiver to a child of the tropics. This was one of those perfect New England days in late summer, when the spirit of autumn takes a first stealthy flight, like a spy, through the ripening country-side, and, with feigned sympathy for those who droop with August heat, puts her cool cloak of bracing air about leaf and flower and human shoulders. Every living thing grows suddenly cheerful and strong; it is only when you catch sight of a horror-stricken little maple in swampy soil,—a little maple that has second sight and foreknowledge of coming disaster to her race,—only then does a distrust of autumn’s friendliness dim your joyful satisfaction.

  In midwinter there is always a day when one has the first foretaste of spring; in late August there is a morning when the air is for the first time autumn like. Perhaps it is a hint to the squirrels to get in their first supplies for the winter hoards, or a reminder that summer will soon end, and everybody had better make the most of it. We are always looking forward to the passing and ending of winter, but when summer is here it seems as if summer must always last. As I went across the fields that day, I found myself half lamenting that the world must fade again, even that the best of her budding and bloom was only a preparation for another spring-time, for an awakening beyond the coming winter’s sleep.

  The sun was slightly veiled; there was a chattering group of birds, which had gathered for a conference about their early migration. Yet, oddly enough, I heard the voice of a belated bobolink, and presently saw him rise from the grass and hover leisurely, while he sang a brief tune. He was much behind time if he were still a housekeeper; but as for the other birds, who listened, they cared only for their own notes. An old crow went sagging by, and gave a croak at his despised neighbor, just as a black reviewer croaked at Keats:10 so hard it is to be just to one’s contemporaries. The bobolink was indeed singing out of season, and it was impossible to say whether he really belonged most to this summer or to the next. He might have been delayed on his northward journey; at any rate, he had a light heart now, to judge from his song, and I wished that I could ask him a few questions,—how he liked being the last man among the bobolinks, and where he had taken singing lessons in the South.

  Presently I left the lower fields, and took a path that led higher, where I could look beyond the village to the northern country mountainward. Here the sweet fern grew, thick and fragrant, and I also found myself heedlessly treading on pennyroyal. Near by, in a field corner, I long ago made a most comfortable seat by putting a stray piece of board and bit of rail across the angle of the fences. I have spent many a delightful hour there, in the shade and shelter of a young pitch-pine and a wild-cherry tree, with a lovely outlook toward the village, just far enough away beyond the green slopes and tall elms of the lower meadows. But that day I still had the feeling of being outward bound, and did not turn aside nor linger. The high pasture land grew more and more enticing.

  I stopped to pick some blackberries that twinkled at me like beads among their dry vines, and two or three yellow-birds fluttered up from the leaves of a thistle, and then came back again, as if they had complacently discovered that I was only an overgrown yellow-bird, by in strange disguise but perfectly harmless. They made me feel as if I were an intruder, though they did not offer to peck at me, and we parted company very soon. It was good to stand at last on the great shoulder of the hill. The wind was coming in from the sea, there was a fine fragrance from the pines, and the air grew sweeter every moment. I took new pleasure in the thought that in a piece of wild pasture land like this one may get closest to Nature, and subsist upon what she gives of her own free will. There have been no drudging, heavy-shod ploughmen to overturn the soil, and vex it into yielding artificial crops. Here one has to take just what Nature is pleased to give, whether one is a yellow-bird or a human being. It is very good entertainment for a summer wayfarer, and I am asking my reader now to share the winter provision which I harvested that day. Let us hope that the small birds are also faring well after their fashion, but I give them an anxious thought while the snow goes hurrying in long waves across the buried fields, this windy winter night.

  I next went farther down the hill, and got a drink of fresh cool water from the brook, and pulled a tender sheaf of sweet flag beside it. The mossy old fence just beyond was the last barrier between me and the pasture which had sent an invisible messenger earlier in the day, but I saw that somebody else had come first to the rendezvous: there was a brown gingham cape-bonnet and a sprigged shoulder-shawl bobbing up and down, a little way off among the junipers. I had taken such uncommon pleasure in being alone that I instantly felt a sense of disappointment; then a warm glow of pleasant satisfaction rebuked-my selfishness. This could be no one but dear old Mrs. Goodsoe, the friend of my childhood and fond dependence of my maturer years. I had not seen her for many weeks, but here she was, out on one of her famous campaigns for herbs, or perhaps just returning from a blueberrying expedition. I approached with care, so as not to startle the gingham bonnet; but she heard the rustle of the bushes against my dress, and looked up quickly, as she knelt, bending over the turf. In that position she was hardly taller than the luxuriant junipers themselves.

  “I’m a-gittin’ in my mulleins,” she said briskly, “an’ I’ve been thinking o’ you these twenty times since I come out o’ the house. I begun to believe you must ha’ forgot me at last.”

  “I have been away from home,” I explained. “Why don’t you get in your pennyroyal too? There’s a great plantation of it beyond the next fence but one.”

  “Pennyr’yal!” repeated the dear little old woman, with an air of compassion for inferior knowledge; “ ’t ain’t the right time, darlin’. Pennyr’yal’s too rank now. But for mulleins this day is prime. I’ve got a dreadful graspin’ fit for ’em this year; seems if I must be goin’ to need ’em extry. I feel like the squirrels must when they know a hard winter’s comin’.” And Mrs. Goodsoe bent over her work again, while I stood by and watched her carefully cut the best fullgrown leaves with a clumsy pair of scissors, which might have served through at least half a century of herb-gathering. They were fastened to her apron-strings by a long piece of list.bz

  “I’m going to take my jack-knife and help you,” I suggested, with some fear of refusal. “I just passed a flourishing family of six or seven heads that must have been growing on purpose for you.”

  “Now be keerful, dear heart,” was the anxious response; “choose ’em well. There’s odds in mulleins same’s there is in angels. Take a plant that’s all run up to stalk, and there ain’t but little goodness in the leaves. This one I’m at now must ha’ been stepped on by some creatur’ and blighted of its bloom, and the leaves is han’some! When I was small I used to have a notion that Adam an’ Eve must a took mulleins fer their winter wear. Ain’t they just like flannel, for all the world? I’ve had experience, and I know there’s plenty of sickness might be saved to folks if they’d quit horse-radish and such fiery, exasperating things, and use mullein drarvesca in proper season. Now I shall spread these an’ dry ’em nice on my spare floor in the garrit, an’ come to steam ’em for use along in the winter there’ll be the vally of the whole summer’s goodness in ’em, sartin.” And she snipped away with the dull scissors, while I listened respectfully, and took great pains to have my part of the harvest present a good appearance.

  “This is most too dry a head,” she added presently, a little out of breath. “There! I can tell you there’s win’rowscb o’ young doctors, bilin’ over with book-larnin’, that is truly ignorant of what to do for the sick, or how to p’int out those paths that well
people foller toward sickness. Book-fools I call ’em, them young men, an’ some on ’em never’ll live to know much better, if they git to be Methuselahs.cc In my time every middle-aged woman, who had brought up a family, had some proper ideas o’ dealin’ with complaints. I won’t say but there was some fools amongst them, but I’d rather take my chances, unless they’d forsook herbs and gone to dealin’ with patent stuff.cd Now my mother really did sense the use of herbs and roots. I never see anybody that come up to her. She was a meek-looking woman, but very understandin’, mother was.”

  “Then that’s where you learned so much yourself, Mrs. Goodsoe,” I ventured to say.

  “Bless your heart, I don’t hold a candle to her; ’t is but little I can recall of what she used to say. No, her l’arnin’ died with her,” said my friend, in a self-deprecating tone. “Why, there was as many as twenty kinds of roots alone that she used to keep by her, that I forget the use of; an’ I’m sure I shouldn’t know where to find the most of ’em, any. There was an herb”—airb, she called it—“an herb called masterwort, that she used to get way from Pennsylvany; and she used to think everything of noble-liverwort, ce but I never could seem to get the right effects from it as she could. Though I don’t know as she ever really did use masterwort where somethin’ else wouldn’t a served. She had a cousin married out in Pennsylvany that used to take pains to get it to her every year or two, and so she felt ’t was important to have it. Some set more by such things as come from a distance, but I rec’lect mother always used to maintain that folks was meant to be doctored with the stuff that grew right about ’em; ’t was sufficient, an’ so ordered. That was before the whole population took to livin’ on wheels, the way they do now. ’T was never my idee that we was meant to know what’s goin’ on all over the world to once. There’s goin’ to be some sort of a set-back one o’ these days, with these telegraphs an’ things, an’ letters comin’ every hand’s turn, and folks leavin’ their proper work to answer ’em.cf I may not live to see it. ’T was allowed to be difficult for folks to git about in old times, or to git word across the country, and they stood in their lot an’ place, and weren’t all just alike, either, same as pine-spills.”cg