dr Reference to the afterlife—that is, life after death.
ds Town in central Virginia, the site of a major Civil War battle waged on December 13, 1862.
dt Trifles, tidbits.
du Variety of apple tree.
dv The beating of a drum.
dw Reference to the Bible, Matthew 8:16.
dx The Quakers, members of the Protestant group the Society of Friends, believed in passivism and objected to war and other forms of violence.
dy That is, by railroad.
dz A harbor city in South Carolina, Beaufort was established in 1711; it was occupied by Union forces from 1861 until the end of the Civil War.
ea Soldiers who signed up to fight in the Civil War for a stint of three months.
eb Colloquial for “decrepit.”
ec Refers to the bloody Wilderness Campaign of the Civil War, staged in a heavily wooded section of central Virginia in May and June 1864.
ed Church.
ee Daffodils.
ef Reference to the Calvinist belief that God had selected specific human souls for salvation.
eg Reference to the Grand Army of the Republic; established in April 1866 in Decatur, Illinois, it was the largest Union veterans rights organization in the United States.
eh Probably spinal meningitis.
ei Patent medicine contained ingredients that, for the commercial benefit of the maker, were not publicly disclosed, unlike the widely known ingredients of herbal medicines.
ej Reference to the Bible, James 1:22 (KJV): “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”
ek Unit of measurement—specifically, 16.5 feet.
el Beginning to ferment.
em Moths whose wings release a powdery substance.
en Cape made from the fur of a skunk.
eo Room above a shed.
ep The American Revolution (1775-1783).
eq The International Centennial Exhibition was held in Philadelphia in 1876 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
er Port in Peru.
es Obscure dialectical expression that possibly means feeling a lack of, or a longing for, something.
et English class-conscious expression referring to people of inferior social rank.
eu Begrudged.
ev Dress of alpaca wool.
ew Great strong man.
ex According to The Oxford English Dictionary, “gorpen” is a dialectical word possibly related to “gawping,” which means “gaping” or “intrusively staring.”
ey In poor condition.
ez Formerly popular children’s rope game.
fa Probably a reference to tuberculosis.
fb Trifles, tidbits.
fc Bordered by a hedge formed of the evergreen shrub called “box.”
fd The part of the bridle that circled the horse’s head.
fe Formal gathering of people from local churches.
ff Protestant denomination founded in New England during the late eighteenth century in reaction to the elitism of Calvinism; Freewill Baptists held that all people could experience God’s grace if they exercised their God-given free will.
fg Reference to the Bible: Mark 12:42-44 and Luke 21:1-4.
fh Based on the Bible, Proverbs 15:17 (KJV): “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.”
fi This is an autobiographical nonfiction sketch, and Jewett is referring to herself; the sketch grew out of Jewett’s excursion to Orris Falls near South Berwick.
fj In her short stories Jewett frequently used fictional names for towns and other geographical landmarks; this place name and others in this sketch are real.
fk Possibly the rose variety Alba maxima.
fl That is, from the Civil War.
fm Someone from the north of England.
fn Child’s cart with wheels.
fo The Shenandoah Valley in Virginia.
fp Baltimore orioles (in recent years this species has been called the northern oriole).
fq Three of the English revolutionaries who helped to overthrow King Charles I in 1649 escaped to New England after the 1660 Restoration of the monarchy.
fr That is, Queen Victoria.
fs Buckland (1826-1860) was a conservationist in Great Britain who specialized in protecting fish.
ft The Salmon Falls River and the Great Works River.
fu Reference to Matthew Arnold’s preface to his book Literature and Dogma (1873).
fv That is, exaggerated reports; a reference to Rudolph Erich Raspe’s 1785 book The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen, which chronicled the exaggerated adventures of that book’s protagonist, who was based on an actual person.
fw Le Havre is a port town in northern France.
fx The 1745 siege of the French-occupied fortress at Louisbourg, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, by British-allied New England forces.
fy Privately owned ship hired by one government to interrupt the shipping commerce of an enemy.
fz The Marquis de Lafayette, French political leader and general, visited friends in South Berwick, Maine, in 1825.
ga Jewett further discussed these South Berwick families in her nonfiction sketch “The Old Town of Berwick” (1894).
gb Southern part of the Lesser Antilles in the West Indies.
gc Jewett’s 1884 novel A Country Doctor.
gd French phrase (literally, “gaiety of the heart”) that refers to the French cultural attitude of lightheartedness.
ge William Dean Howells (1837-1920), editor of the Atlantic Monthly, accepted numerous stories by Jewett for publication in that periodical.
The Country of the Pointed Firs and Selected Short Fiction Page 46