The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sara Orne Jewett (1896)
I. The Return
characters:
setting:
the coast town of Dunnet, a maritime village in Maine
June
plot:
A passenger arriving to Dunnet Landing by steamboat remembers the village from a yachting cruise two or three summers earlier, and finds it unchanged - "shores of 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.
II. Mrs. Todd
characters:
Mrs. Almira Todd
speaker
setting:
House of Mrs. Almira Todd - stands with its end to the street, apparently retired behind a garden
plot:
Mrs. Todd loves herbs, and mixes remedies for which her neighbors come with vials to be filled. Depending on the case, directions might be given in the kitchen, continued at the doorway, or last all the way through the garden to the gate. Mrs. Todd and the village doctor are on good terms - the speaker suggests perhaps because he got business from counteracting unfavorable effects of some of her remedies. The speaker arrives at the village seeking seclusion, but finds Mrs. Todd's house in the prime of its activity as the woman brews her popular spruce beer. Mrs. Todd and the speaker have their lunch and dinner together as a part of the speaker's lodging agreement, and soon the speaker also finds herself answering any knocks to Mrs. Todd's door by customers. July flies by and the speaker, who must finish a long piece of writing, has to stop "seein' folks" for Mrs. Todd.
Mrs. Todd and the speaker grow closer after the change in their business relations, and Mrs. Todd tells how she once loved a man who was far above her. His mother had not approved of the match and they had both married other people. They are both alone now, and Mrs. Todd contrives to hear of him but imagines that he has forgotten the youthful romance.
III. The Schoolhouse
characters:
a pale consumptive woman who comes to see Mrs. Todd
two stout hard-worked women who come to see Mrs. Todd
setting:
a weather-beaten schoolhouse with a view to the sea
plot:
One day, the speaker leaves the house to escape the temptation to listen to a particularly spirited and personal conversation between Mrs. Todd and a customer. On her walk the speaker comes across a weatherbeaten schoolhouse, which she rents for fifty cents a week as a writing studio. The speaker spends her days writing at the schoolhouse and returns to dinner with Mrs. Todd in the evening, and one day Mrs. Todd comes up to visit on the pretense of ga
IV. At the Schoolhouse Window
Mrs. Begg - a liked and respected neighbor who disliked town life, had lost three seafaring husbands, and whose house was filled with things they had brought back
Captain LIttlepage - walks with a cane, mysterious to the speaker
Mari' Harris - keeps Captain Littlepage's house, Mrs. Todd and other believe poorly
setting:
haytime nearly over
plot:
Speaker arrives at the schoolhouse later than usual after attending the funeral of a neighbor, and watches the funeral procession from the schoolhouse window. Mrs. Todd, a friend of the woman, walks in the procession beside Captain Littlepage. The speaker is distracted and feels that by wearing her Sunday gown and hurrying away after the funeral services she has reminded herself and her friends that she does not really belong to the town. She sighs and returns to her work.
V. Captain Littlepage
characters:
speaker
Captain Littlepage
Littlepage's first mate on the Minerva (w/in his narrative) - an excellent and industrious an, in contradistinction to the sailors
setting:
the schoolhouse
the Minerva (inside Captain Littlepage's narrative)
plot:
Captain Littlepage comes to the schoolhouse, and quotes from Milton's Paradise Lost to describe it as "A happy, rural seat of various views." The speaker remembers that Mrs. Todd has said Captain little page "had overset his mind with too much reading." They talk briefly of Mrs. Briggs. Captain Littlepage begins to tell the speaker about a voyage he took on a ship called the Minerva, and to tell how ship captains gained a sense of perspective by becoming familiar with foreign ports and customs, and how ship captains also tended to take to reading on various subjects. "[W]hen forld 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."
VI. The Waiting Place
characters:
speaker
Captain Littlepage
Minerva carpenter
priest - at Monrovian missionary station
old Gaffett - a Scotch seaman at the Monrovian missionary station with whom Captain Littlepage stays while they wait for the supply ship
setting:
schoolhouse
onboard the Minerva
Monrovian missionary station
plot:
The speaker asks Captain Littlepage to continue the story of his rough voyage on the Minerva. He laments that there is not a map to show her on, but continues saying that they lost their way in thick fog and were driven up toward Parry's Discoveries where those who were left (some sailors had left in a long-boat against orders never to be heard from again). The captain was fevered when they drifted in to shore but the carpenter found the tracks of a man and a dog and found a missionary station supported by the Moravians. The supply ship was a long time in coming, and Captain Littlepage passed the time in conversation with Gaffet (the Scotch sailor in whose cabin he stayed) and in remembering poetry he had read, especially Shakespeare. Gaffet had been on a voyage of discovery when his ship wrecked, and had certain scientific knowledge that he shared with Captain Littlepage.
According to Gaffet, his voyage had become stuck in ice, and taking to boats after their ship was crushed, had taken a warm current that carried them two degrees farther north to a town where there was no snow and ice. When they got to shore, the men of the town became shadow-like, and although the townspeople might appear to talk the sailors could not hear them. When the discoverers had decided to leave, the shadowy townspeople came at them as if to drive them back to sea. When the boat was out of the reach of danger, they looked back and saw the town just as they had seen it at first. The sailors believed they had found a waiting place between this world and the next, and the ship's surgeon believed that it was a property of the light and magnetic currents in that region that let the men see the ghosts. Gaffet was always talking about the Geographical survey and waiting for the right mission to entrust his directions to, but never trusted them to anyone, even to Captain Littlepage.
At the end of Littlepage's narrative the speaker notices, "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."
VII. The Outer Island
characters:
Captain Littlepage
speaker
Mrs. Todd
setting:
walking from the schoolhouse to town
the shore looking out on Green Island
Mrs. Todd's house
plot:
Captain Littlepage forgets what he has been talking about, and the narrator pretends that it was only the funeral. The speaker and Captain Littlepage walk toward town together, and Mrs. Todd approaches the speaker as she watches Littlepage depart. They pass by a place where they can see Mrs. Todd's mother's house on Green Island, and Mrs. Todd says that they will go and see her one day. That night Mrs. Todd puts some Chamomile and a special unfamiliar herb in the speaker's beer, and they have a quiet evening and plan a trip to Green Island the next day.
VIII. Green Island
characters:
speaker
Mrs. Todd
Johnny Bowden - Mrs. Todd's cousin's son, who has a dory
Asa - from the country, always ready with criticism
Mrs. Blackett - Mrs. Todd's mother
William
setting:
Mrs. Todd's house
Dunnet Landing
Johnny Bowden's dory
Green Isand
plot:
The speaker knows from Mrs. Todd's elevated volume when speaking to passers by, by her singing, and general noisiness, that she wants the speaker to wake up. When she does, she finds that Mrs. Todd has in mind a trip to Green Island to see her mother. As they get going, to cheers from the shore, Asa suggests that Mrs. Todd and Johnny Bowden switch places to better distribute the weight in the boat, and Mrs. Todd replies with a reference to Asa's country origin. They continue out toward the island, stopping only to pick a good haddock from Mrs. Todd's brother's trawl. There is a flag flying on the island that Mrs. Todd explains is to indicate to schooners when there are enough haddock for them to come and get them. Mrs. Todd and her mother greet one another affectionately, and they walk up the hill to the house. There is a kitten who Mrs. Todd had not liked the looks of but who has turned out to be clever and a good mouser. The house is sturdy-looking and cozy. Mrs. Blackett has recently turned over (beat and mended) the carpet, and Mrs. Todd admires the handiwork although a glance to the speaker suggests she thinks the older woman as over-exerted herself in doing so. They pass through the parlor, which Mrs. Blackett keeps despite her isolated situation, and into the more familiar kitchen. William has cleaned the haddock and left it for the women without saying hello. Mrs. Blackett mentions that William isn't very social with ladies, and the speaker's becomes suddenly curious about him.
characters:
Mrs. Becket
Mrs. Todd
speaker
William - Mrs. Todd's brother, 60 yrs. old, shy
setting:
Green Island
plot:
Mrs. Blackett wants more potato to make enough chowder for everyone, and the speaker goes out with a basket and hoe to dig some up. Just as she is finishing, William appears to carry the potatoes and looking older and leaner than she had imagined. The speaker notices that although it is hard for William to enter into social life, he is comfortable once he takes the first step. He asks is she would like to go up to the great ledge while dinner is prepared and she accepts. When they get to the top, the view is stunning. "'There ain't no such view in the world, I expect,' said William proudly, and I hastened to speak my heartfelt tribute of praise; it was impossible not to feel as if an untraveled boy had spoken, and yet one loved to have him value his native heath."
X. Where Pennyroyal Grew
characters:
Mrs. Todd
Mrs. Blackett
William
Nathan - Mrs. Todd's late husband
setting:
Green Island
plot:
After dinner, Mrs. Todd and the speaker go out to pick some herbs while Mrs. Blackett takes a nap. On the way, Mrs. Todd shows the speaker a daguerreotype of her family, and the speaker admires the image of Mrs. Blackett. "There was in the eyes a look of anticipation and joy, a far-off look that sought the horizon; one often sees it in seafaring families, inherited by girls and boys alike from men who spend their lives at sea, and are always watching for distant sails or for the first loom of the land." Mrs. Todd takes the speaker to a special growth of pennyroyal she says must be the model for all other pennyroyal, and speaks of her husband for the first time, telling the speaker that the two loved this place when they were courting and that when her husband had been lost at sea it was in sight of this place. Mrs. Todd admits to the speaker that she had liked but not loved Nathan, and that he had died before he could find that out that her love was for someone else. William is still on the deck when they return, and Mrs. Blackett has a fire going for tea.
XI. The Old Singers
characters:
speaker
Mrs. Todd
Mrs. Blackett
William
setting:
Green Island, Johnny Bowden's boat, Dunet Landing
plot:
Mrs. Blackett has tea ready for Mrs. Todd and the speaker when they return, and tells the speaker how they always have a special tea together on Sundays. The speaker replies that she wishes she could be there on a Sunday, and Mrs. Todd demands that William and Mrs. Blackett sing. William turns out to be a talented and touching singer, and there are tears in the speaker's and Mrs. Todd's eyes at the end of the singing. Mrs. Blackett shows the speaker a rocking chair she calls the best view in the house before they go, and urges her to come back again because William has so enjoyed her visit. They leave with lobster, potatoes and Mackrel in the boat, all of which they arrange to have brought to Mrs. Todd's house in a wheelbarrow.
XII. A Strange Sail
characters:
speaker
Mrs. Todd
Mrs. Fosdick (Susan) - Mrs. Todd's friend from over Thomaston way, who has been visiting for nearly a month at various houses in the inland neighborhood and comes to stay with Mrs. Todd.
setting:
Dunnet
plot:
After much anticipation and uncertainty about which day she would arrive, Mrs. Fosdick shows up one evening just as the supper table is being readied. Mrs. Todd entertains her for a while, and then brings her to the speaker in the front room while she clears the supper things. The three meet again in the kitchen where Mrs. Todd and Mrs. Fosdick reminisce about their childhood, and Mrs. Todd learns that Mrs. Fosdick is the only of her brothers and sisters left living. Mrs. Fosdick mentions how preferable it is to be around old friends who understand what you're talking about. "Mrs. Todd gave a finny little laugh. 'Yes'm, old friends is always best, 'less you can catch a new one that's fit to make an old one out of,' she said, and we gave an affectionate glance at each other which Mrs. Fosdick could not have understood, being the latest comer to the house."
XIII. Poor Joanna
characters:
speaker
Mrs. Todd
Mrs. Fosdick
Joanna Todd
Edward Todd
setting:
Dunet
herb-gathering season is at an end, and the making of cough syrups and drops begins for Mrs. Todd
plot:
It's cold, and after the speaker lights the Franklin stove in her room she invites Mrs. Todd and Mrs. Fosdick to join her. They tell the speaker about Sea Shell Island, where Indians used to live and supposedly left a man who, since it was too far to swim to the nearest island, stayed until he perished. Mrs. Fosdick and Mrs. Todd lament how whereas once there were many seafaring families and many different queer types of people, young people now sought to be al the same. "Everybody's just like everybody else, now; nobody to laugh about, and nobody to cry about," says Mrs. Fosdick. Mrs. Fosdick tells the speaker about Mrs. Joanna Todd, a cousin of Almira Todd's late husband, who used to live on shell heap island. Joanna had been betrayed by her betrothed and had signed her half of her father's land over to her brother Edward and then taken her father's boat to Sea Shell Island. Mrs. Todd and Mrs. Fosdick discuss how Joanna got by on the island - its clams and lobsters, her chickens and garden, the supplies left for her by her brother and then by another man who had loved her. When Nathan came home from sea with a present for Joanna, and Almira went to see her and brought the minister Mr. Dimmick. Mr. Dimmick nearly upset the boat on the way out, but Almira knocked him down and steered it herself, and when they got to Joanna's front door she stood there not saying a word.
XIV. The Hermitage
characters:
speaker
Mrs. Todd
Mrs. Fosdick
Mr. Dimmick
Joanna
setting:
Mrs. Todd's house
Shell-heap Isand
plot:
There is a loud knocking at the door, and Mrs. Todd gets up to supply advice and medicine for the care of a sick child. When she returns, Mrs Fosdick asks how Joanna had looked on the island. Mrs. Todd said she looked the same, and well kept, but smaller and with a grim streak that Mrs. Todd remembered seeing in Joanna's mother. Joanna had been polite and gentle but reserved during the visit, and the tone-deaf minister had been awkward and misjudged the situation. When he paused a moment in his remonstrances, she shows him some Indian artifacts as though he were a boy, and when he mentions that he'd like to see hte shell piles, she points the way. Almira stays to speak with her and says she wishes Joanna would come to Dunet Landing or to Mrs. Blackett at Green Island. Joanna tells Almira that she has no right to live with people anymore, that she has committed the unpardonable sin - "I was in great wrath and trouble, and my thoughts was so wicked towards God that I can't expect ever to be forgiven" and tells Almira that she has learned patience but lost her hope. Almira hugs her and gives her the pin. Joanna is touched and asks Almira to wear it herself, and tells Almira that should Joanna ever be sick she wants Mrs. Backett to be the one to come. When Joanna does die, the funeral is held and her body burried on the island where, to the great consternation of the minister, a sparrow stands on her coffin and sings. Joanna had been a woman with strict ideas about what was right, and the man who had betrayed her was a "shifty-eyed, coaxin' sort of man, that got what he wanted out o' folks, an' only gave when he wanted to buy, made friends easy and list 'em without knowin' the difference" - Mrs. Todd speculates that Joanna would have had her work cut out for her getting this man to follow her right ideas, but says "she'd have had too much cariety ever to fall into a melancholy. Some is meant to be the Joannas in this world, an' 'twas her poor lot."
XV. On Shell-heap Island
characters:
Captain Bowden
speaker
setting:
Captain Bowden's boat - crooked northeasterly channel
Shell-heap Island
plot:
The speaker is out sailing with Captain Bowden on his big boat when she remembers Joanna's story and asks where Shell-heap Island is. The Captain points it out, and when Joanna mentions she would like to go he steers toward it. He drops the speaker off at the island after some bumps to his boat, speaks a short paragraph about Joanna and the island (esp. as regards its treatment of boats) and promises to wait nearby. The speaker wanders around the island and reflects, "we are each the uncompanioned hermit and recluse of an hour or a day; we understand our of the cell to whatever age of history they may belong." As she is reflecting the speaker hears the sound of gay voices from a pleasure-boat and knows that Joanna must have heard such sounds "and welcomed the good cheer in spite of hopelessness and winter weather, and all the sorrow and disappointment in the world."
XVI. The Great Expedition
characters:
Mrs. Todd
speaker
Mrs. Blackett
William
setting:
Mrs. Todd's house
plot:
Mrs. Todd never gives warning of her projects and adventures, always waiting to consult the weather. On one day, the narrator knows from her morning noises that Mrs. Todd plans a trip and observes that Sam Beggs' best chaise has just gone by so that they would have to take "the grocery" (another cart). A roundabout suggestion informs the narrator that she should wear her nice blue dress rather than what she has on, as they are going to the reunion. Mrs. Todd is lamenting that her mother has not come ashore the previous night for the occasion when they hear the woman outside. William had thought the weather unfavorable the previous night but had brought his mother across first thing in the morning.
XVII. A Country Road
characters:
speaker
Mrs. Todd
Mrs. Blackett
the doctor
Mrs. Dennett
Mrs. Phebe Ann Brock
the Dep'fords
Mis' Alca Tilley
setting:
plot:
Mrs. Todd forgets to close her front door but refuses to go back, instead asking the doctor to ask her neighbor to stop by and close it if the dust seems to blow in the afternoon. The doctor and Mrs. Blackett are old friends, and the speaker notices that by habit he checks her pulse as they talk. The speaker notices how the wagon stops frequently to visit those in the houses they pass by, and sees how happy people are to see Mrs. Blackett - "one revalation after another was made of the constant interest and intercourse that linked the far island and these scattered farms into a golden chain of love and dependence." They stop at the house of one stranger to water the horse, and learn from the woman who brings out donuts that she is also connected to the Bowdens and will be at the reunion in the afternoon. They pass by a view of the upper bay, and Mrs. Todd and Mrs. Blackett tell the speaker about Mrs. Blackett's sister who lived on a farm in Fessenden. Soon they begin to see a lot of carriages ahead of them on the next rise, and to feel as though they are not the only ones going, and their excitement grows.
XVI. The Bowden Reunion
characters:
speaker
Mrs. Todd
Mrs. Blackett
Santin Bowden - shoemaker, wanted to go to war but isn't sound, leads the group up to the grove
Mrs. Caplin - friend and neighbor from the landing
Cousin Sarah Jane Blackett
setting:
the Bowden reunion
plot:
"Such is the hidden fire of enthusiasm in the New England nature that, once given and outlet, it shines forth with almost volcanic light and heat. In quiet neighborhoods such inward force does not waste itself upon these petty excitements of every day that belong to cities, but when, at long intervals, the altars to patriotism, to friendship, to the ties of kindred, are reared in our familiar fields, then the fires glow, the flames come up as if from the inexhaustible burning heart of the earth; the primal fires break thought he granite dust in which our souls are set." Still on their way to the reunion, Mrs. Blackett tells a story about how once when she was a girl a young girl had run into the church saying, "Mis' Bowden, Mis' Bowden . . Your baby's in a fit!" and that all the women had gotten up and left for home sure that she was the one being addressed.
When they arrive at the Bowden place, Mrs. Blackett shows the speaker a little grave yard and tells her that most of the home graves were those of women, since men were lost at sea or out West or in War.
When everyone has arrived, Santin Bowden comes out and leads the whole group four abreast up to a great grove. Mrs. Caplin tells the speaker that Santin has always wanted to be a soldier but that he is not sound and so could never enlist. Mrs. Todd conjectures that Santin's inclination toward the military comes from a French ancestor who was a great general, and notes that although Santin is out of place, "there's a great many such strayaway folks, just as there is plants," comparing him to a lonely laurel that grows in a wild spot nearby when there is not another one on their coast. A discussion of heritage leads Sister Caplin to say she thinks Mari' Harris looks Chinese, and they talk about Captain Littlepage and his stories, and wish that Mari' would humor him sometimes. A cousin of Nathan comes by who Mrs. Todd does not like, and she is happy that the woman does not stop to speak with them.
The feast is impressive, and well organized and executed. The speaker looks around at her neighbors and reflects - "It was not hte first time that I was full of wonder at the waste of human ability in this world, as a botanist wonders at the wasefulness of nature, the thousand seeds that die, the unused provision of every sort. The reserve force of society grows more and more amazing to one's thought. More than one face among the Bowdens showed that only opportunity and stimulus were lacking, - a narrow set of circumstances had caged a fine able character and held it captive."
XIX. The Feast's End
characters:
speaker
Mrs. Blackett
Mrs. Todd
setting:
Bowden Reunion
ride back to Dunnet
plot:
The desserts at the reunion were excellent and included pies marked BOWDEN REUNION and tarts with names and dates, as well as a gingerbread replica of the Bowden house. The ministers made speeches, and there were anecdotes of family history, and a poetess gave a long recital. The leave-takings between the elderly were most affecting because the young are still in the habit of meeting their comrades every day.
On their way back, the three women see that the house where they had donuts is shut. Mrs. Todd says that she had seen the woman at the reunion and she had not been a Bowden after all - only married to one for her first husband. Mrs. Bowden observes that there had not been as many old folks at the reunion as before. At suppertime, Mrs. Backett recalls the beauty of the hymn that had been sung at the reunion. Mrs. Todd agrees but, laughing, says that "I chanced to drift alongside Mis' Peter Bowden o' Great Bay, an' I couldn't help thinkin' if she was as far out o' town as she was out o' tune, she wouldn't get back in a day."
XX. Along Shore
characters:
Elijah Tilley - old fisherman, a man of few words like the other old fishermen about
Monroe Pennell - the lobster smack's skipper, a sleepy boy, who is thrown overboard for a lesson
setting:
Dunnet Landing
plot:
The speaker watches the old Miranda (owned by the Caplins) drift about on the bay until something large and shapeless is thrown from her deck and she picks up the wind again. He tells the speaker that the something has been Monroe Pennell, the skipper, who had fallen asleep at the helm. Elijah is carrying a haddock upon which the speaker compliments him, and he mentions that she hasn't been by his place yet. He says he doesn't have much company since his wife died, and she promises to stop by later on. When she does, the speaker is surprised by the modern look of Elijah's house. She asks him about some painted stakes she sees in his yard, and he says that they are little land buoys to mark where there are large underground rocks. When she compliments his housekeeping, he tells her that when his wife died people didn't think he could get by on his own but he hadn't wanted the house to be turned upside down by someone who didn't know how his wife had liked things. Elijah says now that he is alone he begins to understand what it was like for his wife to wait when he was out late fishing. When Elijah shows the speaker the best room, she finds it less appealing than the kitchen but interesting for the respect for society in the abstract that it represents. Elijah shows the speaker his wife's china and tells her that he always used to brag that it was all there and they had never broken a piece, but that after her death the women who took it out for the funeral found the pieces of one cup in a little bag and that this was the one secret that had been between them. When the speaker returns to Mrs. Todd's, Mrs. Todd says she misses Sarah Tilley (Elijah's late wife) every day.