A White Heron and Other Stories by Sarah Orne Jewett

Author:Sarah Orne Jewett
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780486158594
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2012-10-23T04:00:00+00:00

The Town Poor

MRS. WILLIAM TRIMBLE and Miss Rebecca Wright were driving along Hampden east road, one afternoon in early spring. Their progress was slow. Mrs. Trimble’s sorrel horse was old and stiff, and the wheels were clogged by clay mud. The frost was not yet out of the ground, although the snow was nearly gone, except in a few places on the north side of the woods, or where it had drifted all winter against a length of fence.

“There must be a good deal o’ snow to the nor’ard of us yet,” said weather-wise Mrs. Trimble. “I feel it in the air; ’t is more than the ground-damp. We ain’t goin’ to have real nice weather till the up-country’s snow’s all gone.”

“I heard say yesterday that there was good sleddin’ yet, all up through Parsley,” responded Miss Wright. “I shouldn’t like to live in them northern places. My cousin Ellen’s husband was a Parsley man, an’ he was obliged, as you may have heard, to go up north to his father’s second wife’s funeral; got back day before yesterday. ’T was about twenty-one miles, an’ they started on wheels; but when they’d gone nine or ten miles, they found ’t was no sort o’ use, an’ left their wagon an’ took a sleigh. The man that owned it charged ‘em four an’ six, too. I shouldn’t have thought he would; they told him they was goin’ to a funeral; an’ they had their own buffaloes2 an’ everything.”

“Well, I expect it’s a good deal harder scratchin’, up that way; they have to git money where they can; the farms is very poor as you go north,” suggested Mrs. Trimble kindly. “’T ain’t none too rich a country where we be, but I’ve always been grateful I wa’n’t born up to Parsley.”

The old horse plodded along, and the sun, coming out from the heavy spring clouds, sent a sudden shine of light along the muddy road. Sister Wright drew her large veil forward over the high brim of her bonnet. She was not used to driving, or to being much in the open air; but Mrs. Trimble was an active business woman, and looked after her own affairs herself, in all weathers. The late Mr. Trimble had left her a good farm, but not much ready money, and it was often said that she was better off in the end than if he had lived. She regretted his loss deeply, however; it was impossible for her to speak of him, even to intimate friends, without emotion, and nobody had ever hinted that this emotion was insincere. She was most warm-hearted and generous, and in her limited way played the part of Lady Bountiful in the town of Hampden.

“Why, there’s where the Bray girls lives, ain’t it?” she exclaimed, as, beyond a thicket of witch-hazel and scruboak, they came in sight of a weather-beaten, solitary farmhouse. The barn was too far away for thrift or comfort, and they could see long lines of light between the shrunken boards as they came nearer.

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