A Winter Courtship

"A Winter Courtship" by Sarah Orne Jewett is a charming novella set in a small New England town during the winter season. The story revolves around the budding romance between two characters, Miss Esther and Mr. Graham, as they navigate the challenges of love amidst the quaint, snowy backdrop. Jewett's writing beautifully captures the atmosphere of rural life, the intricacies of relationships, and the warmth of community, all while exploring themes of social expectations and personal desires. Through rich character development and evocative descriptions, the novella highlights the enduring nature of love and the importance of companionship in the face of life's hardships.

• Short story

								
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.

There was a story that Jefferson gave this faithful creature a rest
three times a mile, and took four hours for the journey by himself,
and longer whenever he had a passenger. But in pleasant weather the
road was delightful, and full of people who drove their own
conveyances, and liked to stop and talk. There were not many farms,
and the third growth of white pines made a pleasant shade, though
Jefferson liked to say that when he began to carry the mail his way
lay through an open country of stumps and sparse underbrush, where the
white pines nowadays completely arched the road.

They had passed the barn with circus posters, and felt colder than
ever when they caught sight of the weather-beaten acrobats in their
tights.

"My gorry!" exclaimed Widow Tobin, "them pore creatur's looks as
cheerless as little birch-trees in snow-time. I hope they dresses 'em
warmer this time o' year. Now, there! look at that one jumpin' through
the little hoop, will ye?"

"He couldn't git himself through there with two pair o' pants on,"
answered Mr. Briley. "I expect they must have to keep limber as eels.
I used to think, when I was a boy, that 't was the only thing I could
ever be reconciled to do for a livin'. I set out to run away an'
follow a rovin' showman once, but mother needed me to home. There
warn't nobody but me an' the little gals."

"You ain't the only one that's be'n disapp'inted o' their heart's
desire," said Mrs. Tobin sadly. "'T warn't so that I could be spared
from home to learn the dressmaker's trade."

"'T would a come handy later on, I declare," answered the sympathetic
driver, "bein' 's you went an' had such a passel o' gals to clothe an'
feed. There, them that's livin' is all well off now, but it must ha'
been some inconvenient for ye when they was small."

"Yes, Mr. Briley, but then I've had my mercies, too," said the widow
somewhat grudgingly. "I take it master hard now, though, havin' to
give up my own home and live round from place to place, if they be my
own child'en. There was Ad'line and Susan Ellen fussin' an' bickerin'
yesterday about who'd got to have me next; and, Lord be thanked, they
both wanted me right off but I hated to hear 'em talkin' of it over.
I'd rather live to home, and do for myself."

"I've got consider'ble used to boardin'," said Jefferson, "sence ma'am
died, but it made me ache 'long at the fust on't, I tell ye. Bein' on
the road's I be, I couldn't do no ways at keepin' house. I should want
to keep right there and see to things."

"Course you would," replied Mrs. Tobin, with a sudden inspiration of
opportunity which sent a welcome glow all over her. "Course you would,
Jeff'son,"--she leaned toward the front seat; "that is to say, onless
you had jest the right one to do it for ye."

And Jefferson felt a strange glow also, and a sense of unexpected
interest and enjoyment.

"See here, Sister Tobin," he exclaimed with enthusiasm. "Why can't ye
take the trouble to shift seats, and come front here long o' me? We
could put one buff'lo top o' the other,--they're both wearin'
thin,--and set close, and I do' know but we sh'd be more protected
ag'inst the weather."

"Well, I couldn't be no colder if I was froze to death," answered the

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