Against the Wind

"Against the Wind" by Sarah Orne Jewett is a poignant short story that explores themes of resilience, love, and the complexities of human relationships against the backdrop of rural New England. The narrative follows a woman's reflections on her life and the choices she has made, navigating the challenges posed by societal expectations and personal desires. Jewett's evocative prose captures the beauty of the landscape and the inner turmoil of her characters, ultimately revealing the strength found in vulnerability and the enduring human spirit.

• Short story

								
During the next few years, while Nan was growing up, Oldfields itself
changed less than many country towns of its size. Though some faces
might be missed or altered, Dr. Leslie's household seemed much the
same, and Mrs. Graham, a little thinner and older, but more patient
and sweet and delightful than ever, sits at her parlor window and
reads new books and old ones, and makes herself the centre of much
love and happiness. She and the doctor have grown more and more
friendly, and they watch the young girl's development with great
pride: they look forward to her vacations more than they would care to
confess even to each other; and when she comes home eager and gay, she
makes both these dear friends feel young again. When Nan is not there
to keep him company, Dr. Leslie always drives, and has grown more
careful about the comfort of his carriages, though he tells himself
with great pleasure that he is really much more youthful in his
feelings than he was twenty years before, and does not hesitate to say
openly that he should have been an old fogy by this time if it had not
been for the blessing of young companionship. When Nan is pleased to
command, he is always ready to take long rides and the two saddles are
brushed up, and they wonder why the bits are so tarnished, and she
holds his horse's bridle while he goes in to see his patients, and is
ready with merry talk or serious questions when he reappears. And one
dark night she listens from her window to the demand of a messenger,
and softly creeps down stairs and is ready to take her place by his
side, and drive him across the hills as if it were the best fun in the
world, with the frightened country-boy clattering behind on his
bare-backed steed. The moon rises late and they come home just before
daybreak, and though the doctor tries to be stern as he says he cannot
have such a piece of mischief happen again, he wonders how the girl
knew that he had dreaded for once in his life the drive in the dark,
and had felt a little less strong than usual.

Marilla still reigns in noble state. She has some time ago accepted a
colleague after a preliminary show of resentment, and Nan has little
by little infused a different spirit into the housekeeping; and when
her friends come to pay visits in the vacations they find the old home
a very charming place, and fall quite in love with both the doctor and
Mrs. Graham before they go away. Marilla always kept the large east
parlor for a sacred shrine of society, to be visited chiefly by
herself as guardian priestess; but Nan has made it a pleasanter room
than anybody ever imagined possible, and uses it with a freedom which
appears to the old housekeeper to lack consideration and respect. Nan
makes the most of her vacations, while the neighbors are all glad to
see her come back, and some of them are much amused because in summer
she still clings to her childish impatience at wearing any head
covering, and no matter how much Marilla admires the hat which is
decorously worn to church every Sunday morning, it is hardly seen
again, except by chance, during the week, and the brown hair is sure
to be faded a little before the summer sunshine is past. Nan goes
about visiting when she feels inclined, and seems surprisingly
unchanged as she seats herself in one of the smoke-browned Dyer
kitchens, and listens eagerly to whatever information is offered, or
answers cordially all sorts of questions, whether they concern her own
experiences or the world's in general. She has never yet seen her
father's sister, though she still thinks of her, and sometimes with a
strange longing for an evidence of kind feeling and kinship which has
never been shown. This has been chief among the vague sorrows of her
girlhood. Yet once when her guardian had asked if she wished to make
some attempt at intercourse or conciliation, he had been answered,
with a scorn and decision worthy of grandmother Thacher herself, that
it was for Miss Prince to make advances if she ever wished for either
the respect or affection of her niece. But the young girl has clung
with touching affection to the memory and association of her
childhood, and again and again sought in every season of the year the
old playgrounds and familiar corners of the farm, which she has grown
fonder of as the months go by. The inherited attachment of generations
seems to have been centred in her faithful heart.

It must be confessed that the summer which followed the close of her
school-life was, for the most part, very unsatisfactory. Her
school-days had been more than usually pleasant and rewarding, in
spite of the sorrows and disappointments and unsolvable puzzles which
are sure to trouble thoughtful girls of her age. But she had grown so
used at last to living by rules and bells that she could not help
feeling somewhat adrift without them. It had been so hard to put
herself under restraint and discipline after her free life in
Oldfields that it was equally hard for a while to find herself at
liberty; though, this being her natural state, she welcomed it
heartily at first, and was very thankful to be at home. It did not
take long to discover that she had no longer the same desire for her
childish occupations and amusements; they were only incidental now and
pertained to certain moods, and could not again be made the chief
purposes of her life. She hardly knew what to do with herself, and
sometimes wondered what would become of her, and why she was alive at
all, as she longed for some sufficient motive of existence to catch
her up into its whirlwind. She was filled with energy and a great
desire for usefulness, but it was not with her, as with many of her
friends, that the natural instinct toward marriage, and the building
and keeping of a sweet home-life, ruled all other plans and
possibilities. Her best wishes and hopes led her away from all this,
and however tenderly she sympathized in other people's happiness, and
recognized its inevitableness, for herself she avoided unconsciously
all approach or danger of it. She was trying to climb by the help of
some other train of experiences to whatever satisfaction and success
were possible for her in this world. If she had been older and of a
different nature, she might have been told that to climb up any other
way toward a shelter from the fear of worthlessness, and mistake, and
reproach, would be to prove herself in most people's eyes a thief and
a robber. But in these days she was not fit to reason much about her
fate; she could only wait for the problems to make themselves
understood, and for the whole influence of her character and of the
preparatory years to shape and signify themselves into a simple chart
and unmistakable command. And until the power was given to "see life
steadily and see it whole," she busied herself aimlessly with such
details as were evidently her duty, and sometimes following the right
road and often wandering from it in willful impatience, she stumbled
along more or less unhappily. It seemed as if everybody had forgotten

								Rate this book:0.0 / 0 votes