Along Shore

"Along Shore" by Sarah Orne Jewett is a collection of interconnected stories that capture the rhythms of life in a coastal New England town. Through vivid descriptions and rich characterizations, Jewett explores themes of community, nature, and the intricacies of human relationships. The narrative weaves together the daily experiences of locals, revealing their struggles and joys as they navigate the challenges of their environment. With its lyrical prose and keen observations, the book celebrates the simplicity and beauty of rural life, offering a poignant reflection on the bond between people and the sea.

• Short story

								
One day as I went along the shore beyond the old wharves and the newer,
high-stepped fabric of the steamer landing, I saw that all the boats
were beached, and the slack water period of the early afternoon
prevailed. Nothing was going on, not even the most leisurely of
occupations, like baiting trawls or mending nets, or repairing lobster
pots; the very boats seemed to be taking an afternoon nap in the sun. I
could hardly discover a distant sail as I looked seaward, except a
weather-beaten lobster smack, which seemed to have been taken for a
plaything by the light airs that blew about the bay. It drifted and
turned about so aimlessly in the wide reach off Burnt Island, that I
suspected there was nobody at the wheel, or that she might have parted
her rusty anchor chain while all the crew were asleep.

I watched her for a minute or two; she was the old Miranda, owned by
some of the Caplins, and I knew her by an odd shaped patch of newish
duck that was set into the peak of her dingy mainsail. Her vagaries
offered such an exciting subject for conversation that my heart rejoiced
at the sound of a hoarse voice behind me. At that moment, before I had
time to answer, I saw something large and shapeless flung from the
Miranda’s deck that splashed the water high against her black side, and
my companion gave a satisfied chuckle. The old lobster smack’s sail
caught the breeze again at this moment, and she moved off down the bay.
Turning, I found old Elijah Tilley, who had come softly out of his dark
fish house, as if it were a burrow.

“Boy got kind o’ drowsy steerin’ of her; Monroe he hove him right
overboard; ’wake now fast enough,” explained Mr. Tilley, and we laughed
together.

I was delighted, for my part, that the vicissitudes and dangers of the
Miranda, in a rocky channel, should have given me this opportunity to
make acquaintance with an old fisherman to whom I had never spoken. At
first he had seemed to be one of those evasive and uncomfortable persons
who are so suspicious of you that they make you almost suspicious of
yourself. Mr. Elijah Tilley appeared to regard a stranger with scornful
indifference. You might see him standing on the pebble beach or in a
fish-house doorway, but when you came nearer he was gone. He was one of
the small company of elderly, gaunt-shaped great fishermen whom I used
to like to see leading up a deep-laden boat by the head, as if it were a
horse, from the water’s edge to the steep slope of the pebble beach.
There were four of these large old men at the Landing, who were the
survivors of an earlier and more vigorous generation. There was an
alliance and understanding between them, so close that it was apparently
speechless. They gave much time to watching one another’s boats go out
or come in; they lent a ready hand at tending one another’s lobster
traps in rough weather; they helped to clean the fish, or to sliver
porgies for the trawls, as if they were in close partnership; and when a
boat came in from deep-sea fishing they were never far out of the way,
and hastened to help carry it ashore, two by two, splashing alongside,
or holding its steady head, as if it were a willful sea colt. As a
matter of fact no boat could help being steady and way-wise under their
instant direction and companionship. Abel’s boat and Jonathan Bowden’s
boat were as distinct and experienced personalities as the men
themselves, and as inexpressive. Arguments and opinions were unknown to
the conversation of these ancient friends; you would as soon have
expected to hear small talk in a company of elephants as to hear old Mr.
Bowden or Elijah Tilley and their two mates waste breath upon any form
of trivial gossip. They made brief statements to one another from time
to time. As you came to know them you wondered more and more that they
should talk at all. Speech seemed to be a light and elegant
accomplishment, and their unexpected acquaintance with its arts made
them of new value to the listener. You felt almost as if a landmark pine
should suddenly address you in regard to the weather, or a lofty-minded
old camel make a remark as you stood respectfully near him under the
circus tent.

I often wondered a great deal about the inner life and thought of these
self-contained old fishermen; their minds seemed to be fixed upon nature
and the elements rather than upon any contrivances of man, like politics
or theology. My friend, Captain Bowden, who was the nephew of the eldest
of this group, regarded them with deference; but he did not belong to
their secret companionship, though he was neither young nor talkative.

“They’ve gone together ever since they were boys, they know most
everything about the sea amon’st them,” he told me once. “They was
always just as you see ’em now since the memory of man.”

These ancient seafarers had houses and lands not outwardly different
from other Dunnet Landing dwellings, and two of them were fathers of
families, but their true dwelling places were the sea, and the stony
beach that edged its familiar shore, and the fishhouses, where much salt
brine from the mackerel kits had soaked the very timbers into a state of
brown permanence and petrifaction. It had also affected the old
fishermen’s hard complexions, until one fancied that when Death claimed
them it could only be with the aid, not of any slender modern dart, but
the good serviceable harpoon of a seventeenth century woodcut.

Elijah Tilley was such an evasive, discouraged-looking person,
heavy-headed, and stooping so that one could never look him in the face,
that even after his friendly exclamation about Monroe Pennell, the
lobster smack’s skipper, and the sleepy boy, I did not venture at once
to speak again. Mr. Tilley was carrying a small haddock in one hand, and
presently shifted it to the other hand lest it might touch my skirt. I
knew that my company was accepted, and we walked together a little way.

“You mean to have a good supper,” I ventured to say, by way of
friendliness.

“Goin’ to have this ’ere haddock an’ some o’ my good baked potatoes;
must eat to live,” responded my companion with great pleasantness and
open approval. I found that I had suddenly left the forbidding coast and
come into a smooth little harbor of friendship.

“You ain’t never been up to my place,” said the old man. “Folks don’t
come now as they used to; no, ’tain’t no use to ask folks now. My poor
dear she was a great hand to draw young company.”

I remembered that Mrs. Todd had once said that this old fisherman had
been sore stricken and unconsoled at the death of his wife.

“I should like very much to come,” said I. “Perhaps you are going to be
at home later on?”

Mr. Tilley agreed, by a sober nod, and went his way bent-shouldered and
with a rolling gait. There was a new patch high on the shoulder of his
old waistcoat, which corresponded to the renewing of the Miranda’s
mainsail down the bay, and I wondered if his own fingers, clumsy with
much deep-sea fishing, had set it in.

“Was there a good catch to-day?” I asked, stopping a moment. “I didn’t

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