At Dr. Leslie's Page #2

"At Dr. Leslie's" by Sarah Orne Jewett is a poignant story set in a small coastal town, exploring themes of community, care, and the complexities of human relationships. The narrative revolves around the life and work of Dr. Leslie, a compassionate physician, and the impact he has on the lives of his patients and the townsfolk. Through vivid descriptions and rich character development, Jewett captures the essence of rural New England life in the late 19th century, highlighting the role of women, the dynamics of friendship, and the bittersweet nature of existence. The story delves into the interconnectedness of personal and professional lives, illustrating how love and loss shape the bonds between people.

• Short story

								

honor, and Dr. Ferris thought he could do no less than to add to his
morning greeting the question why she was not growing old like the
rest of them, which, though not answered, was pleasantly received.

The host and guest talked very late the night before, and told each
other many things. Dr. Leslie had somewhat unwillingly undertaken the
country practice which had grown dearer to him with every year, but
there were family reasons why he had decided to stay in Oldfields for
a few months at least, and though it was not long before he was left
alone, not only by the father and mother whose only child he was, but
by his wife and child, he felt less and less inclination to break the
old ties and transplant himself to some more prominent position of the
medical world. The leisure he often had at certain seasons of the year
was spent in the studies which always delighted him, and little by
little he gained great repute among his professional brethren. He was
a scholar and a thinker in other than medical philosophies, and most
persons who knew anything of him thought it a pity that he should be
burying himself alive, as they were pleased to term his devotion to
his provincial life. His rare excursions to the cities gave more
pleasure to other men than to himself, however, in these later years,
and he laughingly proclaimed himself to be growing rusty and behind
the times to Dr. Ferris, who smiled indulgently, and did not take the
trouble to contradict so untrue and preposterous an assertion.

If one man had been a stayer at home; a vegetable nature, as Dr.
Leslie had gone on to say, which has no power to change its locality
or to better itself by choosing another and more adequate or
stimulating soil; the other had developed the opposite extreme of
character, being by nature a rover. From the medical school he had
entered at once upon the duties of a naval appointment, and after he
had become impatient of its routine of practice and its check upon his
freedom, he had gone, always with some sufficient and useful object,
to one far country after another. Lately he had spent an unusual
number of consecutive months in Japan, which was still unfamiliar even
to most professional travelers, and he had come back to America
enthusiastic and full of plans for many enterprises which his shrewd,
but not very persistent brain had conceived. The two old friends were
delighted to see each other, but they took this long-deferred meeting
as calmly as if they were always next-door neighbors. It was a most
interesting thing that while they led such different lives and took
such apparently antagonistic routes of progression, they were pretty
sure to arrive at the same conclusion, though it might appear
otherwise to a listener who knew them both slightly.

"And who is the little girl?" asked Dr. Ferris, who had refused his
entertainer's cigars and produced a pipe from one pocket, after having
drawn a handful of curious small jade figures from another and pushed
them along the edge of the study table, without comment, for his
friend to look at. Some of them were so finely carved that they looked
like a heap of grotesque insects struggling together as they lay
there, but though Dr. Leslie's eyes brightened as he glanced at them,
he gave no other sign of interest at that time, and answered his
guest's question instead.

"She is a ward of mine," he said; "she was left quite alone by the
death of her grandmother some months ago, and so I brought her here."

"It isn't often that I forget a face," said Dr. Ferris, "but I have
been trying to think what association I can possibly have with that
child. I remember at last; she looks like a young assistant surgeon
who was on the old frigate Fortune with me just before I left the
service. I don't think he was from this part of the country though; I
never heard what became of him."

"I dare say it was her father; I believe he made a voyage or two,"
said Dr. Leslie, much interested. "Do you know anything more about
him? you always remember everything, Ferris."

"Yes," answered the guest, slowly puffing away at his pipe. "Yes, he
was a very bright fellow, with a great gift at doctoring, but he was
willful, full of queer twists and fancies, the marry in haste and
repent at his leisure sort of young man."

"Exactly what he did, I suppose," interrupted the host. "Only his
leisure was fortunately postponed to the next world, for the most
part; he died very young."

"I used to think it a great pity that he had not settled himself
ashore in a good city practice," continued Dr. Ferris. "He had a great
knack at pleasing people and making friends, and he was always
spoiling for want of work. I was ready enough to shirk my part of
that, you may be sure, but if you start with a reasonably healthy set
of men, crew and officers, and keep good discipline, and have no
accidents on the voyage, an old-fashioned ship-master's kit of
numbered doses is as good as anything on board a man-of-war in time of
peace. You have mild cases that result from over-heating or
over-eating, and sometimes a damaged finger to dress, or a tooth to
pull. I used to tell young Prince that it was a pity one of the men
wouldn't let himself be chopped to pieces and fitted together again to
give us a little amusement."

"That's the name," announced Nan's guardian with great satisfaction.
"This is a very small world; we are all within hail of each other. I
dare say when we get to Heaven there will not be a stranger to make
friends with."

"I could give you more wonderful proofs of that than you would be
likely to believe," responded the surgeon. "But tell me how you
happened to have anything to do with the child; did Prince wander into
this neighborhood?"

"Not exactly, but he fell in love with a young girl who was brought up
on one of the farms just out of the village. She was a strange
character, a handsome creature, with a touch of foolish ambition, and
soon grew impatient of the routine of home life. I believe that she
went away at first to work in one of the factories in Lowell, and
afterward she drifted to Dunport, where young Prince's people lived,
and I dare say it was when he came home from that very voyage you knew
of that he saw her and married her. She worked in a dressmaker's shop,
and worked very well too, but she had offended his sister to begin
with, one day when she was finding fault with some work that had been
done for her, and so there was no end of trouble, and the young man
had a great battle at home, and the more he was fought the less
inclined he was to yield, and at last off he went to be married, and
never came home again until he died. It was a wretched story; he only
lived two years, and they went from one place to another, and finally
the end came in some Western town. He had not been happy with his
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