At Dr. Leslie's Page #3

"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

								

wife, and they quarreled from time to time, and he asked to be brought
back to Dunport and buried. This child was only a baby, and the
Princes begged her mother to give her up, and used every means to try
to make friends, and to do what was right. But I have always thought
there was blame on both sides. At any rate the wife was insolent and
unruly, and went flinging out of the house as soon as the funeral was
over. I don't know what became of them for a while, but it always
seemed to me as if poor Adeline must have had a touch of insanity,
which faded away as consumption developed itself. Her mother's people
were a fine, honest race, self-reliant and energetic, but there is a
very bad streak on the other side. I have heard that she was seen
begging somewhere, but I am not sure that it is true; at any rate she
would neither come here to her own home nor listen to any plea from
her husband's family, and at last came back to the farm one night like
a ghost, carrying the child in her arms across the fields; all in rags
and tatters, both of them. She confessed to me that she had meant to
drown herself and little Nan together. I could never understand why
she went down so fast. I know that she had been drinking. Some people
might say that it was the scorn of her husband's relatives, but that
is all nonsense, and I have no doubt she and the young man might have
done very well if this hadn't spoiled all their chances at the outset.
She was quite unbalanced and a strange, wild creature, very handsome
in her girlhood, but morally undeveloped. It was impossible not to
have a liking for her. I remember her when she was a baby."

"And yet people talk about the prosaic New England life!" exclaimed
Dr. Ferris. "I wonder where I could match such a story as that, though
I dare say that you know a dozen others. I tell you, Leslie, that for
intense, self-centred, smouldering volcanoes of humanity, New England
cannot be matched the world over. It's like the regions in Iceland
that are full of geysers. I don't know whether it is the inheritance
from those people who broke away from the old countries, and who ought
to be matched to tremendous circumstances of life, but now and then
there comes an amazingly explosive and uncontrollable temperament that
goes all to pieces from its own conservation and accumulation of
force. By and by you will have all blown up,--you quiet descendants of
the Pilgrims and Puritans, and have let off your superfluous
wickedness like blizzards; and when the blizzards of each family have
spent themselves you will grow dull and sober, and all on a level, and
be free from the troubles of a transition state. Now, you're neither a
new country nor an old one. You ought to see something of the older
civilizations to understand what peace of mind is. Unless some
importation of explosive material from the westward stirs them up, one
century is made the pattern for the next. But it is perfectly
wonderful what this climate does for people who come to it,--a south
of Ireland fellow, for instance, who has let himself be rained on and
then waited for the sun to dry him again, and has grubbed a little in
a bit of ground, just enough to hint to it that it had better be
making a crop of potatoes for him. I always expect to see the gorse
and daisies growing on the old people's heads to match the cabins. But
they come over here and forget their idleness, and in a week or two
the east winds are making them work, and thrashing them if they are
slow, worse than any slave-driver who ever cracked his whip-lash. I
wonder how you stand it; I do, indeed! I can't take an afternoon nap
or have my coffee in bed of a morning without thinking I must put into
port at the next church to be preached at."

Dr. Leslie laughed a little and shook his head gently. "It's very well
for you to talk, Ferris," he said, "since you have done more work than
any man I know. And I find this neighborhood entirely placid; one bit
of news will last us a fortnight. I dare say Marilla will let
everybody know that you have come to town, and have explained why she
was ten minutes late, even to the minister."

"How about the little girl herself?" asked the guest presently; "she
seems well combined, and likely, as they used to say when I was a
boy."

Dr. Leslie resumed the subject willingly: "So far as I can see, she
has the good qualities of all her ancestors without the bad ones. Her
mother's mother was an old fashioned country woman of the best stock.
Of course she resented what she believed to be her daughter's wrongs,
and refused to have anything to do with her son-in-law's family, and
kept the child as carefully as possible from any knowledge of them.
Little Nan was not strong at first, but I insisted that she should be
allowed to run free out of doors. It seems to me that up to seven or
eight years of age children are simply bundles of inheritances, and I
can see the traits of one ancestor after another; but a little later
than the usual time she began to assert her own individuality, and has
grown capitally well in mind and body ever since. There is an amusing
trace of the provincial self-reliance and self-respect and farmer-like
dignity, added to a quick instinct, and tact and ready courtesy, which
must have come from the other side of her ancestry. She is more a
child of the soil than any country child I know, and yet she would not
put a city household to shame. She has seen nothing of the world of
course, but you can see she isn't like the usual village school-girl.
There is one thing quite remarkable. I believe she has grown up as
naturally as a plant grows, not having been clipped back or forced in
any unnatural direction. If ever a human being were untrammeled and
left alone to see what will come of it, it is this child. And I will
own I am very much interested to see what will appear later."

The navy surgeon's eyes twinkled at this enthusiasm, but he asked
soberly what seemed to be our heroine's bent, so far as could be
discovered, and laughed outright when he was gravely told that it was
a medical bent; a surprising understanding of things pertaining to
that most delightful profession.

"But you surely don't mean to let her risk her happiness in following
that career?" Dr. Ferris inquired with feigned anxiety for his answer.
"You surely aren't going to sacrifice that innocent creature to a
theory! I know it's a theory; last time I was here, you could think of
nothing but hypnotism or else the action of belladonna in congestion
and inflammation of the brain;" and he left his very comfortable chair
suddenly, with a burst of laughter, and began to walk up and down the
room. "She has no relatives to protect her, and I consider it a
shocking case of a guardian's inhumanity. Grown up naturally indeed! I
don't doubt that you supplied her with Bell's 'Anatomy' for a
picture-book and made her say over the names of the eight little bones
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