Miss Debby's Neighbors

"Miss Debby's Neighbors," written by Sarah Orne Jewett, is a short story that captures the lives of residents in a small coastal town in New England. Through the lens of Miss Debby, a kind-hearted and observant woman, the narrative explores the dynamics of community, friendship, and the subtleties of everyday life. Jewett's rich, descriptive prose brings to life the interactions between neighbors, revealing the hidden depths of their relationships and the impact of social connections. This story reflects themes of observation, compassion, and the comfort found in familiar surroundings.

• Short story

								
There is a class of elderly New England women which is fast dying
out:--those good souls who have sprung from a soil full of the true New
England instincts; who were used to the old-fashioned ways, and whose
minds were stored with quaint country lore and tradition. The fashions
of the newer generations do not reach them; they are quite unconscious
of the western spirit and enterprise, and belong to the old days, and to
a fast-disappearing order of things.

But a shrewder person does not exist than the spokeswoman of the
following reminiscences, whose simple history can be quickly told, since
she spent her early life on a lonely farm, leaving it only once for any
length of time,--one winter when she learned her trade of tailoress. She
afterward sewed for her neighbors, and enjoyed a famous reputation for
her skill; but year by year, as she grew older, there was less to do,
and at last, to use her own expression, "Everybody got into the way of
buying cheap, ready-made-up clothes, just to save 'em a little trouble,"
and she found herself out of business, or nearly so. After her mother's
death, and that of her favorite younger brother Jonas, she left the farm
and came to a little house in the village, where she lived most
comfortably the rest of her life, having a small property which she used
most sensibly. She was always ready to render any special service with
her needle, and was a most welcome guest in any household, and a most
efficient helper. To be in the same room with her for a while was sure
to be profitable, and as she grew older she was delighted to recall the
people and events of her earlier life, always filling her descriptions
with wise reflections and much quaint humor. She always insisted, not
without truth, that the railroads were making everybody look and act of
a piece, and that the young folks were more alike than people of her own
day. It is impossible to give the delightfulness of her talk in any
written words, as well as many of its peculiarities, for her way of
going round Robin Hood's barn between the beginning of her story and its
end can hardly be followed at all, and certainly not in her own dear
loitering footsteps.

On an idle day her most devoted listener thought there was nothing
better worth doing than to watch this good soul at work. A book was held
open for the looks of the thing, but presently it was allowed to flutter
its leaves and close, for Miss Debby began without any apparent
provocation:--

"They may say whatever they have a mind to, but they can't persuade me
that there's no such thing as special providences," and she twitched her
strong linen thread so angrily through the carpet she was sewing, that
it snapped and the big needle flew into the air. It had to be found
before any further remarks could be made, and the listener also knelt
down to search for it. After a while it was discovered clinging to Miss
Debby's own dress, and after reharnessing it she went to work again at
her long seam. It was always significant of a succession of Miss Debby's
opinions when she quoted and berated certain imaginary persons whom she
designated as "They," who stood for the opposite side of the question,
and who merited usually her deepest scorn and fullest antagonism. Her
remarks to these offending parties were always prefaced with "I tell
'em," and to the listener's mind "they" always stood rebuked, but not
convinced, in spiritual form it may be, but most intense reality; a
little group as solemn as Miss Debby herself. Once the listener ventured
to ask who "they" were, in her early childhood, but she was only
answered by a frown. Miss Debby knew as well as any one the difference
between figurative language and a lie. Sometimes they said what was
right and proper, and were treated accordingly; but very seldom, and on
this occasion it seemed that they had ventured to trifle with sacred
things.

"I suppose you're too young to remember John Ashby's grandmother? A good
woman she was, and she had a dreadful time with her family. They never
could keep the peace, and there was always as many as two of them who
didn't speak with each other. It seems to come down from generation to
generation like a--curse!" And Miss Debby spoke the last word as if
she had meant it partly for her thread, which had again knotted and
caught, and she snatched the offered scissors without a word, but said
peaceably, after a minute or two, that the thread wasn't what it used
to be. The next needleful proved more successful, and the listener asked
if the Ashbys were getting on comfortably at present.

"They always behave as if they thought they needed nothing," was the
response. "Not that I mean that they are any ways contented, but they
never will give in that other folks holds a candle to 'em. There's one
kind of pride that I do hate,--when folks is satisfied with their selves
and don't see no need of improvement. I believe in self-respect, but I
believe in respecting other folks's rights as much as your own; but it
takes an Ashby to ride right over you. I tell 'em it's the spirit of the
tyrants of old, and it's the kind of pride that goes before a fall. John
Ashby's grandmother was a clever little woman as ever stepped. She came
from over Hardwick way, and I think she kep' 'em kind of decent-behaved
as long as she was round; but she got wore out a doin' of it, an' went
down to her grave in a quick consumption. My mother set up with her the
night she died. It was in May, towards the latter part, and an awful
rainy night. It was the storm that always comes in apple-blossom time. I
remember well that mother come crying home in the morning and told us
Mis' Ashby was dead. She brought Marilly with her, that was about my own
age, and was taken away within six months afterwards. She pined herself
to death for her mother, and when she caught the scarlet fever she went
as quick as cherry-bloom when it's just ready to fall and a wind strikes
it. She wa'n't like the rest of 'em. She took after her mother's folks
altogether.

"You know our farm was right next to theirs,--the one Asa Hopper owns
now, but he's let it all run out,--and so, as we lived some ways from
the stores, we had to be neighborly, for we depended on each other for a
good many things. Families in lonesome places get out of one supply and
another, and have to borrow until they get a chance to send to the
village; or sometimes in a busy season some of the folks would have to
leave work and be gone half a day. Land, you don't know nothing about
old times, and the life that used to go on about here. You can't step
into a house anywheres now that there ain't the county map and they
don't fetch out the photograph book; and in every district you'll find
all the folks has got the same chromo picture hung up, and all sorts of
luxuries and makeshifts o' splendor that would have made the folks I
was fetched up by stare their eyes out o' their heads. It was all we

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