Miss Debby's Neighbors Page #3

"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

								

together, the fight had gone so far,--but 'long in the winter old Mr.
Ashby, the boys' father, was taken down with a spell o' sickness, and
there wa'n't anybody they could get to come and look after the house.
The doctor hunted, and they all hunted, but there didn't seem to be
anybody--'twa'n't so thick settled as now, and there was no spare
help--so John had to eat humble pie, and go and ask Susan Ellen if she
wouldn't come back and let by-gones be by-gones. She was as good-natured
a creatur' as ever stepped, and did the best she knew, and she spoke up
as pleasant as could be, and said she'd go right off that afternoon and
help 'em through.

"The old Ashby had been a hard drinker in his day and he was all broke
down. Nobody ever saw him that he couldn't walk straight, but he got a
crooked disposition out of it, if nothing else. I s'pose there never was
a man loved sperit better. They said one year he was over to Cyrus
Barker's to help with the haying, and there was a jug o' New England rum
over by the spring with some gingerbread and cheese and stuff; and he
went over about every half an hour to take something, and along about
half-past ten he got the jug middling low, so he went to fill it up with
a little water, and lost holt of it and it sunk, and they said he drunk
the spring dry three times!

"Joe and Susan Ellen stayed there at the old place well into the summer,
and then after planting they moved down to the Four Corners where they
had bought a nice little place. Joe did well there,--he carried on the
carpenter trade, and got smoothed down considerable, being amongst
folks. John he married a Pecker girl, and got his match too; she was the
only living soul he ever was afraid of. They lived on there a spell
and--why, they must have lived there all of fifteen or twenty years, now
I come to think of it, for the time they moved was after the railroad
was built. 'Twas along in the winter and his wife she got a notion to
buy a place down to the Falls below the Corners after the mills got
started and have John work in the spinning-room while she took boarders.
She said 'twa'n't no use staying on the farm, they couldn't make a
living off from it now they'd cut the growth. Joe's folks and she never
could get along, and they said she was dreadfully riled up hearing how
much Joe was getting in the machine shop.

"They needn't tell me about special providences being all moonshine,"
said Miss Debby for the second time, "if here wa'n't a plain one, I'll
never say one word more about it. You see, that very time Joe Ashby got
a splinter in his eye and they were afraid he was going to lose his
sight, and he got a notion that he wanted to go back to farming. He
always set everything by the old place, and he had a boy growing up that
neither took to his book nor to mill work, and he wanted to farm it too.
So Joe got hold of John one day when he come in with some wood, and
asked him why he wouldn't take his place for a year or two, if he wanted
to get to the village, and let him go out to the old place. My brother
Jonas was standin' right by and heard 'em and said he never heard nobody
speak civiller. But John swore and said he wa'n't going to be caught in
no such a trap as that. His father left him the place and he was going
to do as he'd a mind to. There'd be'n trouble about the property, for
old Mr. Ashby had given Joe some money he had in the bank. Joe had got
to be well off, he could have bought most any farm about here, but he
wanted the old place 'count of his attachment. He set everything by his
mother, spite of her being dead so long. John hadn't done very well
spite of his being so sharp, but he let out the best of the farm on
shares, and bought a mis'able sham-built little house down close by the
mills,--and then some idea or other got into his head to fit that up to
let and move it to one side of the lot, and haul down the old house from
the farm to live in themselves. There wa'n't no time to lose, else the
snow would be gone; so he got a gang o' men up there and put shoes
underneath the sills, and then they assembled all the oxen they could
call in, and started. Mother was living then, though she'd got to be
very feeble, and when they come for our yoke she wouldn't have Jonas let
'em go. She said the old house ought to stay in its place. Everybody had
been telling John Ashby that the road was too hilly, and besides the
house was too old to move, they'd rack it all to pieces dragging it so
fur; but he wouldn't listen to no reason.

"I never saw mother so stirred up as she was that day, and when she see
the old thing a moving she burst right out crying. We could see one end
of it looking over the slope of the hill in the pasture between it and
our house. There was two windows that looked our way, and I know Mis'
Ashby used to hang a piece o' something white out o' one of 'em when she
wanted mother to step over for anything. They set a good deal by each
other, and Mis' Ashby was a lame woman. I shouldn't ha' thought John
would had 'em haul the house right over the little gardin she thought so
much of, and broke down the laylocks and flowering currant she set
everything by. I remember when she died I wasn't more'n seven or eight
year old, it was all in full bloom and mother she broke off a branch and
laid into the coffin. I do' know as I've ever seen any since or set in a
room and had the sweetness of it blow in at the windows without
remembering that day,--'twas the first funeral I ever went to, and that
may be some reason. Well, the old house started off and mother watched
it as long as she could see it. She was sort o' feeble herself then, as
I said, and we went on with the work,--'twas a Saturday, and we was
baking and churning and getting things to rights generally. Jonas had
been over in the swamp getting out some wood he'd cut earlier in the
winter--and along in the afternoon he come in and said he s'posed I
wouldn't want to ride down to the Corners so late, and I said I did feel
just like it, so we started off. We went the Birch Ridge road, because
he wanted to see somebody over that way,--and when we was going home by
the straight road, Jonas laughed and said we hadn't seen anything of
John Ashby's moving, and he guessed he'd got stuck somewhere. He was
glad he hadn't nothing to do with it. We drove along pretty quick, for
we were some belated, and we didn't like to leave mother all alone after
it come dark. All of a sudden Jonas stood up in the sleigh, and says he,
'I don't believe but the cars is off the track;' and I looked and there
did seem to be something the matter with 'em. They hadn't been running
more than a couple o' years then, and we was prepared for anything.

"Jonas he whipped up the horse and we got there pretty quick, and I'll
be bound if the Ashby house hadn't got stuck fast right on the track,
and stir it one way or another they couldn't. They'd been there since
quarter-past one, pulling and hauling,--and the men was all hoarse with
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