Mr. Macglowrie's Widow Page #2

"Mr. Macglowrie's Widow" is a short story by Bret Harte that explores themes of love, loss, and the complexities of human relationships set against the backdrop of the American West. The narrative revolves around the widow of Mr. Macglowrie, who grapples with her grief while navigating the expectations and judgments of her community. Harte’s nuanced characterizations and poignant storytelling highlight the struggles of a woman seeking independence and fulfillment in a changing world. With a touch of humor and a keen observation of social dynamics, the story poignantly examines the impact of loss and the search for identity in the face of adversity.

• Short story

								

general household practitioner, he was at first coldly welcomed by the
gloomy dyspeptics and ague-haunted settlers from riparian lowlands. The
few bucolic idlers who had relieved the monotony of their lives by the
stimulus of patent medicines and the exaltation of stomach bitters, also
looked askance at him. A common-sense way of dealing with their ailments
did not naturally commend itself to the shopkeepers who vended these
nostrums, and he was made to feel the opposition of trade. But he was
gentle to women and children and animals, and, oddly enough, it was
to this latter dilection that he owed the widow's interest in him--an
interest that eventually made him popular elsewhere.

The widow had a pet dog--a beautiful spaniel, who, however, had
assimilated her graceful languor to his own native love of ease to such
an extent that he failed in a short leap between a balcony and a window,
and fell to the ground with a fractured thigh. The dog was supposed to
be crippled for life even if that life were worth preserving--when Dr.
Blair came to the rescue, set the fractured limb, put it in splints and
plaster after an ingenious design of his own, visited him daily, and
eventually restored him to his mistress's lap sound in wind and limb.
How far this daily ministration and the necessary exchange of sympathy
between the widow and himself heightened his zeal was not known. There
were those who believed that the whole thing was an unmanly trick to get
the better of his rivals in the widow's good graces; there were others
who averred that his treatment of a brute beast like a human being was
sinful and unchristian. "He couldn't have done more for a regularly
baptized child," said the postmistress. "And what mo' would a regularly
baptized child have wanted?" returned Mrs. MacGlowrie, with the drawling
Southern intonation she fell back upon when most contemptuous.

But Dr. Blair's increasing practice and the widow's preoccupation
presently ended their brief intimacy. It was well known that she
encouraged no suitors at the hotel, and his shyness and sensitiveness
shrank from ostentatious advances. There seemed to be no chance of her
becoming, herself, his patient; her sane mind, indolent nerves, and calm
circulation kept her from feminine "vapors" of feminine excesses. She
retained the teeth and digestion of a child in her thirty odd years, and
abused neither. Riding and the cultivation of her little garden gave
her sufficient exercise. And yet the unexpected occurred! The day after
Starbottle left, Dr. Blair was summoned hastily to the hotel. Mrs.
MacGlowrie had been found lying senseless in a dead faint in the
passage outside the dining room. In his hurried flight thither with the
messenger he could learn only that she had seemed to be in her usual
health that morning, and that no one could assign any cause for her
fainting.

He could find out little more when he arrived and examined her as she
lay pale and unconscious on the sofa of her sitting room. It had not
been thought necessary to loosen her already loose dress, and indeed he
could find no organic disturbance. The case was one of sudden nervous
shock--but this, with his knowledge of her indolent temperament, seemed
almost absurd. They could tell him nothing but that she was evidently on
the point of entering the dining room when she fell unconscious. Had
she been frightened by anything? A snake or a rat? Miss Morvin
was indignant! The widow of MacGlowrie--the repeller of
grizzlies--frightened at "sich"! Had she been upset by any previous
excitement, passion, or the receipt of bad news? No!--she "wasn't that
kind," as the doctor knew. And even as they were speaking he felt the
widow's healthy life returning to the pulse he was holding, and giving
a faint tinge to her lips. Her blue-veined eyelids quivered slightly
and then opened with languid wonder on the doctor and her surroundings.
Suddenly a quick, startled look contracted the yellow brown pupils of
her eyes, she lifted herself to a sitting posture with a hurried glance
around the room and at the door beyond. Catching the quick, observant
eyes of Dr. Blair, she collected herself with an effort, which Dr. Blair
felt in her pulse, and drew away her wrist.

"What is it? What happened?" she said weakly.

"You had a slight attack of faintness," said the doctor cheerily, "and
they called me in as I was passing, but you're all right now."

"How pow'ful foolish," she said, with returning color, but her eyes
still glancing at the door, "slumping off like a green gyrl at nothin'."

"Perhaps you were startled?" said the doctor.

Mrs. MacGlowrie glanced up quickly and looked away. "No!--Let me see!
I was just passing through the hall, going into the dining room,
when--everything seemed to waltz round me--and I was off! Where did they
find me?" she said, turning to Miss Morvin.

"I picked you up just outside the door," replied the housekeeper.

"Then they did not see me?" said Mrs. MacGlowrie.

"Who's they?" responded the housekeeper with more directness than
grammatical accuracy.

"The people in the dining room. I was just opening the door--and I felt
this coming on--and--I reckon I had just sense enough to shut the door
again before I went off."

"Then that accounts for what Jim Slocum said," uttered Miss Morvin
triumphantly. "He was in the dining room talkin' with the new preacher,
when he allowed he heard the door open and shut behind him. Then he
heard a kind of slump outside and opened the door again just to find you
lyin' there, and to rush off and get me. And that's why he was so mad
at the preacher!--for he says he just skurried away without offerin'
to help. He allows the preacher may be a pow'ful exhorter--but he ain't
worth much at 'works.'"

"Some men can't bear to be around when a woman's up to that sort of
foolishness," said the widow, with a faint attempt at a smile, but a
return of her paleness.

"Hadn't you better lie down again?" said the doctor solicitously.

"I'm all right now," returned Mrs. MacGlowrie, struggling to her feet;
"Morvin will look after me till the shakiness goes. But it was mighty
touching and neighborly to come in, Doctor," she continued, succeeding
at last in bringing up a faint but adorable smile, which stirred Blair's
pulses. "If I were my own dog--you couldn't have treated me better!"

With no further excuse for staying longer, Blair was obliged to
depart--yet reluctantly, both as lover and physician. He was by no means
satisfied with her condition. He called to inquire the next day--but she
was engaged and sent word to say she was "better."

In the excitement attending the advent of the new preacher the slight
illness of the charming widow was forgotten. He had taken the
settlement by storm. His first sermon at Laurel Spring exceeded even
the extravagant reputation that had preceded him. Known as the "Inspired

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