The Flight of Betsey Lane

"The Flight of Betsey Lane" by Sarah Orne Jewett is a charming novella that explores themes of independence and self-discovery through the experiences of its titular character, Betsey Lane. Set in the coastal town of Maine, the story follows Betsey as she embarks on a journey of personal growth, navigating the expectations of her family and society while seeking to carve out her own identity. Jewett’s nuanced portrayal of rural life and her evocative writing style highlight the beauty of the natural world and the complexities of human relationships. Through Betsey’s adventures, the novella reflects on the tension between tradition and modernity, ultimately celebrating the courage to forge one’s own path.

• Short story

								
                                   I.

One windy morning in May, three old women sat together near an open
window in the shed chamber of Byfleet Poor-house. The wind was from the
northwest, but their window faced the southeast, and they were only
visited by an occasional pleasant waft of fresh air. They were close
together, knee to knee, picking over a bushel of beans, and commanding a
view of the dandelion-starred, green yard below, and of the winding,
sandy road that led to the village, two miles away. Some captive bees
were scolding among the cobwebs of the rafters overhead, or thumping
against the upper panes of glass; two calves were bawling from the
barnyard, where some of the men were at work loading a dump-cart and
shouting as if every one were deaf. There was a cheerful feeling of
activity, and even an air of comfort, about the Byfleet Poor-house.
Almost every one was possessed of a most interesting past, though there
was less to be said about the future. The inmates were by no means
distressed or unhappy; many of them retired to this shelter only for the
winter season, and would go out presently, some to begin such work as
they could still do, others to live in their own small houses; old age
had impoverished most of them by limiting their power of endurance; but
far from lamenting the fact that they were town charges, they rather
liked the change and excitement of a winter residence on the poor-farm.
There was a sharp-faced, hard-worked young widow with seven children,
who was an exception to the general level of society, because she
deplored the change in her fortunes. The older women regarded her with
suspicion, and were apt to talk about her in moments like this, when
they happened to sit together at their work.

The three bean-pickers were dressed alike in stout brown ginghams,
checked by a white line, and all wore great faded aprons of blue
drilling, with sufficient pockets convenient to the right hand. Miss
Peggy Bond was a very small, belligerent-looking person, who wore a huge
pair of steel-bowed spectacles, holding her sharp chin well up in air,
as if to supplement an inadequate nose. She was more than half blind,
but the spectacles seemed to face upward instead of square ahead, as if
their wearer were always on the sharp lookout for birds. Miss Bond had
suffered much personal damage from time to time, because she never took
heed where she planted her feet, and so was always tripping and stubbing
her bruised way through the world. She had fallen down hatchways and
cellarways, and stepped composedly into deep ditches and pasture brooks;
but she was proud of stating that she was upsighted, and so was her
father before her. At the poor-house, where an unusual malady was
considered a distinction, upsightedness was looked upon as a most
honorable infirmity. Plain rheumatism, such as afflicted Aunt Lavina
Dow, whose twisted hands found even this light work difficult and
tiresome,—plain rheumatism was something of every-day occurrence, and
nobody cared to hear about it. Poor Peggy was a meek and friendly soul,
who never put herself forward; she was just like other folks, as she
always loved to say, but Mrs. Lavina Dow was a different sort of person
altogether, of great dignity and, occasionally, almost aggressive
behavior. The time had been when she could do a good day’s work with
anybody: but for many years now she had not left the town-farm, being
too badly crippled to work; she had no relations or friends to visit,
but from an innate love of authority she could not submit to being one
of those who are forgotten by the world. Mrs. Dow was the hostess and
social lawgiver here, where she remembered every inmate and every item
of interest for nearly forty years, besides an immense amount of town
history and biography for three or four generations back.

She was the dear friend of the third woman, Betsey Lane; together they
led thought and opinion—chiefly opinion—and held sway, not only over
Byfleet Poor-farm, but also the selectmen and all others in authority.
Betsey Lane had spent most of her life as aid-in-general to the
respected household of old General Thornton. She had been much trusted
and valued, and, at the breaking up of that once large and flourishing
family, she had been left in good circumstances, what with legacies and
her own comfortable savings; but by sad misfortune and lavish generosity
everything had been scattered, and after much illness, which ended in a
stiffened arm and more uncertainty, the good soul had sensibly decided
that it was easier for the whole town to support her than for a part of
it. She had always hoped to see something of the world before she died;
she came of an adventurous, seafaring stock, but had never made a longer
journey than to the towns of Danby and Northville, thirty miles away.

They were all old women; but Betsey Lane, who was sixty-nine, and looked
much older, was the youngest. Peggy Bond was far on in the seventies,
and Mrs. Dow was at least ten years older. She made a great secret of
her years; and as she sometimes spoke of events prior to the Revolution
with the assertion of having been an eye-witness, she naturally wore an
air of vast antiquity. Her tales were an inexpressible delight to Betsey
Lane, who felt younger by twenty years because her friend and comrade
was so unconscious of chronological limitations.

The bushel basket of cranberry beans was within easy reach, and each of
the pickers had filled her lap from it again and again. The shed chamber
was not an unpleasant place in which to sit at work, with its traces of
seed corn hanging from the brown crossbeams, its spare churns, and dusty
loom, and rickety wool-wheels, and a few bits of old furniture. In one
far corner was a wide board of dismal use and suggestion, and close
beside it an old cradle. There was a battered chest of drawers where the
keeper of the poor-house kept his garden-seeds, with the withered
remains of three seed cucumbers ornamenting the top. Nothing beautiful
could be discovered, nothing interesting, but there was something usable
and homely about the place. It was the favorite and untroubled bower of
the bean-pickers, to which they might retreat unmolested from the public
apartments of this rustic institution.

Betsey Lane blew away the chaff from her handful of beans. The spring
breeze blew the chaff back again, and sifted it over her face and
shoulders. She rubbed it out of her eyes impatiently, and happened to
notice old Peggy holding her own handful high, as if it were an
oblation, and turning her queer, up-tilted head this way and that, to
look at the beans sharply, as if she were first cousin to a hen.

“There, Miss Bond, ’tis kind of botherin’ work for you, ain’t it?”
Betsey inquired compassionately.

“I feel to enjoy it, anything that I can do my own way so,” responded
Peggy. “I like to do my part. Ain’t that old Mis’ Fales comin’ up the
road? It sounds like her step.”

The others looked, but they were not farsighted, and for a moment Peggy

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