The Waiting Place Page #2

"The Waiting Place" by Sarah Orne Jewett is a poignant short story that explores themes of patience, longing, and the passage of time. Set in a small coastal town, the narrative revolves around the experiences of a woman who reflects on her life while waiting for a boat. As she observes the people around her and contemplates her own choices and friendships, she grapples with feelings of stagnation and the desire for change. Jewett's lyrical prose beautifully captures the nuances of everyday life and the emotional landscapes of her characters, inviting readers to reflect on their own moments of waiting and the potential for transformation.

• Short story

								

altogether, and when they got close inshore they could see the shapes of
folks, but they never could get near them,—all blowing gray figures that
would pass along alone, or sometimes gathered in companies as if they
were watching. The men were frightened at first, but the shapes never
came near them,—it was as if they blew back; and at last they all got
bold and went ashore, and found birds’ eggs and sea fowl, like any wild
northern spot where creatures were tame and folks had never been, and
there was good water. Gaffett said that he and another man came near one
o’ the fog-shaped men that was going along slow with the look of a pack
on his back, among the rocks, an’ they chased him; but, Lord! he
flittered away out o’ sight like a leaf the wind takes with it, or a
piece of cobweb. They would make as if they talked together, but there
was no sound of voices, and ‘they acted as if they didn’t see us, but
only felt us coming towards them,’ says Gaffett one day, trying to tell
the particulars. They couldn’t see the town when they were ashore. One
day the captain and the doctor were gone till night up across the high
land where the town had seemed to be, and they came back at night beat
out and white as ashes, and wrote and wrote all next day in their
notebooks, and whispered together full of excitement, and they were
sharp-spoken with the men when they offered to ask any questions.

“Then there came a day,” said Captain Littlepage, leaning toward me with
a strange look in his eyes, and whispering quickly. “The men all swore
they wouldn’t stay any longer; the man on watch early in the morning
gave the alarm, and they all put off in the boat and got a little way
out to sea. Those folks, or whatever they were, come about ’em like
bats; all at once they raised incessant armies, and come as if to drive
’em back to sea. They stood thick at the edge o’ the water like the
ridges o’ grim war; no thought o’ flight, none of retreat. Some times a
standing fight, then soaring on main wing tormented all the air. And
when they’d got the boat out o’ reach o’ danger, Gaffett said they
looked back, and there was the town again, standing up just as they’d
seen it first, comin’ on the coast. Say what you might, they all
believed ’twas a kind of waiting place between this world an’ the next.”

The captain had sprung to his feet in his excitement, and made excited
gestures, but he still whispered huskily.

“Sit down, sir,” I said as quietly as I could, and he sank into his
chair quite spent.

“Gaffett thought the officers were hurrying home to report and to fit
out a new expedition when they were all lost. At the time, the men got
orders not to talk over what they had seen,” the old man explained
presently in a more natural tone.

“Weren’t they all starving, and wasn’t it a mirage or something of that
sort?” I ventured to ask. But he looked at me blankly.

“Gaffett had got so that his mind ran on nothing else,” he went on. “The
ship’s surgeon let fall an opinion to the captain, one day, that ’twas
some condition o’ the light and the magnetic currents that let them see
those folks. ’Twa’n’t a right-feeling part of the world, anyway; they
had to battle with the compass to make it serve, an’ everything seemed
to go wrong. Gaffett had worked it out in his own mind that they was all
common ghosts, but the conditions were unusual favorable for seeing
them. He was always talking about the Ge’graphical Society, but he never
took proper steps, as I view it now, and stayed right there at the
mission. He was a good deal crippled, and thought they’d confine him in
some jail of a hospital. He said he was waiting to find the right men to
tell, somebody bound north. Once in a while they stopped there to leave
a mail or something. He was set in his notions, and let two or three
proper explorin’ expeditions go by him because he didn’t like their
looks; but when I was there he had got restless, fearin’ he might be
taken away or something. He had all his directions written out straight
as a string to give the right ones. I wanted him to trust ’em to me, so
I might have something to show, but he wouldn’t. I suppose he’s dead
now. I wrote to him, an’ I done all I could. ’Twill be a great exploit
some o’ these days.”

I assented absent-mindedly, thinking more just then of my companion’s
alert, determined look and the seafaring, ready aspect that had come to
his face; but at this moment there fell a sudden change, and the old,
pathetic, scholarly look returned. Behind me hung a map of North
America, and I saw, as I turned a little, that his eyes were fixed upon
the northernmost regions and their careful recent outlines with a look
of bewilderment.
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