A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and SketchesJewett, Sarah Orne
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A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches
Jewett, Sarah Orne
Maine -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
"To Pheladelphy, ma'am," said Betsey, looking quite young and gay, and
wearing a townish and unfamiliar air that upheld her words. "All ought
to go that can; why, you feel's if you'd be'n all round the world. I
guess I've got enough to think of and tell ye for the rest o' my days.
I've always wanted to go somewheres. I wish you'd be'n there, I do so.
I've talked with folks from Chiny an' the back o' Pennsylvany; and I
see folks way from Australy that 'peared as well as anybody; an' I see
how they made spool cotton, an' sights o' other things; an' I spoke
with a doctor that lives down to the beach in the summer, an' he
offered to come up 'long in the first of August, an' see what he can
do for Peggy's eyesight. There was di'monds there as big as pigeon's
eggs; an' I met with Mis' Abby Fletcher from South Byfleet depot; an'
there was hogs there that weighed risin' thirteen hunderd"--
"I want to know," said Mrs. Lavina Dow and Peggy Bond, together.
"Well, 'twas a great exper'ence for a person," added Lavina, turning
ponderously, in spite of herself, to give a last wistful look at the
smiling waters of the pond.
"I don't know how soon I be goin' to settle down," proclaimed the
rustic sister of Sindbad. "What's for the good o' one's for the good
of all. You just wait till we're setting together up in the old shed
chamber! You know, my dear Mis' Katy Strafford give me a han'some
present o' money that day she come to see me; and I'd be'n a-dreamin'
by night an' day o' seein' that Centennial; and when I come to think
on't I felt sure somebody ought to go from this neighborhood, if 'twas
only for the good o' the rest; and I thought I'd better be the one. I
wa'n't goin' to ask the selec'men neither. I've come back with
one-thirty-five in money, and I see everything there, an' I fetched ye
all a little somethin'; but I'm full o' dust now, an' pretty nigh beat
out. I never see a place more friendly than Pheladelphy; but 't ain't
natural to a Byfleet person to be always walkin' on a level. There,
now, Peggy, you take my bundle-handkercher and the basket, and let
Mis' Dow sag on to me. I 'll git her along twice as easy."
With this the small elderly company set forth triumphant toward the
poor-house, across the wide green field.
* * * * *
_The Gray Mills of Farley_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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