Deephaven and Selected Stories & SketchesJewett, Sarah Orne
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Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches
Jewett, Sarah Orne
Maine -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
There were two schooners owned in town, and 'Bijah Mauley and Jo Sands
owned a trawl. There were some schooners and a small brig slowly going
to pieces by the wharves, and indeed all Deephaven looked more or less
out of repair. All along shore one might see dories and wherries and
whale-boats, which had been left to die a lingering death. There is
something piteous to me in the sight of an old boat. If one I had used
much and cared for were past its usefulness, I should say good by to it,
and have it towed out to sea and sunk; it never should be left to fall
to pieces above high-water mark.
Even the commonest fishermen felt a satisfaction, and seemed to realize
their privilege, in being residents of Deephaven; but among the nobility
and gentry there lingered a fierce pride in their family and town
records, and a hardly concealed contempt and pity for people who were
obliged to live in other parts of the world. There were acknowledged to
be a few disadvantages,--such as living nearly a dozen miles from the
railway,--but, as Miss Honora Carew said, the tone of Deephaven society
had always been very high, and it was very nice that there had never
been any manufacturing element introduced. She could not feel too
grateful, herself, that there was no disagreeable foreign population.
"But," said Kate one day, "wouldn't you like to have some pleasant new
people brought into town?"
"Certainly, my dear," said Miss Honora, rather doubtfully; "I have
always been public-spirited; but then, we always have guests in summer,
and I am growing old. I should not care to enlarge my acquaintance to
any great extent." Miss Honora and Mrs. Dent had lived gay lives in
their younger days, and were interested and connected with the outside
world more than any of our Deephaven friends; but they were quite
contented to stay in their own house, with their books and letters and
knitting, and they carefully read Littell and "the new magazine," as
they called the Atlantic.
The Carews were very intimate with the minister and his sister, and
there were one or two others who belonged to this set. There was Mr.
Joshua Dorsey, who wore his hair in a queue, was very deaf, and carried
a ponderous cane which had belonged to his venerated father,--a much
taller man than he. He was polite to Kate and me, but we never knew him
much. He went to play whist with the Carews every Monday evening, and
commonly went out fishing once a week. He had begun the practice of law,
but he had lost his hearing, and at the same time his lady-love had
inconsiderately fallen in love with somebody else; after which he
retired from active business life. He had a fine library, which he
invited us to examine. He had many new books, but they looked shockingly
overdressed, in their fresher bindings, beside the old brown volumes of
essays and sermons, and lighter works in many-volume editions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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