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148
The Country of the Pointed Firs
·
Sarah Orne Jewett
91
The
birds
were
flying
all
about
the
field;
they
fluttered
up
out
of
the
grass
at
my
feet
as
I
walked
along,
so
tame
that
I
liked
to
think
they
kept
some
happy
tradition
from
summer
to
summer
of
the
safety
of
nests
and
good
fellowship
of
mankind.
Poor
Joanna's
house
was
gone
except
the
stones
of
its
foundations,
and
there
was
little
trace
of
her
flower
garden
except
a
single
faded
sprig
of
much-enduring
French
pinks,
which
a
great
bee
and
a
yellow
butterfly
were
befriending
together.
I
drank
at
the
spring,
and
thought
that
now
and
then
some
one
would
follow
me
from
the
busy,
hard-worked,
and
simple-thoughted
countryside
of
the
mainland,
which
lay
dim
and
dreamlike
in
the
August
haze,
as
Joanna
must
have
watched
it
many
a
day.
There
was
the
world,
and
here
was
she
with
eternity
well
begun.
In
the
life
of
each
of
us,
I
said
to
myself,
there
is
a
place
remote
and
islanded,
and
given
to
endless
regret
or
secret
happiness;
we
are
each
the
uncompanioned
hermit
and
recluse
of
an
hour
or
a
day;
we
understand
our
fellows
of
the
cell
to
whatever
age
of
history
they
may
belong.
But
as
I
stood
alone
on
the
island,
in
the
sea-breeze,
suddenly
there
came
a
sound
of
distant
voices;
gay
voices
and
laughter
from
a
pleasure-boat
that
was
going
seaward
full
of
boys
and
girls.
I
knew,
as
if
she
had
told
me,
that
poor
Joanna
must
have
heard
the
like
on
many
and
many
a
summer
afternoon,
and
must
have
welcomed
the
good
cheer
in
spite
of
hopelessness
and
winter
weather,
and
all
the
sorrow
and
disappointment
in
the
world.
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