Miss Peck’s Promotion - Sarah Orne Jewett - 244 / 365 of reading one short story every day.

Sarah Orne Jewett (1849 – 1909) was an American novelist and short story writer born into an old New England family in the coastal town of South Berwick, Maine. Jewett related to her experiences from her native region, and she became famous for her stories highlighting small town life, often set on the Maine seacoast.

Jewett's most acclaimed work is her collection of stories, The Country of the Pointed Firs, published in 1896.



Jewett, considered regionalist or “local colorist,” wrote about New England life and effectively captured the native accent, diction, and syntax especially of Maine’s people. Jewett’s novel, A Country Doctor (1884), among other titles, suggests her feminist awareness of women’s larger capabilities. Other works consider issues of domestic culture, class structure, ecology, and the natural world. Author Harriet Beecher Stowe was one of her prominent inpsirations.

In 1901 Jewett became the first woman to receive an honorary Litt.D. degree from Bowdoin College. Just one year later, she suffered crippling injuries in a carriage accident, thereby limiting her physical mobility and hence her writing. After suffering a first stroke in March 1909 and a second June 23, 1909, Jewett died.


Miss Peck’s Promotion - from
Tales of New England by Sarah Orne Jewett Story collections

In Miss Peck’s Promotion, Eliza Peck is a spinster living in a house on the hillside. The story starts with her viewing the rest of the village from her window. She ponders on her loneliness but quickly attempts to shrug off the feeling so that she doesn't pity herself too much. She thinks about her family living on the other side of the town and she misses her nephew Tom.



The village she lives in is a close knit family. While reading the story, I thought it had the same faint resemblance to Green Gables. Sweet, close knit community families.


The town parish minster, Rev. Mr. Elbury’s wife dies in childbirth and this event sets the wheels of the story running.


Eliza is visited by the minister's neighbour who asks if Miss Peck would consider taking care of the infant till the minister finds a more suitable alternative. She agrees, and then begins a long time of her being there, leaving her house alone. She doens mind that because somewhere inside her deep lonely soul, she doesn't want to go back to an empty house.

Soon she begins to care for not just the child but the minister as well. He leaves his usual gruff self and appears sweet to her, competing on her housekeeping and her cooking. Things begin to look very rosy for her.


One day, however, the minister comes from an overnight trip with a young bride. For himself. A very shocked Miss Peck composes herself from the initial shock and dismay and conducts herself very appropriately to the new woman.


When she understands that the house can no longer be a place for her to stay, she informs the minister that she wants to go back to her house. The minister however had assumed that she would stay on as their housekeeper. This was the promotion that he and the villagers thought that the lonely Miss Peck would like and prefer. But her denial and very firm but no nonsense reply to his offer, shows that loneliness may be difficult for some but may be preferable to a life where one is forever disguised as the furniture of the house - present in the room but not noticed by the people. She had thought, maybe unwisely, but still human enough, that the minister would like her housekeeping and child caring skills and develop some sort of affection for her. But she was mistaken.

Though no one is the villain here, to ignore someone’s presence and mistaking it for a common profession like housekeeping must have stung Miss Peck. Thus the story ends with pleasant goodbyes and her appreciation for a single but respectable life.