Ambrotype: “Wild and Shy”

A self-described “wild and shy” (“From a Mournful Villager”, 1881), child, Jewett preferred the woods and fields of her native South Berwick to the classroom:

“I am afraid that when I went to Berwick Academy, I really cared more for the outside of the school than the inside. I remember a good deal more about the great view toward the mountains, or down river, and the boys and girls themselves, or even the ground sparrows and little field strawberries that grew in the thin grass, than I do about learning my lessons.” —Sarah Orne Jewett (“My School Days,” published in The Berwick Scholar, October 1887)