My Delft Apothecary Jars by Alice Morse Earle

Name: My Delft Apothecary Jars
Author: Alice Morse Earle

"My Delft Apothecary Jars" by Alice Morse Earle is a humorous personal essay recounting the author's misadventure while hunting for antique china and colonial furniture in rural Narragansett, Rhode Island. Earle and a companion are driving through the countryside when they spot an elderly craftsman, Elam Chadsey, holding what appears to be the claw-footed leg of an antique chair. They stop to inquire, and Chadsey tells them about a neighbor, Abiel Hartshorn, a widower preparing to sell his farm and remarry. Hartshorn's first wife had kept her preserves in a set of old blue-and-white ceramic jars marked with lettered abbreviations. When the prospective new wife visited the farm, her brother, a drugstore clerk, recognized the labels as the names of medicinal substances. Horrified at the idea of storing food in old apothecary vessels, she refused them. Chadsey believes Hartshorn would be glad to sell the jars cheaply. Earle and her companion eagerly follow Chadsey to the Hartshorn farmhouse, suspecting the jars are genuine Dutch Delft apothecary pieces of real antiquity. When they arrive, however, the house is empty and locked. Determined to see whether the jars are worth pursuing, Earle decides to climb atop a nearby hen-coop to peer through a window. Chadsey pushes and assists her up. She barely glimpses a row of handsome blue-and-white jars on a dresser inside when the roof of the hen-coop collapses under her weight and she falls through it, becoming trapped inside, hemmed in by broken boards, splinters, and what she fears are rusty nails. Immobilized and unable to extract herself without worsening her injuries, she sends her companion and Chadsey off in the pony cart to fetch an axe. Left alone and oddly at peace amid the summer sounds of bees, birdsong, and buckwheat blossoms, she momentarily forgets her predicament. Her tranquility is shattered, however, when a wagon arrives carrying the farm's new buyer and none other than Abiel Hartshorn himself. Hartshorn, without asking a single question, retrieves his axe and carefully chops her free. He then invites her inside to recover, and she explains herself with considerable embarrassment. When Chadsey and the companion return with the borrowed axe to find Earle already freed and seated indoors, Chadsey and Hartshorn fall into a spirited argument, each blaming the other for the disaster. Chadsey reproaches Hartshorn for the absurdity of locking his house during the daytime, while Hartshorn accuses the pair of prying. Their quarrel, though heated, dissolves into shared laughter at the memory of Earle stuck in the hen-coop. The episode ends well in material terms. Hartshorn sells Earle the apothecary jars and she pays two dollars for the ruined hen-coop. The jars prove to be genuine Dutch Delft pieces, exactly what she suspected. Yet for a long time she cannot look at them without painful embarrassment. Eventually, she comes to regard their inscribed Latin abbreviations of drug names as though they were abbreviations of cautionary Biblical proverbs about pride, rashness, and meddling, all of which she finds pointedly applicable to her own conduct that day. The small blue cherubs painted on the jars seem to mock her perpetually. Earle closes with wry self-deprecation, noting that though she never saw the well-dressed young buyer again, she has no doubt that she made a lasting impression on him, and that all three witnesses to her humiliation have dined out on the story ever since.

By Alice Morse Earle · First published 1909 · Genre: Humorous Fiction, Adventure, Personal Essay · 3,578 words

First lines

The circumstances under which I first saw my old Delft apothecary jars were so painful, so mortifying, that for a long time I could not bear even to think of them; but now, as years have passed and softened the sharp lines, I will write account of that unique adventure.

We were one day, as was our wont, hunting in old Narragansett for ancient china and colonial furniture, but even on that historic and early-settled ground had met with scant success. At last, on an out-of-the-way road, was found a clew.

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My Delft Apothecary Jars is listed on Textopian as a short story by Alice Morse Earle, dated 1909 CE.

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Work type: Short story
Author: Alice Morse Earle
Date: 1909 CE
Language: English
Genres: Humorous Fiction, Adventure, Personal Essay, Local Color Fiction, Antique Collecting/Antiquarian
Length: 3,578 words
Structure: 1 section, 52 paragraphs
Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)

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Genres

Humorous Fiction — The narrative is centered on the comedic mishap of the protagonist becoming trapped in a hen-house, with extensive use of dialect humor, slapstick elements, and self-deprecating wit throughout the account.
Adventure — The story follows a treasure-hunting expedition in search of antiques, complete with obstacles, unexpected turns, and a climactic physical ordeal that drives the plot forward.
Personal Essay — The work is written as a first-person retrospective account by the author reflecting on a memorable personal experience from her own life, with philosophical observations about the incident's lasting impact.
Local Color Fiction — The narrative features detailed portrayal of New England rural life, authentic dialect of Narragansett residents, and vivid descriptions of the countryside that establish a strong sense of regional setting.