Almost everyone, at some point in their life, wishes that they could redo a moment. Yet L.M. Montgomery shows in her short story “Miss Calista’s Peppermint Bottle” that some people are never given a first chance. She goes even further to show that sometimes a person’s second chance means giving them an opportunity to prove themselves.
The Farm
Miss Calista is an old maid who lives alone on her farm. For a while, her nephew, Caleb Cramp, lived with her and helped her around the farm. Unfortunately, Caleb decided to leave for the Klondike to make his mark, leaving Miss Calista with little help.
With so many jobs to complete, Miss Calista tries to find another farmhand. Drunken Jake Stinson applies, but Miss Calista turns him away. Ches Maybin arrives and, though she doesn’t have “any particular prejudice against Ches Maybin, or [know] anything positively to his discredit,” Miss Calista refuses to take him on. Unconsciously, she follows the town’s example of shunning Ches. Everyone blames the 18-year-old when something mischievous happens. After all, his father had been “a shiftless and tricky rascal.”
At the end of the day, Miss Calista finds herself once again alone in her house. But this evening, Miss Calista finds being alone more nerve-wracking than normal. She has $500 hidden in her house. She removed the money from the Millageville bank, since she heard some negative things about it, and plans to take the money to the Kerrytown Savings Bank tomorrow.
But tomorrow cannot can’t come fast enough. Miss Calista dreads that she must spend the whole night alone with $500. Nevertheless, she reasons her way through it and finally makes her way upstairs to bed, where she soon sleeps soundly.
A traditional Canadian farmhouse, the Stewart Farmhouse, in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. (Jollycanuck/CC BY-SA 4.0)The Great Mistake
In the middle of the night, Miss Calista is awakened by a noise downstairs. Hearing someone moving softly below, she dresses herself and descends to face the intruder. She arrives in the dining room and sees the dark figure of a man as he rummages through a drawer.
Suddenly aware of her presence, the burglar yells and turns to escape. Miss Calista, seeking a moment of vengeance, quickly grabs the nearest object and hurls it at the intruder. The object that she throws happens to be her peppermint bottle, which lands on the burglar’s shoulder and shatters, just as he exits out the window.
Miss Calista sits up the rest of the night to guard the money, then promptly heads into town where she safely deposits it in the bank. With that unbearable weight off her shoulders, she makes her way through town on some errands.
Yet, as she stands in a line of smoking men at one of the stores, she is suddenly struck by the most distinct scent of peppermint. Though startled, she quickly surmises how Ches Maybin came to smell like peppermint and is determined to find out why he intruded the night before.
Through this story, L.M. Montgomery seems to say, as J.M. Barrie wrote in “Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens”: “Ah, Peter, we who have made the great mistake, how differently we should all act at the second chance.” Though they can’t redo or undo, their earlier actions, both Ches Maybin and Miss Calista can and should look to rectify and redeem their past actions.
Perhaps they both need a second chance, as everyone does, to start fresh with new hope that yesterday doesn’t define today. A new day means new opportunities. These opportunities are second chances for people to be better and to cultivate hope.
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