A Mother In Mannville

“A Mother in Mannville,” a short story by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, debuted in The Saturday Evening Post on December 12, 1936. It was subsequently included in two of the author’s short story anthologies: When the Whippoorwill in 1940 and Mountain Prelude in 1947.

Rawlings was a Southern writer best known for her novel The Yearling (1938). Though fictional, “A Mother in Mannville” is inspired by actual events in her life. In 1936, Rawlings moved to the North Carolina mountains for a season to write. There, she developed a close bond with a 12-year-old boy named Dale Wills, much like the story’s unnamed narrator befriends the character Jerry. In fictionalizing the episode, Rawlings explores themes of Rationalization and Guilt, The Different Kinds of Isolation, and The Nature of Integrity.

This guide refers to the version in Rawlings’s When the Whippoorwill.

The story takes place on the expansive grounds of an isolated orphanage in North Carolina’s mountains. The unnamed narrator is a woman renting a cabin far away from her daily responsibilities to concentrate on writing. She requests help chopping wood for her heating needs, and a small 12-year-old boy named Jerry appears on her porch the next day. The narrator questions whether Jerry has the strength and stamina needed for the job. Jerry informs her, “Size don’t matter, chopping wood” (243).

As Jerry builds her a collection of firewood, she notices that Jerry has the rare quality of integrity: “[A]lmost no man of my acquaintance possesses it with the clarity, purity, the simplicity of a mountain stream. But the boy Jerry had it” (245). She describes it as an inner quality similar to courage and honesty, but more than both characteristics. Jerry showcases this integrity when the ax he uses to chop wood breaks, and he offers to pay for repairs. The narrator insists that it was not his fault and insists on paying for it.

Jerry continues to find reasons to visit the narrator even after he has supplied her with all the chopped wood she could need. They begin an easy camaraderie, and Jerry confides in her regarding life at the orphanage:

‘Or when we carry trays from the cookhouse for the ones that are sick,’ Jerry said, ‘we get our faces frostbit because we can’t put our hands over them. I have gloves,’ he added. ‘Some of the boys don’t have any’ (241).

Jerry becomes especially fond of the narrator’s pointer dog, named “Pat,” whom he plays with. Eventually, the narrator trusts Jerry with her pointer dog while she leaves the cabin one weekend. The weather delays the narrator’s return, and when she returns a day late, Jerry greets her with a report about Pat. He says that the food ran out the previous day, so he shared his breakfast with the dog. Jerry’s kind and responsible nature impresses the narrator, exceeding her expectations in his care of the animal.

As the narrator and Jerry sit by the fire that evening, Jerry tells her that she reminds him of his mother. He tells her that his mother lives in Mannville; she sends him Christmas presents, such as roller skates, and visits him whenever she can. He also informs the narrator that he will use the money he earned caring for Pat to buy his mother some gloves.

The narrator is incensed to learn that a mother could leave such a treasured soul as Jerry in an orphanage. She plans to visit Jerry’s mother and find out why she left Jerry. However, as the narrator’s time at the cabin ends, she turns her attention back to her responsibilities and decides to follow her creative instincts to a new location. She convinces herself that Jerry is well cared for at the orphanage and not lonely, now that she knows he has a mother. She bids Jerry goodbye by telling him he has been a good friend and that she will miss him. Jerry does not respond, but she expects to see him one final time on the day of her departure. However, he does not come.

As the narrator is settling her bill at the orphanage (which owns the cottage she has been renting) she inquires with the bookkeeper, Miss Clark, about Jerry’s whereabouts. Miss Clark informs the narrator that she is concerned about Jerry’s health. He did not eat his dinner and failed to complete some of his responsibilities, which is unusual. The narrator is relieved to avoid an emotional goodbye but inquires about Jerry’s mother. She explains that she wants to leave some money with Miss Clark to buy Jerry some Christmas and birthday presents; if she bought the gifts herself, she might duplicate what his mother sends. Clark informs her that Jerry has neither a mother nor the skates he claimed his mother sent him.