Horse Dealer's Daughter

Horse Dealer's Daughter

This story is about a girl named Mabel who tries to commit suicide by drowning herself in a pond. A young doctor, Joe Ferguson, saves her. She then believes that he loves her. Although this idea never occurred to Joe, he begins to find that he indeed loves her. However, Mabel thinks she is "too awful" to be loved, and finds that when Joe declares over and over that he wants her and that he loves her, she is more scared about that than of Joe not wanting her. So does Joe really love Mabel? Somehow, he is convinced that he is. I don't think the idea of love or marriage ever occurred to him. When Mabel finds out that he saved her, she convinces herself that he loves her. "Do you love me, then?" she asks him. Then, more confidently, she says, "You love me. I know you love me, I know." The reason why I think she committed suicide is because she felt unloved at her home. Her father had recently died and her brothers were unkind to her. The father had left the family in debt, and the family will soon have to leave their house and move somewhere else. When asked which path she would pursue, she did not answer. I don't think she had anything planned. She probably didn't have a good education so there were few options for her. Perhaps she felt overwhelmed with the pressure to decide what to do, and decided to commit suicide. Thus, when Joe Ferguson saves her, her hope in life is renewed and she convinces herself that Joe loves her. So why does Joe convince himself that he loves Mabel? Perhaps he has never felt love before. He didn't want to at first, thinking it unprofessional, as he was a doctor, and she, his patient. No doubt he has spent much of his time on studies rather than girls. When they embrace, he feels he can never let go; until he smells "the horrid stagnant smell of that water" from the pond. Both seem