17. Jacob saw that he might now venture to reveal the whole truth. "No, no, Mrs. Irving, I am over happy to eat or to drink. You are all prepared for the blessing that awaits you. Your child is not far off; and I myself, for it is I myself that found her, will bring her by the hand, and restore her to her parents."
18. Agnes had raised herself up in her bed at these words, but she sank gently back on her pillow; aunt Isabel was rooted to her chair; and Michael, as he rose up, felt as if the ground were sinking under his feet.
There was a dead silence all around the house for a short s.p.a.ce, and then the sound of many voices, which again by degrees subsided. The eyes of all then looked, and yet feared to look, toward the door.
19. Jacob Mayne was not so good as his word, for he did not bring Lucy by the hand to restore her to her parents; but dressed again in her own bonnet and gown, and her own plaid, in rushed their own child, by herself, with tears and sobs of joy, and her father laid her within her mother"s bosom.
DEFINITIONS.--1. Brae, shelving ground, a declivity or slope of a hill.
Pas"times, sports, plays, 4. Ri"ot-ing, romping. 5. Heath"er, an evergreen shrub bearing beautiful flowers, used in Great Britain for making brooms, etc. 6. In-spired", animated, enlivened. Su-per--nat"u-ral, more than human. Brake, a place overgrown with shrubs and brambles.
Re-ver"ber-at-ing, resounding, echoing. In-tent", having the mind closely fixed. 8. Plaid (pro. plad), a striped or decked overgarment worn by the Scotch. 9. E-jac"u-lat-ed, ex-claimed. 11. Scour, to pa.s.s over swiftly and thoroughly.
Note.--The scene of this story is laid in Scotland, and many of the words employed, such as brae, brake, heather, and plaid, are but little used except in that country.
XXVIII. THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (b. 1807, d. 1882), the son of Hon. Stephen Longfellow, an eminent lawyer, was born in Portland, Maine. He graduated at Bowdoin College in 1825. After spending four years in Europe, he was Professor of Modern Languages and Literature at Bowdoin till 1835, when he was appointed to the chair of Modern Languages and Belles-lettres in Harvard University. He resigned his professorship in 1854, after which time he resided in Cambridge, Ma.s.s. Longfellow wrote many original works both in verse and prose, and made several translations, the most famous of which is that of the works of Dante. His poetry is always chaste and elegant, showing traces of careful scholarship in every line. The numerous and varied editions of his poems are evidences of their popularity.
1. There is a Reaper whose name is Death, And, with his sickle keen, He reaps the bearded grain at a breath, And the flowers that grow between.
2. "Shall I have naught that is fair?" saith he; "Have naught but the bearded grain?
Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me, I will give them all back again."
3. He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes, He kissed their drooping leaves; It was for the Lord of Paradise He bound them in his sheaves.
4. "My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,"
The Reaper said, and smiled; "Dear tokens of the earth are they, Where he was once a child.
5. "They shall all bloom in the fields of light, Transplanted by my care, And saints, upon their garments white, These sacred blossoms wear."
6. And the mother gave in tears and pain The flowers she most did love; She knew she should find them all again In the fields of light above.
7. O, not in cruelty, not in wrath, The Reaper came that day, "T was an angel visited the green earth, And took the flowers away.
DEFINITIONS.--3. Sheaves, bundles of grain. 4. To"ken (pro. to"kn), a souvenir, that which is to recall some person, thing, or event. 6.
Trans-plant"ed, removed and planted in another place.
XXIX. THE TOWN PUMP.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (b.1804, d.1864) was born in Salem, Ma.s.s. He graduated at Bowdoin College in 1825. His earliest literary productions, written for periodicals, were published in two volumes--the first in 1837, the second in 1842--under the t.i.tle of "Twice-Told Tales," "Mosses from an Old Manse," another series of tales and sketches, was published in 1845. From 1846 to 1850 he was surveyor of the port of Salem. In 1852 he was appointed United States consul for Liverpool. After holding this office four years, he traveled for some time on the continent. His most popular works are "The Scarlet Letter," a work showing a deep knowledge of human nature, "The House of the Seven Gables," "The Blithedale Romance." and "The Marble Faun," an Italian romance, which is regarded by many as the best of his works. Being of a modest and retiring disposition, Mr.
Hawthorne avoided publicity. Most of his works are highly imaginative. As a prose writer he has no superior among American authors. He died at Plymouth, N. H., while on a visit to the White Mountains for his health.
[SCENE.--The corner of two princ.i.p.al streets. The Town Pump talking through its nose.]
1. Noon, by the north clock! Noon, by the east! High noon, too, by those hot sunbeams which fall, scarcely aslope, upon my head, and almost make the water bubble and smoke in the trough under my nose. Truly, we public characters have a tough time of it! And among all the town officers, chosen at the yearly meeting, where is he that sustains, for a single year, the burden of such manifold duties as are imposed, in perpetuity, upon the Town Pump?
2. The t.i.tle of town treasurer is rightfully mine, as guardian of the best treasure the town has. The overseers of the poor ought to make me their chairman, since I provide bountifully for the pauper, without expense to him that pays taxes. I am at the head of the fire department, and one of the physicians of the board of health. As a keeper or the peace, all water drinkers confess me equal to the constable. I perform some of the duties of the town clerk, by promulgating public notices, when they are pasted on my front.
3. To speak within bounds, I am chief person of the munic.i.p.ality, and exhibit, moreover, an admirable pattern to my brother officers by the cool, steady, upright, downright, and impartial discharge of my business, and the constancy with which I stand to my post. Summer or winter, n.o.body seeks me in vain; for all day long I am seen at the busiest corner, just above the market, stretching out my arms to rich and poor alike; and at night I hold a lantern over my head, to show where I am, and to keep people out of the gutters.
4. At this sultry noontide, I am cupbearer to the parched populace, for whose benefit an iron goblet is chained to my waist Like a dramseller on the public square, on a muster day, I cry aloud to all and sundry, in my plainest accents, and at the very tiptop of my voice. "Here it is, gentlemen! Here is the good liquor! Walk up, walk up, gentlemen, walk up, walk up! Here is the superior stuff! Here is the unadulterated ale of father Adam! better than Cognac, Hollands, Jamaica, strong beer, or wine of any price; here it is, by the hogshead or the single gla.s.s, and not a cent to pay. Walk up, gentlemen, walk up and help yourselves!"
5. It were a pity if all this outcry should draw no customers. Here they come. A hot day, gentlemen. Quaff and away again, so as to keep yourselves in a nice, cool sweat. You, my friend, will need another cupful to wash the dust out of your throat, if it be as thick there as it is on your cowhide shoes. I see that you have trudged half a score of miles to-day, and, like a wise man, have pa.s.sed by the taverns, and stopped at the running brooks and well curbs. Otherwise, betwixt heat without and fire within, you would have been burnt to a cinder, or melted down to nothing at all--in the fashion of a jellyfish.
6. Drink, and make room for that other fellow, who seeks my aid to quench the fiery fever of last night"s potations, which he drained from no cup of mine. Welcome, most rubicund sir! You and I have been strangers. .h.i.therto; nor, to confess the truth, will my nose be anxious for a closer intimacy, till the fumes of your breath be a little less potent.
7. Mercy on you, man! The water absolutely hisses down your red-hot gullet, and is converted quite into steam in the miniature Tophet, which you mistake for a stomach. Fill again, and tell me, on the word of an honest toper, did you ever, in cellar, tavern, or any other kind of dramshop, spend the price of your children"s food for a swig half so delicious? Now, for the first time these ten years, you know the flavor of cold water. Good-by; and whenever you are thirsty, recollect that I keep a constant supply at the old stand.
8. Who next? Oh, my little friend, you are just let loose from school, and come hither to scrub your blooming face, and drown the memory of certain taps of the ferule, and other schoolboy troubles, in a draught from the Town Pump. Take it, pure as the current of your young life; take it, and may your heart and tongue never be scorched with a fiercer thirst than now.
9. There, my dear child, put down the cup, and yield your place to this elderly gentleman, who treads so tenderly over the paving stones that I suspect he is afraid of breaking them. What! he limps by without so much as thanking me, as if my hospitable offers were meant only for people who have no wine cellars.
10. Well, well, sir, no harm done, I hope! Go, draw the cork, tip the decanter; but when your great toe shall set you a-roaring, it will be no affair of mine. If gentlemen love the pleasant t.i.tillation of the gout, it is all one to the Town Pump. This thirsty dog, with his red tongue lolling out, does not scorn my hospitality, but stands on his hind legs, and laps eagerly out of the trough. See how lightly he capers away again! Jowler, did your worship ever have the gout?
11. Your pardon, good people! I must interrupt my stream of eloquence, and spout forth a stream of water to replenish the trough for this teamster and his two yoke of oxen, who have come all the way from Staunton, or somewhere along that way. No part of my business gives me more pleasure than the watering of cattle. Look! how rapidly they lower the watermark on the sides of the trough, till their capacious stomachs are moistened with a gallon or two apiece, and they can afford time to breathe, with sighs of calm enjoyment! Now they roll their quiet eyes around the brim of their monstrous drinking vessel. An ox is your true toper.
12. I hold myself the grand reformer of the age. From my spout, and such spouts as mine, must flow the stream that shall cleanse our earth of a vast portion of its crime and anguish, which have gushed from the fiery fountains of the still. In this mighty enterprise, the cow shall be my great confederate. Milk and water!
13. Ahem! Dry work this speechifying, especially to all unpracticed orators. I never conceived till now what toil the temperance lecturers undergo for my sake. Do, some kind Christian, pump a stroke or two, just to wet my whistle. Thank you, sir. But to proceed.
14. The Town Pump and the Cow! Such is the glorious partnership that shall finally monopolize the whole business of quenching thirst. Blessed consummation! Then Poverty shall pa.s.s away from the land, finding no hovel so wretched where her squalid form may shelter itself. Then Disease, for lack of other victims, shall gnaw his own heart and die. Then Sin, if she do not die, shall lose half her strength.
15. Then there will be no war of households. The husband and the wife, drinking deep of peaceful joy, a calm bliss of temperate affections, shall pa.s.s hand in hand through life, and lie down, not reluctantly, at its protracted close. To them the past will be no turmoil of mad dreams, nor the future an eternity of such moments as follow the delirium of a drunkard. Their dead faces shall express what their spirits were, and are to be, by a lingering smile of memory and hope.
16. Drink, then, and be refreshed! The water is as pure and cold as when it slaked the thirst of the red hunter, and flowed beneath the aged bough, though now this gem of the wilderness is treasured under these hot stones, where no shadow falls, but from the brick buildings. But, still is this fountain the source of health, peace, and happiness, and I behold, with certainty and joy, the approach of the period when the virtues of cold water, too little valued since our father"s days, will be fully appreciated and recognized by all.
DEFINITIONS.--1. Per-pe-tu"i-ty, endless duration. 2. Pro-mul"gat-ing, announcing. 3. Mu-nic-i-pal"i-ty, a division of a country or of a city. 4.
Mus"ter day, parade day. Sun"dry, several. Un-a-dul"ter-at-ed, pure, unmixed. Co"gnac (pro. Kon"yak), a French brandy. 6. Po-ta"tions, drinkings. Ru"bi-cund, inclining to red-ness. 7. To"phet, the infernal regions. 10. t.i.t-il-la"tion, tickling. 11. Re-plen"ish, to fill again. 14.
Mo-nop"o-lize, to obtain the whole. Con-sum-ma"tion, completion, termination. Squalid, filthy. 15. Pro-tract"ed, delayed. 16. Slaked, quenched.
x.x.x. GOOD NIGHT.
Samuel Griswold Goodrich (b. 1793, d. 1860) was born in Ridgefield, Conn.
Mr. Goodrich is best known as "Peter Parley," under which a.s.sumed name he commenced the publication of a series of Juvenile works about 1827. He edited "Parley"s Magazine" from 1841 to 1854. He was appointed United States consul for Paris in 1848, and held that office four years. He was a voluminous writer, and his works are interesting and popular. His "Recollections of a Lifetime" was published in 1857, and "Peter Parley"s Own Story" the year after his death.
1. The sun has sunk behind the hills, The shadows o"er the landscape creep; A drowsy sound the woodland fills, As nature folds her arms to sleep: Good night--good night.
2. The chattering jay has ceased his din, The noisy robin sings no more; The crow, his mountain haunt within, Dreams "mid the forest"s surly roar: Good night--good night.
3. The sunlit cloud floats dim and pale; The dew is falling soft and still, The mist hangs trembling o"er the vale, And silence broods o"er yonder mill: Good night--good night.