RALPH WALDO EMERSON. Hast thou named all the birds without a gun; In man or maid, that thou from speech refrained, O be my friend, and teach me to be thine! HELPS TO STUDY. Notes and Questions. What birds can you name when you see them? How did you learn to know these birds? Why is it difficult to study birds when they are free? What qualities are necessary in the person who tries to study birds? What do you do when you see a wild flower which you admire? What word in the second line shows why it is hard to refrain from plucking the wood-rose? What things are contrasted in the third line? What do you think of the action described in the fourth line? What is meant by "high behavior''? What stories of high behavior have you read in this book? Words and Phrases for Discussion. "bread and pulse" "heart of trust'' "high behavior" 358 Elson Grammar School Reader Book Three A RILL FROM THE TOWN-PUMP. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.* I Noon by the north clock! Noon by the east! High noon, too, by these 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 5 of it! And among all the town-officers chosen at March meeting, where is he that sustains for a single year the burden of such manifold duties as are imposed in perpetuity upon the townpump? The title of "town-treasurer" is rightfully mine, as guardian of the best treasure that the town has. The overseers 10 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 to the board of health. As a keeper of the peace all water-drinkers will confess me equal to the constable. 15 perform some of the duties of the town-clerk by promulgating public notices when they are posted on my front. To speak within bounds, I am the chief person of the municipality, and exhibit, moreover, an admirable pattern to my brother-officers by the cool, steady, upright, downright and impartial discharge 20 of my business and the constancy with which I stand to my post. Summer or winter, nobody 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 both to show where I am and keep 25 people out of the gutters. 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 mall at рейти muster-day, I cry aloud to all and sundry in my plainest ac- ̄‹ cents and at the very tiptop of my voice. 30 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 glass, and not a 5 cent to pay! Walk up, gentlemen, walk up, and help yourselves! 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 10 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 today, and like a wise man have passed by the taverns and stopped at the running brooks and well-curbs. Otherwise, betwixt heat without 15 and fire within, you would have been burnt to a cinder or melted down to nothing at all, in the fashion of a jelly-fish. 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 20 I have been great strangers hitherto; 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. Mercy on you, man! the water absolutely hisses down your red-hot gullet and is converted quite to steam in the miniature Tophet which you mis25 take for a stomach. Fill again, and tell me, on the word of an honest toper, did you ever, in cellar, tavern, or any kind of a dram-shop, 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-bye; and whenever you are 30 thirsty, remember that I keep a constant supply at the old stand.—Who next?—Oh, my little friend, you are let loose from school and come hither to scrub your blooming face and drown the memory of certain taps of the ferule, and other school-boy troubles, in a draught from the town-pump? Take it, pure as 35 the current of your young life. Take it, and may your heart and tongue never be scorched with a fiercer thirst than now! There, my dear child! put down the cup and yield your place to this elderly gentleman who treads so tenderly over the pavingstones that I suspect he is afraid of breaking them. What! he 5 limps by without so much as thanking me, as if my hospitable offers were meant only for people who have no wine-cellars.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 titilla10 tion 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? 15 Are you all satisfied? Then wipe your mouths, my good friends, and while my spout has a moment's leisure I will delight the town with a few historical reminiscences. In far antiquity, beneath a darksome shadow of venerable boughs, a spring bubbled out of the leaf-strewn earth in the very spot 20 where you now behold me on the sunny pavement. The water was as bright and clear and deemed as precious as liquid diamonds. The Indian sagamores drank of it from time immemorial till the fatal deluge of the fire-water burst upon the red men and swept their whole race away from the cold foun25 tains. Endicott and his followers came next, and often knelt down to drink, dipping their long beards in the spring. The richest goblet then was of birch-bark. Governor Winthrop, after a journey afoot from Boston, drank here out of the hollow of his hand. The elder Higginson here wet his palm and laid it 30 on the brow of the first town-born child. For many years it was the watering-place, and, as it were, the washbowl, of the vicinity, whither all decent folks resorted to purify their visages and gaze at them afterward—at least, the pretty maidens didin the mirror which it made. On Sabbath-days, whenever a 35 babe was to be baptized, the sexton filled his basin here and placed it on the communion-table of the humble meeting-house, which partly covered the site of yonder stately brick one. Thus one generation after another was consecrated to Heaven by its waters, and cast their waxing and waning shadows into its s glassy bosom, and vanished from the earth, as if mortal life were but a flitting image in a fountain. Finally the fountain vanished also. Cellars were dug on all sides and cartloads of gravel flung upon its source, whence oozed a turbid stream, forming a mud-puddle at the corner of two streets. In the hot 10 months, when its refreshment was most needed, the dust flew in clouds over the forgotten birthplace of the waters, now their grave. But in the course of time a town-pump was sunk into the source of the ancient spring; and when the first decayed, another took its place, and then another, and still another, till 15 here stand I, gentlemen and ladies, to serve you with my iron. goblet. Drink and be refreshed. The water is as pure and cold as that which slaked the thirst of the red sagamore beneath the aged boughs, though now the gem of the wilderness is treasured under these hot stones, where no shadow falls but from the 20 brick buildings. And be it the moral of my story that, as this wasted and long-lost fountain is now known and prized again, so shall the virtues of cold water-too little valued since your father's days-be recognized by all. Your pardon, good people! I must interrupt my stream of 25 eloquence and spout forth a stream of water to replenish the trough for this teamster and his two yoke of oxen, who have come from Topsfield, or somewhere along that way. No part of my business is pleasanter than the watering of cattle. Look! how rapidly they lower the water-mark on the sides of the 30 trough, till their capacious stomachs are moistened with a gallon or two apiece and they can afford time to breathe it in 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. 35 But I perceive, my dear auditors, that you are impatient |