FOOTNOTE:
[29] By Nathaniel Hawthorne, an American writer of romances and short stories (1804-1864).
Expression: Read this selection again and again until you understand it clearly and appreciate its rare charm. Study each paragraph separately, observing how the topic of each is developed. Select the expressions which are the most pleasing to you. Tell why each pleases.
Did you ever see a town pump? In the cities and larger towns, what has taken its place? Can we imagine a hydrant or a water faucet talking as this town pump did? If Hawthorne were writing to-day, would he represent the town pump as the "chief person of the municipality"? Discuss this question fully.
Talk with your teacher about the life and works of the author of this selection. If you have access to any of his books, bring them to the class and read selections from them. Compare the style of this story with that of the selection from Dickens, page [22]; or from Thackeray, page [27]; or from Goldsmith, page [94].
Word Study: Refer to the dictionary for the pronunciation and meaning of: perpetuity, constable, municipality, cognac, quaff, rubicund, Tophet, decanter, titillation, capacious.
COME UP FROM THE FIELDS, FATHER [30]
Come up from the fields, father; here's a letter from our Pete,
And come to the front door, mother; here's a letter from thy dear son.
Lo, 'tis autumn;
Lo, where the fields, deeper green, yellower and redder,
Cool and sweeten Ohio's villages, with leaves fluttering in the moderate wind;
Where apples ripe in the orchards hang, and grapes on the trellised vines,
(Smell you the smell of the grapes on the vines?
Smell you the buckwheat, where the bees were lately buzzing?)
Above all, lo! the sky so calm, so transparent after the rain, and with wondrous clouds;
Below, too, all calm, all vital and beautiful,—and the farm prospers well.
Down in the fields all prospers well;
But now from the fields come, father,—come at the daughter's call;
And come to the entry, mother,—to the front door come, right away.
Fast as she can she hurries,—something ominous,—her steps trembling;
She does not tarry to smooth her white hair, nor adjust her cap.
Open the envelope quickly;
Oh, this is not our son's writing, yet his name is signed!
Oh, a strange hand writes for our dear son—O stricken mother's soul!
All swims before her eyes,—flashes with black,—she catches the main words only;
Sentences broken,—gunshot wound in the breast—cavalry skirmish, taken to hospital,
At present low, but will soon be better.
Ah! now the single figure to me
Amid all teeming and wealthy Ohio, with all its cities and farms,
Sickly white in the face and dull in the head, very faint,
By the jamb of a door leans.
Grieve not so, dear mother (the just grown daughter speaks through her sobs;
The little sisters huddle around, speechless and dismayed).
See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will soon be better.
Alas, poor boy! he will never be better (nor, maybe, needs to be better, that brave and simple soul).
While they stand at home at the door he is dead already,
The only son is dead.
"Come up from the fields, father."
But the mother needs to be better;
She, with thin form, presently dressed in black;
By day her meals untouched,—then at night fitfully sleeping, often waking,
In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep longing,
Oh, that she might withdraw unnoticed, silent from life, escape and withdraw,
To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son!