Nathaniel Hawthorne (b. 1804, d. 1864) was born in Salem, Mass. 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 title 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 principal 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 title 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 of 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
municipality, 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, 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, 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 glass, 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 today, and, like a wise man,
have passed 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

   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 titillation 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 pass 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 pass 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 tui ty, endless duration. 2. Pro mulgating,
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. Una dul'ter at ed, pure, unmixed. Co'gnac (pro. Kon'yak), a French brandy. 6. Po tations, drinkings. Rubi cund, inclining to redness. 7. Tophet, the infernal regions. 10. Tit il lation, tickling. 11. Re plen'ish, to fill again. 14. Mo nopo lize, to obtain the whole. Con sum mation, completion, termination. Squalid, filthy 15. Pro tracted, delayed. 16. Slaked, quenched.