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A RILL FROM THE TOWN PUMP 
 
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A HILL 
 FROM THE TOWN PUMP 
 
 Nathaniel /Lawthorne 
 
 San Francisco 
 
A KILL 
 FROM THE TOWN PUMP 
 
 Noon, by the North clock! Noon, by 
 the east ! High noon, too, by these hot sun- 
 beams, 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 March meeting, where is he that sustains, 
 for a single year, the burthen of such mani- 
 fold duties as are imposed, in perpetuity, 
 upon the Town Pump? The title of 'town 
 
treasurer' is rightfully mine, as guardian of 
 the best treasure that the town has. The over- 
 seers 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 depart- 
 ment, 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 con- 
 stable. I 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 ad- 
 mirable pattern to my brother officers, by the 
 cool, steady, upright, downright, and impar- 
 tial discharge of my business, and the con- 
 stancy with which I stand to my post. Sum- 
 mer 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 
 
 [4] 
 
where I am, and keep 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 
 dram-seller on the mall, at muster-day, I cry 
 aloud to all and sundry, in my plainest ac- 
 cents, and at the very tiptop of my voice. 
 Here it is, gentlemen! Here is the good li- 
 quor! Walk up, walk up, gentlemen, walk 
 up,walk up ! Here is the superior stuff! Here 
 is the unadulterated ale of father Adam — 
 betterthanCognac,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! 
 
 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 cup-full, 
 to wash the dust out of your throat, if it be 
 
 [5} 
 
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 
 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 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 abso- 
 lutely hisses down your red-hot gullet, and 
 is converted quite to steam, in the miniature 
 tophet, which you mistake for your 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 
 
 [6] 
 
of your children's food, for a swig half so 
 dehcious? Now, for the first time these ten 
 years, you know the flavor of cold water. 
 Good-by; and, whenever you are thirsty re- 
 member 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 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 ! 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 suspea 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. Well, well, sir — 
 no harm done, I hope! Go draw the cork, 
 tip the decanter; but, when your great toe 
 
 [7] 
 
shall set you a-roaring, it will be no affair 
 of mine. If gentlemen love the pleasant titil- 
 lation 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? 
 
 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 fewhistorical reminiscences. 
 In far antiquity, beneath a darksome sha- 
 dow of venerable bows, a spring bubbled 
 out of the leaf-strewn earth, in the very spot 
 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 foun- 
 
 [8] 
 
tains. Endicott, and his followers, came next, 
 and often knealt 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 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 afterwards — 
 at least, the pretty maidens did — in the mir- 
 ror which it made. On Sabbath days, when- 
 ever a babe was to be baptized, the sexton 
 filled his basin here, and placed it on the com- 
 munion table of the humble meeting-house, 
 which partly covered the site of yonder stately 
 brick one. Thus, onegeneration after another 
 was consecrated to Heaven by its waters, and 
 cast their waxing and waning shadows into 
 its glassy bosom, and vanished from the earth, 
 as if mortal life were but a flitting image in 
 
 [9] 
 
a fountain. Finally, the fountain vanished 
 also. Cellars were dug on all sides, and cart- 
 loads of gravel flung upon its source, whence 
 oozed a turbid stream, forming a mud-puddle, 
 at the corner of two streets. In the hot months, 
 when its refreshment was most needed, the 
 dust flew in clouds over the forgotten birth- 
 place of the waters, now their grave. But, in 
 the course of time, a Town Pump was sunk 
 to the source of the ancient spring; and when 
 the first decayed, another took its place — and 
 then another, and still another— till 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 
 brick buildings. And be it the moral of my 
 story, that, as this wasted and long lost foun- 
 tain is now known and prized again, so 
 shall the virtues of cold water, too little val- 
 
 [10] 
 
ued since your father's days, be recognized 
 by all. 
 
 Your pardon, good people ! I must in- 
 terrupt 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 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 
 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 it in, with sighs of calm en- 
 joyment. Now they roll their quiet eyes a- 
 round the brim of their monstrous drinking 
 
 « 
 
 vessel. An ox is your true toper. 
 
 But I perceive, my dear auditors, that you 
 are impatient for the remainder of my dis- 
 course. Impute it, I beseech you, to no de- 
 fea of modesty, if I insist a little longer on 
 so fruitful a topic as my own multifarious 
 merits. It is altogether for your good. The 
 
 [ii] 
 
better you think of me, the better men and 
 women you will find yourselves. I shall say 
 nothing of my all-important aid on washing- 
 days; though, on that account alone, I might 
 call myself the household god of a hundred 
 families. Far be it from me also, to hint, my 
 respectable friends, at the show of dirty faces, 
 which you would present, without my pains 
 to keep you clean. Nor will I remind you 
 how often, when the midnight bells make 
 you tremble for your combustible town, you 
 have fled to the Town Pump, and found me 
 always at my post, firm, amid the confusion, 
 and ready to drain my vital current in your 
 behalf Neither is it worth while to lay much 
 stress on my claims to a medical diploma, as 
 the physician, whose simple rule of practice 
 is preferable to all the nauseous lore, which 
 has found men sick or left them so, since the 
 days of Hippocrates. Let us take a broader 
 view of my beneficial influence on mankind. 
 No; these are trifles, compared with the 
 merits which wise men concede to me — if 
 
 [12} 
 
■ not in my single self, yet as the representa- 
 tive of a class — of being the grand reformer 
 of the age. From my spout and such spouts as 
 mine, must flow the stream, that shall cleanse 
 our earth of the vast portion of its crime and 
 anguish, which has gushed from the fiery 
 fountains of the still. In this mighty enter- 
 prise, the cow shall be my great confederate. 
 Milk and water! The TOWN PUMP and 
 the COW! Such is the glorious copartner- 
 ship, that shall tear down the distilleries and 
 brewhouses,uprootthevineyards,shatterthe 
 cider-presses, ruin the tea and coffee trade, 
 and, 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 
 squahdformmay shelter itself Then, Disease, 
 for lack of other victims, shall knaw its own 
 heart, and die. Then Sin, if she do not die, 
 shall lose half her strength. Until now, the 
 phrensy of hereditary fever has raged in the 
 human blood, transmitted from sire to son, 
 
 [13] 
 
and rekindled, in every generation, by fresh 
 draughts of Hquid flame. When that inward 
 fire shall be extinguished, the heat of passion 
 cannot but grow cool, and war — the drunk- 
 enness of nations — perhaps will cease. At 
 least,therewill be no war of households. The 
 husband and wife, drinking deep of peace- 
 ful 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 the drunk- 
 ard. Their dead faces shall express what their 
 spirits were, and are to be, by a lingering 
 smile of memory and hope. 
 
 Ahem! Dry work, this speechifying; es- 
 pecially to an unpractised orator. I never 
 conceived, till now, what toil the temperance 
 lecturers undergo for my sake. Hereafter, 
 they shall have the business to themselves. 
 Do, some kind Christian, pump a stroke or 
 two, just to wet my whistle. Thank you, sir! 
 
 [14} 
 
My dear hearers, when the world shall have 
 been regenerated, by my instrumentality, you 
 will collect your useless vats and liquor casks 
 into one great pile, and make a bonfire, in 
 honor of the Town Pump. And, when I shall 
 have decayed, like my predecessors, then, if 
 you revere my memory, let a marble foun- 
 tain, richly sculptured, take my place upon 
 this spot. Such monuments should be erected 
 everywhere, and inscribed with the names 
 of the distinguished champions of my cause. 
 Now listen ; for something very important 
 is to come next. 
 
 There are two or three honest friends of 
 mine — and true friends, I know, they are — 
 who, nevertheless, by their fiery pugnacity 
 in my behalf, do put me in fearful hazard of 
 a broken nose, or even a total overthrow 
 upon the pavement, and the loss of the treas- 
 ure which I guard. I pray you, gentlemen, 
 let this fault be amended. Is it decent, think 
 you, to get tipsy with zeal for temperance, 
 and take up the honorable cause of the 
 
 [15} 
 
Town Pump, in the style of a toper, fight- 
 ing for his brandy bottle? Or, can the excel- 
 lent qualities of cold water be not otherwise 
 exemplified, than by plunging, slapdash, in- 
 to hot water, and wofully scalding yourselves 
 and other people? Trust me, they may. In 
 the moral warfare, which you are to wage — 
 and, indeed, in the whole conduct of your 
 lives — you cannot choose a better example 
 than myself, who have never permitted the 
 dustandsultryatmosphere,theturbulenceand 
 manifold disquietudes of the world around 
 me, to reach that deep, calm well of purity, 
 which may be called my soul. And when- 
 ever I pour out that soul, it is to cool earth's 
 fever, or cleanse its stains. 
 
 One o'clock! Nay, then, if the dinner-bell 
 begins to speak, I may as well hold my peace. 
 Here comes a pretty young girl of my ac- 
 quaintance,with a large stone pitcher for me 
 to fill. May she draw a husband, while draw- 
 ing her water, as Rachel did of old. Hold 
 out your vessel, my dear! There it is, full to 
 
 [16} 
 
the brim ; so now run home, peeping at your 
 sweet image in the pitcher, as you go; and 
 forget not, in a glass of my own hquor to 
 drink — 
 ' SUCCESS TO THE TOWN PUMP ! ' 
 
 170 copies of "The Rill from the Town 
 Pump" have been printed by Edwin and 
 Robert Grabhorn at 47 Kearny street, San 
 Francisco, California. August 1920. 
 
14 DAY USE 1 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
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