A Rill from the Town Pump

A Rill from the Town Pump is one of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s most charming sketches, originally published in his 1837 collection Twice Told Tales. The piece is a short prose monologue narrated entirely by an old town pump, the kind of public water source that stood in the centers of nineteenth century New England towns and provided drinking water for residents, travelers, horses, and dogs alike. Hawthorne gives the pump a voice and lets it reflect on its own role in the community across many years of service.

The town pump speaks with affection about the various residents who have come to drink from it. The children playing in the street, the women drawing water for their households, the men taking a quick break from their work, the cattle being driven through town, the dogs lapping from the spilled water around its base. The pump also takes the occasion to reflect on the temperance movement, the social reform campaign of the 1830s and 1840s that Hawthorne handles with light comic irony rather than direct endorsement. The pump suggests that pure water from a public source is the most democratic and most healthful drink, with implicit comparisons to the harder beverages that the temperance movement was trying to discourage.

What makes the sketch interesting beyond its immediate charm is what it reveals about Hawthorne as a writer. He could do this kind of light, comic, social commentary piece as well as he could do the heavy moral allegories that his major novels are built around. The voice of the town pump is consistent and persuasive, the comic elements land cleanly, and the wider social observation is incorporated with the kind of light touch that the heavier works sometimes lack.

For readers coming to Hawthorne through The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables, A Rill from the Town Pump shows a different side of his talent. The sketch is often included in school anthologies and remains one of his most accessible shorter pieces. For students of nineteenth century American literature, of the temperance movement and its cultural representations, or of the development of the personal essay and the sketch in American writing, the piece is worth knowing. It is short enough to read in fifteen minutes and rewards the time.