found out) the poor reality was felt beneath the cunning artifice.

“What has gone wrong?" demanded the witch. “Did yonder sniffling hypocrite thrust my darling from his door? The villain! I'll set twenty fiends to torture him till he offers thee his daughter on his bended knees!"

"No, mother," said Feathertop, despondingly, "it was not that."

"Did the girl scorn my precious one?" asked Mother Rigby, her fierce eyes glowing like two coals of Tophet. "I'll cover her face with pimples! Her nose shall be as red as the coal in thy pipe! Her front teeth shall drop out! In a week hence she shall not be worth thy having!" "Let her alone, mother," answered poor Feathertop. The girl was half won, and methinks a kiss from her sweet lips might have made me altogether human. But," he added, after a brief pause and then a howl of selfcontempt, "I've seen myself, mother! I've seen myself for the wretched, ragged, empty thing I am. I'll exist no longer."

Snatching the pipe from his mouth, he flung it with all his might against the chimney, and at the same instant sank upon the floor, a medley of straw and tattered garments, with some sticks protruding from the heap and a shriveled pumpkin in the midst. The eyeholes were now lusterless, but the rudely-carved gap that just before had been a mouth still seemed to twist itself into a despairing grin, and was so far human.

"Poor fellow!" quoth Mother Rigby, with a rueful glance at the relics of her ill-fated contrivance. "My poor, dear, pretty Feathertop! There are thousands upon thousands of coxcombs and 'charlatans in the world made

up

of just such a jumble of worn-out, forgotten, and goodfor-nothing trash as he was, yet they live in fair repute and never see themselves for what they are. And why should my poor puppet be the only one to know himself and perish for it?"

While thus muttering the witch had filled a fresh pipe of tobacco and held the stem between her fingers, as if doubtful whether to thrust it into her own mouth or Feathertop's.

"Poor Feathertop!" she continued. "I could easily give him another chance and send him forth again tomorrow. But no! His feelings are too tender-his 'sensibilities too deep. He seems to have too much heart to bustle for his own advantage in such an empty and heartless world. Well, well! I'll make a scarecrow of him, after all. 'Tis an innocent and useful vocation, and will suit my darling well; and if each of his human brethren had as fit a one, 'twould be the better for mankind. And, as for this pipe of tobacco, I need it more than he." So saying, Mother Rigby put the stem between her lips. Dickon," cried she, in her high, sharp tone, "another coal for my pipe!"

66

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

NOTES

The setting of this story is one of which Hawthorne was peculiarly fond-colonial New England. Witchcraft, a thing that held an important place in the belief of the early New Englanders, forms the background of the story, which teaches a strong moral. Poor Feathertop, the scarecrow, represents the men of straw who are so numerous in the world and who often prosper until their worthlessness is revealed by some sudden test. Hawthorne wishes to show how far fine clothes and outward advantages that are apart from character and worth can carry a man, but he seems to believe that they only carry him to disaster in the end.

Witchcraft in this story is handled in a semi-humorous way -the proper method for a fantastic story, that is, for a story which does not seem real to the reader, as "The Gold Bug" seems real. Mother Rigby, the witch, is described as a woman with a strong sense of humor-not at all the kind of witch we usually read of in stories. In fact, she does not appear to be bad, and we feel a certain sympathy for her in her attempt to create a human being out of her junk materials.

Observe that Hawthorne dwells at length on the odd articles that go to make up Feathertop's anatomy, for the purpose of impressing the reader with the ridiculousness of having such a creature endowed with life and speech. When all the articles have been assembled and subjected to the action of magic, they appear as a well-made man. In this fashion does Hawthorne make fun of our tendency to think highly of any one who has a pleasing exterior, regardless of his inward being.

When Feathertop goes out into the world, he finds that he is received for what he appears to be; the radiance of his clothes throws a halo around the real man, and only a child and a dog recognize the scarecrow underneath, because dogs and children are not so easily deceived by mere outward show. Polly Gookin falls in love with the splendid appearance of the

hollow mannikin. Note Hawthorne's comment on this. Does he think such a thing to be rare?

The climax of the story comes swiftly. Feathertop has prospered so long as nothing happens to reveal his real emptiness; his downfall comes when he happens to step before a truthful mirror, which does not show the hollow surface given him by magic but his actual likeness. Here comes the finest touch of the story. Hawthorne might have dismissed Feathertop with contempt, for being a pretender; instead, the scarecrow, from living a man's outward life, has begun to feel as a man- the poor shadow is coming to have a soul. He recognizes his own emptiness and unworthiness, and it fills him with despair. Mother Rigby has made more than she set out to make; she had sought to amuse herself with her pumpkinheaded scarecrow and she has made a creature that feels and suffers. She recognizes this fact and when Feathertop, driven by despair, ends his brief life, she does not revive him. The phantom had become too real. It will be observed that the story ends, as it opens, with the humorous witch demanding a magic coal for her pipe. This story has been dramatized by Percy MacKaye under the title of The Scarecrow.

WORDS AND PHRASES

Airy gallop the reference is to the reputed habit of witches in riding through the air on broomsticks a superstition once believed in by nearly everybody.

Louisbourg: A fortress on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, at one time a French stronghold defending Quebec and taken by the British in 1758. Louis le Grand : In this case, Louis XV.

Eldorado: An imaginary city of immense wealth. The term is now used to describe a foolish dream of riches.

Cession of Canada: Canada was ceded to England by the French in 1763. This would indicate the time of the story as about the middle of the eighteenth century.

TENNESSEE'S PARTNER

I do not think that we ever knew his real name. Our ignorance of it certainly never gave us any social inconvenience, for at Sandy Bar in 1854 most men were christened anew. Sometimes these 'appellatives were derived from some distinctiveness of dress, as in the case of " Dungaree Jack"; or from some peculiarity of habit, as shown in "Saleratus Bill," so called from an undue proportion of that chemical in his daily bread; or from some unlucky slip, as exhibited in "The Iron Pirate," a mild, inoffensive man, who earned that baleful title by his unfortunate mispronunciation of the term "iron pyrites." Perhaps this may have been the beginning of a rude heraldry; but I am constrained to think that it was because a man's real name in that day rested solely upon his own unsupported statement.

But to return to Tennessee's Partner, whom we never knew by any other than this relative title. That he had ever existed as a separate and distinct individuality we only learned later. Meanwhile a popular feeling against Tennessee had grown up on the Bar. He was known to be a gambler; he was suspected to be a thief. In these suspicions Tennessee's Partner was also compromised, though on somewhat slender grounds.

At last Tennessee's guilt became flagrant. One day he overtook a stranger on his way to Red Dog. The stranger afterward related that Tennessee beguiled the time with