“Nathaniel enjoyed running wild in the forest, but he also responded to the human desire to domesticate the wilderness and to establish homes. He wrote later of Roger Malvin's futile desire to return home after a battle with the Indians in northern New England: ‘There is many and many a long mile of howling wilderness before us yet; nor would it avail me anything if the smoke of my own chimney were but on the other side of that swell of land.’ 125
The possibility of death was never out of Nathaniel's mind; even in Raymond he could see the family graveyard out beyond Uncle Richard's house in the field which overlooked Dingley Brook. Its gravestones were silent reminders of the power of the unseen world over human lives. Although Raymond was not a center of trade, the road which passed through it linked New Hampshire, Vermont and parts of Maine with the commercial seacoast town of Portland. Nathaniel could watch farmers from the remote clearings far beyond Raymond haul their produce on carts and wagons to the Portland market. Raymond itself was a farming community, set in an extraordinarily beautiful landscape on the edge of the wilderness. On the farm where the Hathornes boarded during the summer of 1816, vegetables and grains were grown, cattle were slaughtered for their meat, butter was churned and cheese was made. 126 When Mrs. Hathorne had her own houses several years later, she kept a cow which was fed with hay cut from the surrounding fields. 127
Nathaniel's friends in Raymond were children of farmers. Across the lane from Uncle Richard's house were the Dingleys (Aunt Susan's parents) whose son, Jacob, was close to Nathaniel's age. A few miles over to the east on Quaker Hill, with its breathtaking view of distant Mount Washington, lived Robinson Cook. He was the son of one of the early settlers of the small community of Quakers who had built their first meeting house on Quaker Hill in 1814…. 128
Robinson and Nathaniel probably knew William Symmes, the mulatto son of ‘a leading member of the Massachusetts bar,’ who was raised as the foster son of Capt. Jonathan Britton of Otisfield because his own father had died. 130 Nathaniel and his friends could walk along broad Dingley Brook as it flowed down from its source, Thomas Pond, a half mile away. On its shores was the brickyard run by Jacob Watkins which made the bricks necessary for the chimneys of the houses. From Thomas Pond, Nathaniel could see Rattlesnake Mountain, several miles away, a view which he loved. 131 The mountain had been named for the huge number of snakes which lived in its rocks and had been so numerous that men had hunted them in groups, capturing up to a hundred in a day. 132
From Thomas Pond which reflected the green leaves on his hillsides in its
clear waters, the boys could climb up the hill that led to ‘Pulpit Rock.’
133
It stood among other boulders at the top of a hill which ascended sharply
from a boggy area, and was very much like the setting Hawthorne would later
use for ‘Young Goodman Brown.' Hidden on top of the boulder amongst the treetops,
Nathaniel and his friends could hear the voices of people on the road below.
A mile beyond Thomas Pond was Panther Pond, named for the wild animals which
still occasionally roamed its banks. On Panther Pond the boys could watch
the plaster mill which used limestone made in kilns like those in Hawthorne's
story of ‘Ethan Brand’ and those in the Estabrook Woods near his later home
in Concord, Massachusetts. 134
Nathaniel also enjoyed visiting Uncle Richard's general store. Built on
a rise of ground just east of his house, it was stocked with various staple
items such as calico, sugar and a great deal of rum. 135
This store and the Dingley mills were the gathering places for the farmers
and teamsters. Here Nathaniel could watch Washington Longley's amazing displays
of the drumming skills which he had acquired, along with his drummer's uniform,
in the recent War of 1812. 136
Nathaniel might spend a rainy day listening to the stories being swapped by
the old-timers of Raymond as they mystified him with tales of such unexplainable
events as the spiders whose web saved the life of a little girl from blood-thirsty
Indians. 137
Stories were told about local characters--everyone knew of Betty Welsh the
first girl born in Raymond, who, while picking berries one day had killed
a rattlesnake and a woodchuck. After finishing her berry-pickings she extracted
the rattlesnake's oil to use for cooking and fixed the woodchuck for the family
dinner. 138
Another local story was of Eli Longley. While en route to the eternally good
weather on the western frontier, Longley had awakened one spring morning in
Pennsylvania to find the ground covered with frost, and so had returned to
Maine to live more contentedly. 139
Nathaniel also listened to these vigorous men discussing the many property
and boundary disputes inevitable where land was being surveyed and cleared.
140
He would later place a dispute over land in Maine in the background of the
plot of The House of the Seven Gables. 141
…
In Maine, Nathaniel was left alone to read and dream, probably more than he had been in Salem. He later wrote of the value of these quiet hours: ‘It is only a solitary child left much to such wild modes of culture as he chooses for himself while yet ignorant what culture means, standing on tiptoe to pull down books from no very lofty shelf, and then shutting himself up, as it were, between the leaves, going astray through the volume at his own pleasure, and comprehending it rather by his sensibilities and affections than his intellect--that child is the only student that ever gets the sort of intimacy which I am now thinking of, with a literary personage.’ 145
During this summer in Maine, Nathaniel was finally responsible to his mother alone. Away from the Manning uncles and aunts in Salem, with their constant worrying and rigorous standards, Nathaniel and his sisters flourished under their Mother's gentle guidance.
…
Nathaniel's first full summer in Maine was an ideal time for him--days of
rambling in a beautiful setting and of listening to stories, reading, and
dreaming. Elizabeth wrote later of its value—‘It did him a great deal of good
in many ways ....His imagination was stimulated, too, by the scenery and by
the strangeness of the people; and by the absolute freedom he enjoyed.’ 153
He also experienced the solitude and independence which later would be necessary
for him as a writer. He would always feel that he needed ‘a room’ of his own
where he could live in the ‘world within.’ 154
He would compare his stories to vegetables which had sprung up of their own
accord in his receptive imagination--an imagination, which, in Maine, had
begun absorbing images of natural beauty and of a home set in a pastoral,
timeless world.”
