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Updated: June 20, 2025
The toll-gatherer's practised ear can distinguish the weight of every vehicle, the number of its wheels, and how many horses beat the resounding timbers with their iron tramp. Here, in a substantial family chaise, setting forth betimes to take advantage of the dewy road, come a gentleman and his wife, with their rosy-cheeked little girl sitting gladsomely between them.
And behold now the fervid day, in his bright chariot, glittering aslant over the waves, nor scorning to throw a tribute of his golden beams on the toll-gatherer's little hermitage. While the world is rousing itself, we may glance slightly at the scene of our sketch.
If we compare this introductory chapter with such earlier sketches as "The Vision at the Fountain" and "The Toll-Gatherer's Day," we recognize the progress that Hawthorne has made since the first volume of "Twice Told Tales." We are no longer reminded of the plain unpainted house on Lake Sebago.
The antique gabled mansion in its quiet back street has the charm of the still-life sketches in the early books, such as "Sights from a Steeple," "A Rill from the Town Pump," "Sunday at Home," and "The Toll-gatherer's Day."
In "The Toll-Gatherer's Day" one sees the young observer at work upon the details of an ordinary scene near home. The "small square edifice which stands between shore and shore in the midst of a long bridge," spanning an arm of the sea, refers undoubtedly to the bridge from Salem to Beverly.
Sitting on the aforesaid bench, I amuse myself with a conception, illustrated by numerous pencil-sketches in the air, of the toll-gatherer's day. In the morning dim, gray, dewy summer's morn the distant roll of ponderous wheels begins to mingle with my old friend's slumbers, creaking more and more harshly through the midst of his dream and gradually replacing it with realities.
The first volume contained the same tales as the former edition, with The Toll-Gatherer's Day added. Hawthorne had now been practically idle, so far as his genius was concerned, for three years, and had experimented to his heart's content in other modes of life. He had decided on immediate marriage.
Poor people, unable to pay, were, according to the whim of the seigneur's men, put through some disagreeable, or humiliating, or ridiculous performance: they were either whipped, or made to walk on their hands, or to turn somersaults, or kiss the bolts of the toll-gatherer's gate. As to the women, they were subjected to revolting obscenities.
Among these things A Rill from the Town Pump, The Village Uncle, The Toll-Gatherer's Day, the Chippings with a Chisel, may most naturally be mentioned. It would be a mistake to insist too much upon them; Hawthorne was himself the first to recognise that.
The toll-gatherer's practised ear can distinguish the weight of every vehicle, the number of its wheels and how many horses beat the resounding timbers with their iron tramp. Here, in a substantial family chaise, setting forth betimes to take advantage of the dewy road, come a gentleman and his wife with their rosy-cheeked little girl sitting gladsomely between them.
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