Page:Nathaniel Hawthorne (Woodbury).djvu/130



The way out of all this trouble was found for Hawthorne by the same friends who had formerly rescued him in the time of his bitter discouragement before his engagement. In the spring of 1845, Bridge and Frank Pierce appeared on the scene, and finding Hawthorne at his daily task of chopping wood in the shed, they had a meeting of the old college-boy sort that brightens the page with one of those human scenes that, occurring seldom in Hawthorne's life, have such realistic effect.

"Mr. Bridge caught a glimpse of him, and began a sort of waltz towards him. Mr. Pierce followed; and when they reappeared, Mr. Pierce's arm was encircling my husband's old blue frock. How his friends do love him! Mr. Bridge was perfectly wild with spirits. He danced and gesticulated and opened his round eyes like an owl.... My husband says Mr. Pierce's affection for and reliance upon him are perhaps greater than any other person's. He called him 'Nathaniel,' and spoke to him and looked at him with peculiar tenderness."

The friends agreed that something should be done for Hawthorne through political influence, and in the course of the succeeding months there was much discussion of one and another office without immediate result; and meanwhile Hawthorne prepared to remove to Salem again, where he would so arrange matters that his mother and sisters should live in the same house with him. He