gurgling sound and confused
murmurs issuing from its lips--"like airy tongues that syllable men's
names." Anon these murmurs shaped themselves into distinct
articulations, and as we listened, wonderingly, the old pump spoke:--

"Past twelve o'clock, and a moonlight night. All well, as I'm a pump.
Nobody breaking into banks, and nobody kicking up rows--watchmen fast
asleep, and every body quiet. But I can't sleep. No! the city
government has murdered sleep! There's something heavy on my buckets,
and I fear me, I'm a gone sucker! They thought I couldn't find out
what they were up to--the municipal government--but I'm a deep one,
and I know every thing that's going for'ard. What a jolly go, to be
sure! They told me Mayor Bigelow hated proscription--but I knew it was
gammon! He must follow the fashion, and Cochituate is all the go.
There ain't no pumps now--it's all fountain! Pump water is full of
animalculae, and straddle bugs don't exist in pond water--of course
not. Nobody ever see young pollywogs and snapping turtles floating
down stream in fly-time. Certainly not! I'm getting old--of course I
am; that's the talk! I've been in office too long. Well, well, I know
I'm rather asthmatic and phthisicky--but nobody ever knowed me to
suck, even in the driest time. These living waters have welled up even
from the time when the salt sea was divided from the land, and the
rocks were cloven by the hand of Omnipotence, and the sweet spring
came bursting upward from the fragrant earth, and light and flowers
came together to welcome the birthday of the glad and glorious gift.
Here, many a century back, the giant mastodon trod the earth into deep
hollows, as he moved upon his sounding path. Then came another time.
In the hollow of the three hills, the Indian raised his bark wigwam,
and the smoke of his council fire curled up like a mist-wreath in the
forest. Here the red man filled the wild gourd cup when he returned
weary from the chase or the skirmish. And here, too, the Indian
maiden smoothed her dark locks, and her lustrous, laughing eyes gazed
upon the image of her own dusky beauty, mirrored on the surface of the
wave. By and by the red man ceased to drink of my unfailing rill.
Beings with pale faces came to me to quench their thirst; bearded lips
were moistened with my diamond drops; and I looked up upon iron
corselet and steel hauberk, and faces harder than either. But the old
Puritans gave me form and substance--a 'local habi