Hawthorne’s Odyssey

A young boy trapses through the heavily wooded area around his new home in Maine. He walks a few feet, cranes his neck back to look up and marvels at the trees stretching toward the heavens. There’s so many of them. It is nothing like he has seen before. He looks straight up as far as he can, nearly falling backwards. The trees all seem to point to the sun high overhead in the sky above. He walks on through the dense woods mesmerized by nature. He notices small animals, suddenly aware of him, running away. He picks up a stick to use to clear a path ahead of him. Nathaniel doesn’t know what to make of his new surroundings but is eager to explore. The woods are wild and primeval to him. This rustic environment was not something he had seen in Salem, Massachusetts. He was used to seeing the hustle and bustle of the great ships arriving and departing the great seaport in the glory days when Salem was the largest seaport per person in the newly formed United States. He also saw grandiose brick buildings where the great merchants lived stretching down the road that ran along the harbor’s coast. His father was a sea captain who was part of the great shipping industry so it seemed that would be their life and he would live in an impressive brick home. But fate chose a different destiny for the young lad. Nathaniel’s dad died from yellow fever on a voyage in the Caribbean when Nathaniel was four years old. He never really knew his father so his uncles, Richard and Robert, served as surrogate fathers. After his father’s death, he had lived with his Manning relatives in Salem on Herbert Street. It was close enough to the seaport that he could hear the chaos and clamor of the longshoremen and laborers on the docks. When Salem was still recovering from the War of 1812, Nathaniel and his family moved to Raymond, Maine to live with the Manning family. Eventually, his uncles had a home built for Nathaniel, his mother and two sisters. The vast woods around the home are a new world for Nathaniel. He was fascinated by it and wants to learn everything he can. He continues to go deeper into the woods, noticing a scattered clearing up ahead. He walks toward it but it seems so far away. He finally makes it there and he is surprised by what he sees. “The ocean?” he questions in his mind. The 12-year-old Nathaniel is shocked. They left the seaport and now they are near the ocean again. As he surveys the panorama, he realizes he sees mountains surrounding the water on one side and land all around the water. And there is an island in the middle of it. “It’s a gigantic lake; not the ocean!” he thinks. Nathaniel has stumbled upon Sebago Lake and Frye Island. It is a name given to the lake by an indigenous tribe and it means “great stretch of water.” The island is named for Capt. Joseph Frye who escaped a tribe of native Americans by jumping off a high ledge into the lake and swimming to the island. Once again, Nathaniel is humbled by the awesome nature around him and practically overwhelmed. He sits down and just admires the vista. Thoughts pour through his mind as he imagines what could be on the other side of the lake and the island. “Sights from a clearing,” he muses. Nathaniel catches something out of the corner of his right eye and turns his head to the right end of the lake. He doesn’t see anything and is not sure what made him suddenly whip his head in that direction. He scans the area and he starts to think it is a large animal. He saw a bearskin once back in Salem and remembers being terrified as he imagined the animal for real. He believes there is a bear in the woods. His heart begins to pound as he peers into the woods, looking for a pair of eyes gazing back at him as the light shades of sunset blanket the area. He realizes that sunset is upon the day. The woods have become a little dark. He has lost track of the time and fears his mother will be furious. He has spent way too much time here and is now concerned if he can find the way back. He tries to go back the way he came but it all looks the same. He notices a few landmarks like a rock that he sat on, a big hole and a fallen tree. It feels right to him and presses on. Finally in the distance, he hears his uncle shouting his name and heads toward the sound of the voice. He’s home, but will get an earful for sure. The next day Nathaniel returns to the woods but this time he has a knife and some string. His uncle gave him a lecture the night before on going into the woods alone and the dangers it presents. And he explained to him that there are bears in the woods. He is instructed on how to mark his path so he knows how to get back. Nathaniel gets very adept at finding his way through the woods and likes to go to the clearing he found the very first day he that he ventured in. He enjoys the quiet of the woods and does some of his most formulative thinking there until he is torn away from these delightful days.