The scene so vividly described in the charming ballad we are considering is a little valley through which Herring Brook pursues its devious way to meet the tidal waters of North River. "The view of it from Coleman Heights, with its neat cottages, its maple groves, and apple orchards, is remarkably beautiful," writes one appreciative author. The "wide-spreading pond," the "mill," the "dairy-house," the "rock where the cataract fell," and even the "old well," if not the original "moss-covered bucket" itself, may still be seen just as the poet described them.
[Illustration: OLD OAKEN BUCKET HOUSE, SCITUATE, MASS.]
In quaint, homely Scituate, Samuel Woodworth, the people's poet, was indeed born and reared. Although the original house is no longer there, a pretty place called "The Old Oaken Bucket House" still stands, a modern successor to the poet's home, and at another bucket, oaken if not old, the pilgrim of to-day may stop to slake his thirst from the very waters, the recollection of which gave the poet such exquisite pleasure in after years. One would fain have the surroundings unchanged--the cot where Woodworth dwelt, the ponderous well-sweep, creaking with age, at which his youthful hands were wont to tug strongly; and finally the mossy bucket, overflowing with crystal nectar fresh from the cool depths below. Yet in spite of the changes, one gets fairly well the illusion of the ancient spot, and comes away well content to have quaffed a draught of such excellent water to the memory of this Scituate poet.
The circumstances under which the popular ballad was composed and written are said to be as follows: Samuel Woodworth was a printer who had served his apprenticeship under the veteran Major Russell of the _Columbian Centinel_, a journal which was in its day the leading Federalist organ of New England. He had inherited the wandering propensity of his craft, and yielding to the desire for change he was successively in Hartford and New York, doing what he could in a journalistic way. In the latter city he became associated, after an unsuccessful career as a publisher, in the editorship of the _Mirror_. And it was while living in New York in the Bohemian fashion of his class, that, in company with some brother printers, he one day dropped in at a well-known establishment then kept by one Mallory to take a social glass of wine.