The Changing Bell

I live in a small town. Perhaps a larger town than I realize: On the streets of Paris, I met a stranger who knew the town I lived in. Why? Because people like John Humphrey Noyes in the 1840s made history that excited even George B. Shaw. Several institutions of learning began here in the thirties and forties of the last century. It was in the center of New England. There were farmers in this area-the so-called hoi polloi-who noticed the sticker on the back of my truck-"Call me Ishmael"-who said to me, "Ah, I see you like Herman Melville." I am writing a story about this town as it might be, if suddenly one stepped into it and found his Jerusalem. Its center is the Bell, the great railroad engine wheel rim that ran our lives in my favorite institution, the Putney School, my teacher that set me on the road.