Our story today is called, "The Ambitious Guest. " It was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Here is Harry Monroe with our story.
Narrator:
One December night, a long, long time ago, a family sat around the
fireplace in their home. A golden light from the fire filled the room.
The mother and father laughed at something their oldest daughter had
just said.
The girl was seventeen, much older than her little
brother and sister, who were only five and six years old. A very old
woman, the familys grandmother, sat knitting in the warmest corner of
the room. And a baby, the youngest child, smiled at the fires light from
its tiny bed.
This family had found happiness in the worst place
in all of New England. They had built their home high up in the White
Mountains, where the wind blows violently all year long.

The
family lived in an especially cold and dangerous spot. Stones from the
top of the mountain above their house would often roll down the
mountainside and wake them in the middle of the night.
No other
family lived near them on the mountain. But this family was never
lonely. They enjoyed each others company, and often had visitors.
Their
house was built near an important road that connected the White
Mountains to the Saint Lawrence River. People traveling through the
mountains in wagons always stopped at the familys door for a drink of
water and a friendly word.
Lonely travelers, crossing the
mountains on foot, would step into the house to share a hot meal.
Sometimes, the wind became so wild and cold that these strangers would
spend the night with the family. The family offered every traveler who
stopped at their home a kindness that money could not buy.
On that
December evening, the wind came rushing down the mountain. It seemed to
stop at their house to knock at the door before it roared down into the
valley.
The family fell silent for a moment. But then they
realized that someone really was knocking at their door. The oldest girl
opened the door and found a young man standing in the dark.
The
old grandmother put a chair near the fireplace for him. The oldest
daughter gave him a warm, shy smile. And the baby held up its little
arms to him.
"This fire is just what I needed," the young man said. "The wind has been blowing in my face for the last two hours."
The father took the young mans travel bag. "Are you going to Vermont?" the older man asked.
"Yes,
to Burlington," the traveler replied. "I wanted to reach the valley
tonight. But when I saw the light in your window, I decided to stop. I
would like to sit and enjoy your fire and your company for a while."

As
the young man took his place by the fire, something like heavy
footsteps was heard outside. It sounded as if someone was running down
the side of the mountain, taking enormous steps.
The father looked out one of the windows.
"That
old mountain has thrown another stone at us again. He must have been
afraid we would forget him. He sometimes shakes his head and makes us
think he will come down on top of us," the father explained to the young
man.

"But we are old neighbors," he smiled. "And we manage to
get along together pretty well. Besides, I have made a safe hiding place
outside to protect us in case a slide brings the mountain down on our
heads."

As the father spoke, the mother prepared a hot meal for
their guest. While he ate, he talked freely to the family, as if it were
his own.
This young man did not trust people easily. Yet on this
evening, something made him share his deepest secret with these simple
mountain people.
The young mans secret was that he was ambitious.
He did not know what he wanted to do with his life, yet. But he did
know that he did not want to be forgotten after he had died. He believed
that sometime during his life, he would become famous and be admired by
thousands of people.
"So far," the young man said, "I have done
nothing. If I disappeared tomorrow from the face of the earth, no one
would know anything about me. No one would ask Who was he. Where did he
go? But I cannot die until I have reached my destiny. Then let death
come! I will have built my monument!"
The young mans powerful emotions touched the family. They smiled.
"You laugh at me," the young man said, taking the oldest daughters hand. "You think my ambition is silly."

She
was very shy, and her face became pink with embarrassment. "It is
better to sit here by the fire," she whispered, "and be happy, even if
nobody thinks of us."

Her father stared into the fire.
"I think there is something natural in what the young man says. And his words have made me think about our own lives here.
"It
would have been nice if we had had a little farm down in the valley.
Some place where we could see our mountains without being afraid they
would fall on our heads. I would have been respected by all our
neighbors. And, when I had grown old, I would die happy in my bed. You
would put a stone over my grave so everyone would know I lived an honest
life."

"You see!" the young man cried out. "It is in our nature
to want a monument. Some want only a stone on their grave. Others want
to be a part of everyones memory. But we all want to be remembered after
we die!"
The young man threw some more wood on the fire to chase away the darkness.

The
firelight fell on the little group around the fireplace: the fathers
strong arms and the mothers gentle smile. It touched the young mans
proud face, and the daughters shy one.
It warmed the old
grandmother, still knitting in the corner. She looked up from her
knitting and, with her fingers still moving the needles, she said, "Old
people have their secrets, just as young people do."

The old
woman said she had made her funeral clothes some years earlier. They
were the finest clothes she had made since her wedding dress. She said
her secret was a fear that she would not be buried in her best clothes.
The young man stared into the fire.
"Old
and young," he said. "We dream of graves and monuments. I wonder how
sailors feel when their ship is sinking, and they know they will be
buried in the wide and nameless grave that is the ocean?"
A sound,
rising like the roar of the ocean, shook the house. Young and old
exchanged one wild look. Then the same words burst from all their lips.
"The slide! The slide!"
They
rushed away from the house, into the darkness, to the secret spot the
father had built to protect them from the mountain slide.
The
whole side of the mountain came rushing toward the house like a
waterfall of destruction. But just before it reached the little house,
the wave of earth divided in two and went around the familys home.
Everyone and everything in the path of the terrible slide was destroyed,
except the little house.
The next morning, smoke was seen coming from the chimney of the house on the mountain.
Inside,
the fire was still burning. The chairs were still drawn up in a half
circle around the fireplace. It looked as if the family had just gone
out for a walk.
Some people thought that a stranger had been with
the family on that terrible night. But no one ever discovered who the
stranger was. His name and way of life remain a mystery. His body was
never found.
Announcer: You have just heard the story, "The
Ambitious Guest. " It was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and adapted
for Special English by Dona de Sanctis. Your narrator was Harry Monroe.
This is Shirley Griffith.

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