ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the question of facilitating respect and reverence for places and the natural world by examining two short stories by American novelist, agriculturalist, and agrarian reformer Louis Bromfield (1896–1956). In his writings, Bromfield emphasized a way of being with the natural world that he called teched (rhymes with “fetched”)—the capacity for experiencing an intuitive intimacy with the natural world’s things, creatures, landscapes, and places. Bromfield believed that this direct openness to the world leads to a truer, more sincere understanding of nature and an instinctive wish to work with and use the natural world in a more kindly, responsible way. This chapter explicates Bromfield’s understanding of teched via two 1944 short stories, “Up Ferguson Way” and “The Pond.”
