The first trace of these is "The Young Provincial," an anonymous piece, [Footnote: It is unquestionable that Hawthorne contributed to annuals and periodicals anonymous tales and sketches that he never claimed, as he states in the preface to _Twice-Told Tales_ and in a letter to Fields in which he beseeches him not to revive them. The identification of such work, however, is beset with much temptation to find a tale genuine, if it can be plausibly so represented, and in few cases can the proof be conclusive. Mr. F. B. Sanborn presents the fullest list, all from _The Token_, which he accepts as genuine, as follows: _The Adventures of a Raindrop_, 1828, _The Young Provincial_, 1830, _The Haunted Quack_ and _The New England Village_, 1831, _My Wife's Novel_, 1832, _The Bald Eagle_, 1833, _The Modern Job_, or _The Philosopher's Stone_, 1834. The correspondence with Goodrich does not indicate that Hawthorne contributed to _The Token_ before the issue for 1831. _The Young Provincial_ seems to be the same sort of a tale as _The Downer's Banner_, as has been intimated above: yet it would, perhaps, be more readily accepted, together with _The Haunted Quack_ and _The Modern Job_. The latest edition of Hawthorne includes all of these tales, given above, except the first and last, but its editor does not vouch for their authenticity.] ascribed to him on internal evidence and contributed to "The Token," an annual published at Boston, for its issue of 1830. The story relates the adventures of a youthful Revolutionary soldier who had handed down to his descendants a "grandfather's gun;" it tells of Bunker Hill, of imprisonment at Halifax and of escape, and it may be from Hawthorne's pen. It must have been written early in 1829, if not before, and it is noticed in the review of "The Token" in Willis's Boston periodical, "The American Monthly Magazine" for September, 1829, where it is described as a "pleasing story, told quite inartificially," and is illustrated by a brief extract. It may not be irrelevant to observe that a similar "provincial tale" appeared in this number of the magazine, "The Downer's Banner," and if it was not by the same youthful author, it shows that the same kind of subject had singularly interested two writers in that neighborhood. It is, however, only in "The Token" that Hawthorne can be further traced.