Nahum Gardner
Nahum Gardner is the farmer whose home, family and land are destroyed after a meteorite falls beside his well in The Colour out of Space. His decline gives the cosmic event its domestic scale: a prosperous household becomes isolated, exhausted and unable to escape the process transforming its surroundings.
5 min read · 902 words
The farm before the meteorite
Nahum is about fifty when the meteorite falls in June 1882. Ammi Pierce remembers him as lean, friendly and a good neighbor. He lives with his wife, called Nabby in his speech, and three sons: Zenas, Thaddeus and Merwin.
The family occupies a white farmhouse among productive gardens and orchards. A ten-acre pasture beyond Chapman’s Brook and an upland lot provide additional working land. The property is remote, but it is not initially described as a place everyone has always feared.
Ammi and his wife regularly exchange visits with the Gardners. That established friendship later explains why Ammi keeps returning after other neighbors withdraw.
A brief period of public attention
Nahum goes into Arkham to report the fallen stone. University investigators visit the next morning, and his claim that it has already shrunk is initially rejected. Continued observation eventually supports his account.
The meteorite brings newspaper attention, including a reporter from Boston. Nahum appears somewhat proud that his farm has become the subject of scientific and public interest.
This early phase contrasts with the later treatment of his warnings. When the object is news, outsiders arrive readily; when the danger becomes a slow rural catastrophe, they become harder to persuade.
Trying to explain a poisoned harvest
The first affected fruit grows to extraordinary size and abundance. Nahum prepares extra barrels, only to discover that the crop is inedible. He concludes that the meteorite has poisoned the soil.
That explanation leads to practical adjustments. He relies on the higher fields and later leaves the ground near the house unplanted, hoping the abnormal vegetation will draw out the contamination. Moving cows uphill temporarily improves their milk.
His response is therefore not simple refusal to notice anything wrong. He recognizes damage and attempts measures consistent with a farmer’s understanding of soil and stock, but the process exceeds that explanation.
Warnings that fail to produce help
Nahum reports unusual tracks, animal behavior and vegetation. Some neighbors begin believing him after observations of their own, but the university visitors dismiss much of the surrounding testimony as rural superstition.
He brings strange flowers to an Arkham newspaper editor, who turns the account into a humorous item. His description of abnormal butterflies does not improve the reception. The widening gap between the farm’s experience and outsiders’ willingness to act leaves the household increasingly isolated.
The refusal of local veterinarians to approach the property and the failure of an Arkham veterinarian to explain the livestock’s illness further narrow the available help.
The household becomes confined
The family grows withdrawn, physically unwell and preoccupied with an unidentified sound or presence. School initially gives the boys some contact with the wider world, but that connection weakens as the crisis develops.
Nabby’s condition becomes severe in June of the following year. Nahum first allows her to move around the house, then confines her in an attic room when the children become frightened. Thaddeus later undergoes a breakdown after a visit to the well and is confined in another room.
The decisions are desperate attempts to manage an unexplained catastrophe within the home. The text does not present them as effective medical treatment, and confinement does not stop the process destroying the victims.
The deaths and disappearances of the sons
Thaddeus dies in October. Nahum buries what remains in the family plot and brings the news to Ammi. Three days later he reports Merwin’s disappearance after the child went for water at night.
Near the well he finds the distorted remnants of the lantern and pail. Zenas subsequently disappears too, although Nahum’s deteriorating awareness makes the chronology of that loss unclear. When Ammi next visits, the father still issues orders to the absent boy.
The later investigation finds remains of both missing sons in the well. Their disappearance is therefore not left solely as an unexplained flight from home, although no witness supplies a continuous account of their final moments.
The last conversation with Ammi
Ammi finds Nahum lying weakly in the cold kitchen, imagining that Zenas is tending a fire that is not burning. His responses about the family show that he can no longer reliably track who remains alive or present.
After Ammi visits the attic, sounds below are followed by Nahum’s rapid physical collapse. The farmer can still speak briefly. He describes the color, the well, the draining of living things and the loss of the ability to leave.
His final statement is the story’s most direct human account of sustained contact with the presence. It is fragmented and speculative in places, but it connects the household’s symptoms with the meteorite and the water supply. He then disintegrates beyond the possibility of further testimony.
Responsibility without an intelligible cause
Nahum wonders whether the catastrophe is some kind of judgment, yet he cannot identify wrongdoing that would account for it. The story supplies no revelation that the family knowingly summoned the presence or inherited a pact with it.
His tragedy develops through ordinary responsibilities: maintaining crops, caring for dependents, obtaining water and continuing work despite fatigue. Those same routines keep the household close to the site of danger.
In this encyclopedia’s reading, the character makes cosmic indifference visible at the level of daily life. He has enough understanding to recognize that something is wrong, but neither the available explanations nor his declining strength enable him to remove the family from its reach.
References
- The Colour Out of Space — Unspeakable Tales ebook
The fictional narrative is evidence for what the story says, not proof of events in the real world.
At a glance
Fictional farmer
The Colour out of Space
Fifty
Nabby Gardner, as named in Nahum’s speech
Zenas; Thaddeus; Merwin
Ammi Pierce
West of Arkham, near Chapman’s Brook
Meteorite falls beside his well in June 1882