Chapter II: Part 2

For many, many moons, the great tribe of the Mattacheesits had lived in peace in their lodges near the clear blue waters of Cummaquid. It was a noble tribe, renowned for its beautiful young maidens, its fearless braves, and especially for its Great War Sachem, the Giant Manshope. But the heartbreaking mourning of the death dirge had many times wailed through the camp, for the Mattacheesits had a foe far more terrible than any fierce enemy tribe.

Twice each year since the beginning of Time--once in the Moon of Bright Nights, and again in the Moon of Falling Leaves--the Great Devil Bird from over the Southern Sea spread wide his smothering wings and swept down on the tribe, capturing in his terrible talons the little papooses, and even some of the youngest braves who had just learned the art of the tomahawk. With a laughing shriek, he bore them away to his secret lair in the Region of the South Wind, where no man had ever ventured. They were never seen again.

On the eve of a triumphant victory over the Nausets, Great War Sachem Manshope returned, leading his braves in the ritual chant-dance of victory. But the battlecry was mingled with the wail of the death dirge, floating up towards the braves from the camp, and echoing sorrowfully through the stillness of the summer evening. The Giant Manshope found his faithful squaw with face gashed and breast torn, the ashes heaped on her head mingling with tears of anguish, for the Great Devil Bird had carried away her first-born, a strong young brave of just sixteen summers. The Devil Bird had carried him off to the Unknown Place before the sun had dropped from the edge of the world.

A fierce cry, filled with all the venom and hate and sorrow of many moons and many deaths, tore from the throat of Manshope. His people trembled with fear and pride as they watched him stand there, his face aglow with the call of battle, his eyes savage with hate and revenge, for they knew that their great leader would leave for the Unknown Place, stalking the Great Devil Bird.

His huge war tomahawk in his hand, Manshope strode away without a word from the camp, the wails of the sorrowing squaws and the war shrieks of the braves echoing in his ears. The war drums beat their relentless rhythm of death for the Devil Bird. With giant strides that took him across the breadth of the Cape, Manshope plunged thigh deep through the deepest streams, pushed trees aside in forests he had no time to skirt, and came at length to the low treacherous swamplands that lay at the edge of the Southern Sea, the last barrier to the Unknown Place. In the misty half-light, Manshope saw, far in the distance, the Great Devil Bird, its human prey in its talons, winging its way swiftly towards its lair.

Many wondered, but none knew what lay in the Unknown Place across the Southern Sea, for no man had dared cross the churning waters to that island lair of the Devil Bird. But the Sachem’s eyes saw the turbulent waters not as danger, but as a bloody challenge. The Giant Manshope called out to the Great Spirit to give him the strength and cunning to follow the Devil Bird to its hiding place and slay him there. Then he strode boldly forth into the deep, treacherous waters.

Guided only by the stars, he came at length to the strange and feared Unknown Place, now Martha’s Vineyard. From the western end of the island, he saw majestically sheer cliffs which rose straight from the sea. At the narrowest end of the land, he saw something which made his heart sink, and his blood run cold in his veins, for there was a giant oak, its twisted exposed roots strewn with the white bleached bones of Indian children captured by the Devil Bird for countless years.

The Giant Manshope crept noiselessly towards the death tree. Under the enveloping shadows of its great branches he looked up, and saw the dim silhouette of the Devil Bird sleeping in the uppermost branches. Its head was beneath its wing, its beak dripped blood, and its belly was distended with gluttonous human feasting.

Manshope glanced at the stone tomahawk in his hand, and saw it gleam in the half-light. He fastened it to his belt, and then swung himself soundlessly up through the branches towards the sleeping Devil Bird. At last he reached his goal at the top of the Death Tree, so close to the Bird that the night breeze ruffled its feathers across Manshope’s cheek.

There he paused, gazing down at the Bird, hate in his eyes, his heart beating wildly with the excitement of near victory and revenge. He raised his weapon high over his head and brought it down with a crushing thud on the neck of the Devil Bird. The Great Evil One fell to earth, never to rise again.

Panting with excitement and triumph, Manshope waited until he was sure the Devil Bird was dead before he left the hated Death Tree and its sorrowful remains. But his triumph had a bitter taste, and his heart was heavy, for although he had vanquished the Great Evil One, his soul cried out in anguish for his beloved son.

Lost in sorrowful meditation, Manshope rested for a while at the northern end of the island before returning to his camp on the mainland. He drew forth his pipe, but the tobacco was dampened by the waters through which he had plunged, and would not burn, so he gathered some poke weed, and, loading his pipe, sat quietly smoking. As he smoked, the rings and swirls from his pipe billowed and rose through the early morning air. It floated across the Southern Sea, over the Cape moors and the lodges of the Indian camp, where his sorrowing squaw awaited his return.

Great was the rejoicing in the Indian lodges when Manshope’s people saw this smoke, for they knew that their Great Sachem would never linger to smoke his pipe while an enemy he was stalking was still alive.

The Great Devil Bird no longer ravaged and killed, and the Indians lived without fear once more. And when the sweet summer air drifted in from the woods, the mist lay low on the swamplands, and the fog bank from the sound curled in over the mainland just as the smoke from Giant Manshope’s pipe did on that morning--Indian mothers drew their children closer to the fire, and while the enveloping mists and fogs crept slowly in, they told them the legend of the Great Devil Bird, saying, “Here comes Old Manshope’s Smoke.”

... The Peddler’s Coffin

The winter nights are long on Cape Cod. When the lonely winds howled ’round the house, and the naked branches tap-tapped against the windowpane, friends and neighbors gathered in the big, warm kitchen of the old Nickerson farmhouse down Rock Harbor Road in Orleans for an evening of story telling and popcorn or apple roasting.

Jonathan Snow, twelve years old, full of imagination and very impressionable, loved these story evenings. Jonathan would curl up in his favorite niche between the fireplace and the window, and there, munching on apples, would listen pop-eyed to the spooky stories. Here he was close enough to the bright, friendly fireplace to feel secure, but also close enough to the dark eye of the window and the wild, windy night to feel a delicious tingle of fear run up and down his spine.

One bleak and howling February night, when the stories had been especially hair-raising, a lull in the conversation and a few yawns proclaimed that it was time for all to depart for their respective homes. Jonathan knew he should leave, but he felt chained to the fireside. He couldn’t stay, was too proud to voice his fears, and yet shuddered at the thought of leaving this warm kitchen for the dark and lonely walk home. But boy’s pride won. Jonathan buttoned up his greatcoat, pulled his wool cap down over his ears, and bidding the Nickersons a brave but reluctant good night, set off for home.

It was not far from the Nickerson to the Snow home, but the night was a wild one; a night of wind and floating mist, when familiar daylight objects assumed fantastic shapes, and the road was filled with shadowy forms. Jonathan held himself in admirable check for about 100 yards. He strolled along whistling casually, but when he glanced back and could see no more the winking lights of the Nickerson house, he was casual no longer, and tore at breakneck speed down the road.

Rounding the turn that meant the halfway mark to home, in the place where the road was flanked on one side by a high stone wall and on the other by a creek which ran parallel to it, Jonathan stood stock still, blood turning to slow ice in his veins. For there, not four yards before him, gleaming in a flickering pool of moonlight that filtered through the scudding clouds, was a coffin.

Three thoughts scampered through the terrified Jonathan’s mind. He could jump the stone wall, splash through the creek, or leap over the coffin and make a dash for home and safety. And jump he did. Now a twelve-year-old Cape Cod boy can jump like a grasshopper, but Jonathan did not jump high enough. Just as he thought he had cleared the coffin, and indeed, his feet were running before they touched the ground, his ankle was clutched by a bony hand, and he was pulled right into the terrible coffin!

Reflex action and young strength bounded together simultaneously. Using all his energy, Jonathan pushed out with his hands and heels and leaped from the coffin like fat from a hot skillet. Scared near out of his wits, Jonathan broke an all-time speed record to home. There he babbled out his story to puzzled parents, who, as hardy Cape Codders, scoffed at the idea of a coffin, but decided to go and investigate anyway. So Jonathan, armed with mother and father, returned to the fateful spot, only to find that the “coffin” was a two-bushel market basket which had rolled from a peddler’s cart, and which, in the dark night, Jonathan’s aroused imagination had turned into an occupied coffin. The resident of the coffin, which Jonathan believed had clutched his ankle, was only the high basket handle which he did not clear in his leap for life.

... The Whale that Went to
New York

It all started when a seventy-ton whale washed ashore at Wellfleet. Now, seventy tons of whale is no easy thing to deal with, and the costs of towing the whale back out to sea were more than the town fathers felt the thin town treasury purse could afford. Many suggestions were offered, but two enterprising old sea captains hit on a plan to raise enough money for the project with perhaps money left over to add to the town funds.

Why not charge admission to see the whale? This seemed like an excellent scheme but the Board of Health had something to say about having a dead whale on the docks that squelched the plan before it got into motion. But the old seamen, undaunted, still thought it was a good plan.

Yankee ingenuity reached an all-time high when the captains decided to find out for themselves just how many people would pay fifty cents for the dubious privilege of seeing a seventy-ton dead whale. They decided to tow the monster to New York, paying all towing charges, which were by no means slight, themselves. Their fellow townsmen scoffed at the idea, but the two captains answered that the whole project would undoubtedly reap a goodly financial harvest, and that the town could whistle for a part of the expected profits. But, sad to relate, the get-rich-quick scheme back-fired, for the two down-Capers found that the New York Board of Health was no more eager to have a month’s dead whale reposing in smelly grandeur on their docks than were the Wellfleet officials. And so the two captains, poorer but wiser, and by this time sick and tired of the whole business, dug deep into their pockets once more and made suitable arrangements for the disposal of the whale. When they returned home and were met with a cross-fire of questions, they had not a thing to say.

... The Snake Biting Indian

Tall, straight, and dark browed, Joseph Naughaught was a familiar figure as he made his way throughout the Cape, Bible tucked under his arm. Wherever his wandering feet brought him, he stopped to preach for Christianity, for he was a converted Indian. Pious, rum-hating Joseph was a self-made man both educationally and religiously, and was well known as a religiously, and at times, fanatically, sincere man--so well known for this, in fact, that he soon came to be called “The Deacon.”

When “The Deacon” was not evangelicaling, converting, or leading future converts in prayer, he could be found, in all seasons, strolling leisurely through the woods and along the beaches.

One bright Fall day, when the Deacon was walking through the Truro Hills, he came to his favorite place of meditation, a rocky, cave-like shelter which was close to the ocean bluffs. There he sat for some time, quietly smoking and thinking, when his thoughts were arrested by a strange and ominous hissing.

The Deacon was trapped, for there directly before the mouth of the cave, was a huge circle of deadly black snakes. The Deacon was unarmed, and the snakes he knew, would close in on him faster than light at his slightest movement. He sat frozen with horror.

The minutes dragged by. The Deacon never took his eyes off the snakes, and they in turn were like frozen black ribbons, heads slightly raised, as they stared at him with eyes he could not see. The small gusts of occasional sea breeze were cold against the Deacon’s skin, for he was drenched with the sweat of fear.

The snakes crawled slowly towards him, with one of the black lines a little ahead of the others. When the reptiles reached his feet, they stopped once more. He could hear their soft hissing, and feel the weight of the lead snake across his foot. They moved again, like a soft, clinging wave, slithering and undulating towards him. Sluggishly and relentlessly they moved up his immobile form, until they had twined their dank bodies all around him. They clung to him like tenacious pieces of damp wool. The Deacon could see their wicked slit eyes, bright and expressionless, but deadly; he could hear their hissing breaths, and feel their hungry bodies in a horrid caress. Still he did not move a hair, a muscle--he seemed not to breathe. The leader snake was wound around his neck, and was looking, his head raised, right at the Deacon, darting its flat head in and out at the Indian’s face.

On one of these thrusts, when the snake’s head came within an inch of his mouth, the Deacon opened wide his great jaws, and at the moment when the snake thrust its head inquiringly inside, the Deacon clamped shut his huge teeth, and bit the snake’s head off. This so frightened the rest of the snakes that they hurtled themselves from the Deacon’s body and fled. Some of the black reptiles were stunned from their fall, and the Deacon, master of the field, quickly killed them with a huge stone. The dead snakes he skinned, and brought their dried hides home as evidence of the terrible encounter.

... Johnny Blunt’s Courtship

After the sleigh ride last winter and the slippery tricks served by Patty Bean, nobody would suspect Johnny Blunt hankering after women again in a hurry. To hear him rave and take on, and rail out against the whole feminine gender, you would have taken it for granted that he would never look at one again, to all eternity.

Johnny did take an oath and swore if he ever meddled, or had any dealings with women again--in the sparking line, he meant--he might be hung or choked. But swearing off women, and then going into a meeting house chock full of gals, all shining and glistening in their Sunday clothes and clean faces, is like swearing off liquor and going into a grog shop--it’s all smoke.

Johnny held out pretty well for three whole Sundays but on the fourth there were strong symptoms of a change. A chap looking very much like Johnny, was seen on his way to the meeting house, with a new patent hat on, his head hung by the ears upon a shirt-collar, his cravat had a pudding in it, and branched out in front into a double-bow-knot. He carried a straight back, and a stiff neck, as a man ought to when he has his best clothes on, and every time he spit, he sprung his body forward like a jack-in-the-box, in order to shoot clear of the ruffles.

Squire Jones’ pew was next but two to Johnny’s and when Johnny stood up he naturally looked straight at Sally Jones.

Now Sally had a face not to be grinned at in a fog. She was easy to look at and Johnny succumbed.

Squire Jones had got his evening fire on and set himself to read the great Bible, when he heard a rap at his door.

“Walk in. Well John, howder do? Git out Pompey!”

“Pretty well, I thank you Squire; and how do you do?”

“Why, so as to be crawling. Ye ugly beast, will ye hold yer yop! Haul up a chair and sit down, John.”

“How do you do, Mrs. Jones?”

“Oh, middlin’. How’s yer marm?”

“Don’t forget the mat there Mr. Blunt.”

This put Johnny in mind that he had been off soundings several times in the long muddy lane, and that his boots were in a sweet pickle.

It was now old Captain Jones’ turn, the grandfather. Being roused from a doze by the bustle and rattle, he opened both his eyes, at first with wonder and astonishment. At last, he began to halloo so loud that you could hear him a mile, for he took it for granted that everybody is just as exactly deaf as he is.

“Who is it, I say? Who in the world is it?”

Mrs. Jones going close to his ear, screamed out, “It’s Johnny Blunt!”

“Ho, Johnny Blunt! I remember he was one summer at the siege of Boston.”

“No, no, father; bless your heart, that was his grandfather, that’s been dead and gone this twenty years!”

“Ho! But where does he come from?”

“Daown taown.”

“Ho! And what does he foller for a livin’?”

And he did not stop asking questions after this sort, till all the particulars of the Blunt family were published and proclaimed by Mrs. Jones’ screech. Then he sunk back into his doze again.

The dog stretched himself before one andiron, the cat squat down before the other. Silence came on by degrees, like a calm snowstorm, till nothing was heard but a cricket under the hearth, keeping time with a sappy yellow birch forestick. Sally sat up prim as if she were pinned to the chairback, her hands crossed genteelly upon her lap, and her eyes looking straight into the fire.

For Johnny’s part he sat looking very much like a fool. The more he tried to say something, the more his tongue stuck fast. He put his right leg over his left, and said “Hem!” Then he changed, and put the left over the right. It was no use, the silence kept coming thicker and thicker. Drops of sweat began to crawl all over him. He got his eye upon his hat, hanging on a peg by the door, and then he eyed the door. At this moment, the old Captain all at once sung out:

“Johnny Blunt!”

It sounded like a clap of thunder and Johnny started right up on end.

“Johnny Blunt, you’ll never handle sich a drumstick as your father did, if you live to the age of Methuselah. He would toss up drumsticks, and while it was wheelin’ in the air, turn twice around, and then ketch it as it come down, without losin’ a stroke in the tune. What d’ye think of that, ha? But scull your chair round close alongside er me, so you can hear. Now what have you come arter?”

“I arter? Oh, jist takin’ a walk. Pleasant walkin’. I guess I mean, jist to see how ye all do.”

“Ho, that’s another lie! You’ve come a courtin, Johnny Blunt, and you’re a’ter our Sal. Say, now, do you want to marry, or only to court?”

This was a choker. Poor Sally made but one jump, and landed in the middle of the kitchen; and then she skulked in the dark corner, till the old man, after laughing himself breathless, was put to bed.

Then came apples and cider, and the ice being broke, plenty of chat with Mammy Jones about the minister and the “sarmon.”

At last, Mrs. Jones lighted t’other candle, and after charging Sally to look well to the fire, she led the way to bed, and the Squire gathered up his shoes and stockings and followed.

Sally and Johnny were left sitting a good yard apart. For fear of getting tongue-tied again, Johnny set right in with a steady stream of talk. He told her all the particulars about the weather that was past, and also made some pretty ’cute guesses at what it was like to be in the future. Johnny gave a gentle hitch to his chair until finally he planted himself fast by Sally’s side.

“I swow, Sally, you looked so plaguy handsome today, that I wanted to eat you up!”

“Pshaw! Get along with you,” said she.

Johnny’s hand had crept along, somehow, upon its fingers, and began to scrape acquaintance with hers. She sent it home with a desperate jerk. Try it again--no better luck.

“Why, Miss Jones, you’re gettin’ upstroperlous; a little old maidish, I guess.”

“Hands off is fair play, Mr. Blunt.”

Johnny finally managed not only to get hold of Sally’s hand but managed to slip his arm around her waist. But not satisfied with this he began to go poking out his lips for a kiss. But he rued it for Sally fetched him a slap in the face, that made him see stars, and set his ears to ringing like a brass kettle, for a quarter of an hour.

“Ah, Sally, give me a kiss, and ha’ done with it, now?”

“I won’t, so there, nor tech to--”

“I’ll take it whether or no.”

“Do it, if you dare!”

How a bus will crack of a still, frosty night! Mrs. Jones was about halfway between asleep and awake.

“There goes my yeast bottle,” says she to herself, “Burst into twenty hundred pieces; and my bread is all dough again.”

The upshot of the matter is that Johnny fell in love with Sally Jones, head over ears. Every Sunday night, rain or shine, finds him rapping at Squire Jones’ door; and twenty times has he been within a hair’s breadth of popping the question. But now Johnny has made a final resolve. If he lives till next Sunday night, and doesn’t get choked in the trial, Sally Jones will hear thunder.

... The Trusting Maiden

Margery Smith of Chathamport was thrilled and impressed when John Atwood, a respected widower, asked her to be his second wife. Nevertheless, being slightly younger than Widower Atwood, Margery demurred for quite some time before consenting to be his wife. Before she finally said yes, the widower carried on an extensive courtship and it was said that his promise of building a new house for his bride finally convinced her in his favour.

The trusting maiden waited until the knot had been tied before raising the question of the promised new house, only to be met with John’s reply of “Oh, that was jest courtin’ talk, Margy.” But although he shattered love’s young dream in that respect, he did build a small addition on to the old house. Margy spent the rest of her life in that hot ell of a kitchen, and never became mistress of a new house.

... Shipwrecked

On yellowed, tissue-thin paper, bound in leather, and entitled simply “Journal,” was found an entry which matches all the adventure stories of shipwrecked men ever told. Its authenticity can only be judged by the excerpt which follows:

Herein the reader, if there be any, will find the story of my most harrowing experience at sea. It is only by the Grace of God Almighty that I am alive this day to record it thus.

I was twenty years old when I shipped out from Boston on a journey to the East Indies. She was a good ship, my fellow crew members were capable, congenial men, many of whom I had sailed with in the past. Our captain had earned our respect even in the few short days we had been acquainted with him. All hands and officers were convinced that clear sailing and a profitable journey lay before all.

I cannot record here in a vivid enough manner, my impressions during the first three weeks of our sailing. The weather was fair and mild, good winds had prevailed constantly; the life aboard ship was especially pleasant. There was no need for any such feeling as I had found myself indulging in for several days. But it nevertheless prevailed. Perhaps all I can coherently say is that I had a vague unrest, a mind-plaguing thought constantly with me, like the shadow of some dark cloud over my being. This feeling brought with it the still, subconscious impression of disaster and imminent death which I could not, try as I would, shake off. I said nothing to my mates about this feeling. They would perhaps have scoffed at me--if not, my revealing of such an impression would only serve to disturb the uncommonly smooth-running life of our close existence on the lonely seas.

It was on a calm, uneventful afternoon, while all hands were engaged in dilatory activities of repair and small duties, that this feeling reached its highest peak. I felt a strange compulsion to plunge into immediate intense activity, for my fears were mounting by the minute, and, in my youthful mind, I felt vaguely ashamed. I had just left my post by the starboard boat, where I had been engaged in lashing down some canvassing, when I glanced up to see the lookout in the crow’s nest peering intently out to sea. I knew somehow that my fear was about to materialize. And verily, a moment later, the call came from the nest, “Ship on far port horizon ho! She bears the Jolly Roger!”

The action over our entire ship was so instant in contrast to the almost sluggish movements of the minute before that it was as if a painting had suddenly sprung into life, each of its immobile figures leaping into definite motion. We clapped on every sail, but the pirate ship was on us before we could get up enough sail to escape. They sent a shot straight through our rigging.

The happenings of the next hour remain in my mind only as a confused jumble of shouts, clashing swords, and hand to hand combat. The pirate crew were a determined and bloodthirsty lot, not content to merely take over our monetary possessions. They outnumbered us and overpowered us, deliberately destroying and ravaging everything upon which they could lay their hands.

They seemed at last content with what damage they had wrought. The burly pirate captain ordered us to abandon our ship, which he and his men then set afire. Before the fire had reached the hold, what few of our number were left managed to reach some supplies, and with those few essentials, we rowed away. I will never forget the frustrated agony in my soul as I watched our valiant ship, strewn with the bodies of our gallant captain and mates, burn to a charred skeleton, and sink slowly beneath the waters....

There were two lifeboats, lost and tiny as pea pods on a pond, drifting in lone aimlessness on the sea. There were eight of us, including myself, in one boat, and five in the other. We saw the other boat, which we could not reach because of the waves, drift farther and farther away. At last, after it had been hidden from our sight by a monstrous wave, we saw it again, capsized. We tried valiantly to reach those who were floundering in the sea. It was hopeless. One by one they sank beneath the surface, lost forever in the smothering embrace of the sea.

For a day and a night, the fierce winds and huge waves crashed against our small craft, and I cannot explain today why we did not meet the same fate as had our unfortunate comrades in the other boat. Upon the second day, the rolling sea was changed to a flat, millpond surface, and the sun was unbearably hot. We had managed to bring with us only four bottles of water, enough to last but a few days. We did not live, we merely existed. I felt the gnawing, piercing pangs of thirst and hunger congest and constrict my being. Within fourteen days, four of our number had died of thirst, and there were three men besides myself left, starving.

My hands, when I reached up to touch my burned, bearded face, were trembling like a man beset with palsy. My eyes, I knew, were like my comrades’, empty, vacant, hopeless. I was conscious only of a searing ache over my entirety, and my mind was skipping and sliding over disjointed thoughts. We looked at each other, and still did not see; we were conscious only of hunger and heat and thirst. When we spoke, it was as if in a dream. Jackson had managed to hook a small fish, but had not the strength to pull it into the boat. I believe we realized the helplessness of our plight, and began at that moment of realization to get crazed. It was not long before we began to talk of drawing lots to see which of us should be killed to provide food for the others. The thought is horrible and distasteful now, as I sit with my belly full of good warm food, but then the thought meant only one thing--the lessening of the most terrible of pains--Hunger.

We resisted this impulse as long as humanly possible. But at last the time came when we must destroy one of our number, or fall upon each other like crazed wolves. We cast lots, and it fell upon me to be the victim. I prepared to die so that others might live.

I cannot give my reader any searing recollection of faith or impression that come to a man about to die, for I had none. I knew only that my breast was bared, and that one of my mates, with arm raised, was about to plunge his knife into my vitals. I believe that I wanted to die. But the shining knife did not come sweeping down, for at that moment, we heard a gunshot in the distance, and, looking in the direction from which the sound came, saw a white sail on the horizon.

This ship had seen our distress signal--my own shirt which hung from a propped up oar--and had fired a shot to let us know we had been seen. Death, under such horrible circumstances, breathes hotly down on few men.

I lived to see the pirate captain who had been the cause of our agony hanged from his own yardarm in the harbor of Calcutta.

... The Enchanted Mouse

In the early days of Eastham, when the menfolk were concerned with the business of the sea, there lived a Captain Jed Knowles and his young, lovely, and devoted bride. The captain was a fine figure of a man. Mrs. Knowles, for all her beauty and sweet womanliness, was strange indeed, for they said that she had strange supernatural powers.

Mrs. Knowles was devoted to her sailing husband, and, as did many of old time Cape wives, sailed with him on several of his voyages. When love was young, and absence unbearable, Captain Knowles liked to have his wife along with him, but the objections of the crew, who, according to the best sea superstition, believed that a woman aboard was bad luck, soon added to his misgivings about taking her along. Besides, time was not kind to the temper of Mrs. Knowles, and she soon became not a pleasure to have along, but rather a bother. The captain soon decided that such companion voyages must cease.

For several voyages now, Captain Knowles, under great opposition and argument from his good wife, had succeeded in sailing without her.

On one occasion, however, when the captain was to leave for an extensive voyage, his wife once more requested that she be allowed to accompany him. The answer was a firm negative, and much to the captain’s surprise and delight, Mrs. Knowles did not demur, and offered no argument to his decision. And this quick change about fooled the unsuspecting seaman, for he underestimated the power of a woman, especially the strange power of his own wife.

On the day of departure, Mrs. Knowles bade her husband a fond goodbye at the door of their home. The captain went down to the docks, weighed anchor, and was on his way. He did not know, however, that a tiny mouse had followed him aboard close at his heels.

Three days out at sea, the captain got a report from the cook that cheese and other like supplies were being nibbled upon by what was certainly a mouse. The captain, who prided himself on a clean and rodent-free ship, directed him to set poison for the scavenger, and thought no more of the matter.

But the captain did not rest easy. His sleep was disturbed upon many occasions by a rustling, scampering noise in his cabin. When he arose and lit his lamp, he was stunned to see, sitting on the foot of his bunk, a tiny mouse, seemingly unafraid and serene, looking straight at him. This happened night after night, and the captain became quite fond of the little creature. But when upon one occasion, he found that the mouse had eaten up a midnight supper, and gnawed upon his log book, as well as starting to scamper up and down the bed while the captain was asleep, he changed his mind. Taking up his whip, he struck the little mouse with it, killing it, and tossed it out of his porthole.

When the captain returned home, he opened the door to find his wife dead on the floor in a pool of sea water with the mark of a whiplash across her face.

... Ole Bill Hardy

Cal’late I never seed the likes of Ole Bill Hardy. Yep--he was a humdinger alrite. Thar were a heap of shrewd peddlers ’round about in my day, young feller, and b’lieve me, they were the cagiest bunch of fellers y’ ever see. Y’ had ter watch yer step when y’ were bargainin’ withum, yesseree sir, else ye’d find yerself holdin’ the shy end of the stick. But the feller that uster drive the sharpest dickers was Ole Bill Hardy. ’Twa’nt many wimmin, or men folks either, ’round here that hadn’t been spliced at one time or nuther by Ole Bill.

I ’member one time in partic’lar--happened right here in the village, it did. ’Twas quite a spell ago, when you were no more than a twinkle in the divil’s eye. Wal, seems the folks ’round here were gittin’ some purty high flyin’ idees. Th’ town had a hearse--and a durn good one too--that’d bin used for buryin’s for near thuty years. And some uv these folks begun t’ think that mebbee the old mariah ’twa’nt quite toney enuff for ’em, so they sashayed over to town meetin’ and voted to buy a new one.

One day Ole Bill was a’ drivin’ by the old hearse house. Fust S’lectman Bijah Gibbs was loafin’ round the doorway and spied Bill a’comin’. Thought he’d see ifen he could get Ole Bill’s goat. He hollered out, “Say thar, Bill, what’ll y’ give us fer the old hearse?” But Bill didn’t bite. He jest looked Bijah rite in th’ eye and said, “Wal, I dunno. Don’t seem rightly that yer ought ter sell the mariah. Some folks in town ain’t even had a chanct ter ride in it yit. But if ye be of a mind ter sell it, dunnor ifen I might give five dollars fer it.” And sure nuff, Bill bought the old hearse, hitched it onter hind end of his wagon and druv off.

He wuz drivin’ along, proud as yer please, when he passed Miz Tizra Small. Miz Small was alus collectin’ and buyin’ old stuff--antiques, she called ’em. Ole Bill pulled up near her and hollers, “Here’s nuther antique for ye, Miz Small.” Miz Small didn’t think much of the hearse hitched onto the hind end of his wagon. She wuz mad as a wet hen. “Shet up, you old fool,” she says, and sallied off down the street. Bill jest kinda chuckled.

Wal the next thing y’ know, Ole Bill was using the old hearse for a peddler cart, and the women folk were so scandalized they got up a meetin’ to complain about it. Seems they thought it kinda improper that the hearse thetud carried their mothers and fathers to the grave was bein’ used to cart old brooms and tinware. So they raised twenty-five dollars and bought it back from Ole Bill. He didn’t care a mite. He’d made twenty dollars. The old hearse was put back in the hearse house, and stayed there ’til it rotted apart.

’Member nuther time too. Evryone knew Ole Bill would sell anythin’. One day he was drivin’ along and met two young scalawags who thought they’d have a bit o’ fun with him. They up an’ asked him what he’d take for the pants he was wearin’. “Two dollars,” says Bill, ’thout winkin’ an eyelash. And durned if he didn’t peel ’em right off and hand ’em over to the two young fellers, who were kinda taken back, I can tell ye. “Geeyap,” says Bill, and off he druv down the road, all wrapped up in an ole hoss blanket.

... How Sophie
Got A Husband

Sometimes a good deed done on the spur of the moment by a well-meaning philanthropist can do more harm than good, and lead to exceedingly comical and unexpected complications. For instance, take the case of Squire Nickerson of Orleans, who never knew the repercussions that resulted from a spontaneous act of kindliness to two strangers.

First of all, let me introduce the principals in this little drama: Squire Nickerson, well-to-do, prominent, kindly; a school marm from Boston whom we shall call Sophie, spinster, acid tongued, parched, and taken to drinking lemon juice, which probably accounted for her parchment-like appearance; and Seth, prominent, well-liked and friendly as the Squire, but in very different circles. To be blunt, Seth was an amiable old reprobate. Good people, all of them, but when they were thrown together, they were stirred around in the darndest stew you ever heard of.

Squire Nickerson was driving, one night long enough ago so we can spare embarrassment to those involved, back from a business meeting in Hyannis. The road from Hyannis to Orleans on the backside route is, and was then, winding and dark. Squire Nickerson was dozing in the back of his carriage when he was bumped from his seat by its sudden stop. Looking around, he saw that he was halted not at his home, but in the dip bend of the road by Pleasant Bay.

“What’s wrong Silas?” he asked his driver.

“Well, sir,” replied Silas puzzledly, “There seems to be someone lying smack in the middle of the road!”

Upon examination, the someone proved to be a rather battered elderly gentleman of indeterminate age, and this gentleman was sound, dead, absolutely asleep in the middle of the road. With a few suspicious sniffs, the Squire and Silas determined with surprise that the man was in a state not of intoxication, but of unusual fatigue.

“Pick him up, Si, and put him in the carriage.”

“But Sir--”

“In the carriage, Si. We can leave him at the Inn, poor fellow. It’s a damp night, and surely in this state he can do us no harm.”

And so the unsuspecting somnambulist was transported from the road to a fine carriage.

The Squire’s carriage, with its new occupant, had not rolled down the road more than a few paces, when it stopped again.

“I say, Sir. This ’eres a thing!” said Silas. “There ’pears to be a lady, sir, at the side of the road!”

“A lady? At the side of the road? Walking--why, no, she’s asleep, too!” cried the Squire, peering out of the carriage window. “Why this poor old couple! Probably didn’t have the coppers to pay for carriage to their destination, meant to camp out tonight, and were separated in the fog! We’ll bring both these poor souls to the Inn.” And so they did.

Squire Nickerson made suitable arrangements for food and lodging at the Inn. The old gentleman and lady were put to bed in a fine room, and orders left by the Squire to give them a good breakfast. Leaving extra money with the innkeeper for the two sleepers, and brimming over with self-satisfaction of a good deed well done, Squire Nickerson drove to his home, leaving his newly acquired but unconscious friends snoring peacefully side by side, and never dreaming that there was a possibility that he had joined a pair whom convention and law had not made one.

The fact was, the old man and the old woman were perfect strangers to one another, and their being found in similar situations was purely coincidental. Seth, who by now you know was the old gentleman in question, was very accustomed to spending the night wherever he might be, and Sophie, the lady in the picture, traveling by stage from Boston, had become annoyed and frightened at the antics of a rather tipply driver, and under the impression that it was but a few short miles to Orleans, had left the stage and started to walk. When found by the Squire, she had just stopped at the side of the road to rest, and had fallen into a deep and sound sleep.

And so passed the night. The newly united pair snored and wheezed peacefully beside one another until the early sunlight broke into the room to disclose the shocking and amazing situation. Sophie was the first to awake, stirred from sleep by a sound she had never heard before--that of a man snoring.

Imagine the consternation of the proper spinster when she awoke to find herself side by side in a strange bed with a man! Where she was, or how she got there, she didn’t know. It was clear that she was in bed with a man, and that was an event that had never happened to her before, and undoubtedly never would. She let out a scream that would wake the dead. Old Seth mumbled in his sleep, opened one eye, and then sat bolt upright in bed, staring at Sophie, who, cowering at the bed post, with purple face and tight shut eyes, screamed with the continuous wail of a fire siren. First shock turned to dumb amazement. Sophie stopped her caterwauling and turned her head toward Seth, who by now fully awake, sat frozen with apprehension. She sat bolt upright on one side of the bed, he on the other and, with eyes riveted on one another, and there they sat, transfixed with amazement and shock.

“Madame,” began Seth, remembering his manners even in a situation such as this one, “My name is--”

“Make me an honest woman, you wretch!” cried Sophie, interrupting Seth loudly. It had at last struck her that this was some monster of a man who had succeeded in some horrible design upon her honor. “Make me an honest woman, villain that you are, or I will be the death of you!”

Meanwhile, attracted by Sophie’s first screams, the other occupants of the Inn were peeping in at the door where they saw this amazing scene:

An elderly lady, keeping up a continuous stream of gesticulations, vindictive assertions and loud pleas for aid, was busily dressing herself more suitably for a meeting with a stranger. And in bed, cowering and trembling, and attempting to interject the lady’s hollers, an old man valiantly denied any knowledge of what had occurred.

The Innkeeper at last interfered with the authority of his station. On inquiry, it was found that no breach had been made that could not be easily repaired. Even when told the true story, Sophie would not keep still. The old gentleman, Seth, was then asked if he had any objections to taking his fair bedfellow for a helpmate during the remainder of this life. What else could he do? He stammered out his consent as well as he could, the enraged virgin smoothed down her anger and ruffled feathers, since satisfaction had been made to her injured honor. The bargain was made, a gay but strained pre-nuptial breakfast was held at the Inn, and the happy pair were bundled off to church, amidst the laughing shouts of the strange bridal party and uninvited guests. There the parson waited to make good a match too precipitously formed by the charitable Squire who never knew the outcome of his good deed.

... The Orleans Lamplighter

At Rock Harbor lived the old lamplighter of Orleans, Josh Northrup, who took the job when the good ladies of the church--The Sewing Circle and Female Samaritan Society--organized the Orleans Street Lighting Club.

For years Josh was a familiar figure, making his rounds up and down the streets with his ladder, oil, and matches. Josh listened with a philosophical nod to all the complaints of the townsfolk, and was often heard to sigh:

“I’d start on one end of my beat quite a while before dark and folks around there would get all set up by the spectacle of me burning oil before sundown. By the time I reached the other end, it was after dark, and durned if the fools down that end didn’t kick cuz they weren’t getting their money’s worth.”

The lamplighter’s set of rules decreed that the lights were not to be lit on what the calendar called a “moonlight night” whether the moon could be seen or not. Thus the most dangerous time to be strolling along the streets was apt to be on a scheduled moonlight night, for Josh always stuck religiously to the calendar.

... The Giant of
Longnook Valley

Truro is on that part of the narrow land that sweeps inward at the crook of the Cape’s long arm to form Provincetown. Here where the scrub pines grow tough and scrawny, and the Truro Hills roll from backside to bayside tangled with a mesh-work of clinging bayberry, wild blueberry, sturdy beach plum, and coarse hog cranberry, is Long Nook Valley, a deep hewn wedge carved in the rugged face of the lower Cape ... a valley that stretches from the broad waters of the Atlantic on one side of Cape Cod to the deep half-moon waters of Cape Cod Bay on the other. Straight through the Truro Hills goes Long Nook Valley. The ancient sun shines down on a place as old as Time, a place primitive, wild, and strangely beautiful. From the deep floor of the valley, the hills rise to the sky, silhouetted with the bony-fingered scrub pines. In this time-scarred gouge through the hills, legends could well have started, and superstition and folklore have their ancient origin.

The formation of Long Nook Valley is a legend itself and concerns Meloof, a giant legendary figure who lived in the Cape region even before the great glacier came down from the north to chew deep paths in the surface of the earth ... when this earth was filled with mysterious mists and vapours, rising from a land and sea still in a state of flux and yet unformed.

With arms as long and mammoth as the towering elms of Yarmouth, and legs packed with resilient strength of the mast of a great schooner, with a chest as huge and powerful as the ancient Hercules, Meloof was no mortal man. His voice could bring the wild rains down from the skies, his whisper could churn the waters of the sea into white foam. Meloof could stand in the deepest waters of Cape Cod Bay, and by stretching out his arms, touch with one fingertip what is now Provincetown, and with the other, what is now Orleans.

When Meloof got into his fishing craft, the waters all along the Cape shores rose as if in swift high tide. This boat was immense, its sides thick and massive, its length enough to hold even the giant’s tremendously long legs, gargantuan frame, and seven league boots. Out in the wide, free expanse of the Atlantic, in the mist and haze, went Meloof for a day of fishing. Where the hot sun shot through the steams and vapours, Meloof dropped anchor. He lay back in his boat, holding in his great hands his fish pole, made from the top of a 200 foot pine tree. These huge trees grew in great profusion at one time over the Cape, until a tidal wave came and stripped the lower Cape of every living thing, leaving in its wake the dwarfed, grotesquely scrawny pine trees now found there. Meloof lolled about on the waters, dreaming giant dreams, his line slack in his hands.

Meloof was shaken from his lethargy! The fishing line was a lashing whip in his hands! The pole bent and arched into the water like the tautly drawn bow of an Indian. It quivered and trembled. It snapped up and down. It swished to and fro in the air. Meloof’s shoulders were wrenched with the sudden pull at the line, and his boat was nearly capsized by the tremendous snap of the line--suddenly, he knew what lay at the end! The giant, the prize of the deep waters that Meloof had time and again stalked and hunted, but without success.

In one swift movement, Meloof uncoiled his huge frame and sprang to his feet, bracing them hard against the sides of the boat. His nostrils dilated, and his eyes were wild and eager with the anticipation of a battle with an adversary worthy of his own size and strength. Meloof’s muscles bulged like the sides of a water cask. Blue rope veins throbbed in his temples. Sweat poured down his massive back, and the cords in his huge powerful wrists and hands stood out like hawser lines. With a great bellow, Meloof threw back his head and braced himself more firmly against the furious strain of the battle.

As abruptly as it had started, the tight drawn tension of the line slackened. Then, in another instant, the line sprang taut and alive when the creature at the end of Meloof’s line propelled itself out of the water and into the air several hundred feet. A giant codfish, with scales as large and thick as oversize barn shingles, eyes as big and bulging as washtubs, and a gaping slash of mouth as wide as a cave, twisted and turned in the air. A frenzied monster of the dark waters, the giant cod thrashed about in an effort to escape.

Back and forth raced the giant cod. Blue calm waters churned white and angry. Breakers house-high piled up on the shores. The whiplash of the line through the water, the rushing of the boat back and forth, made mountainous waves and whipped the wind to gale force. The cod broke surface, and then sounded the depths again. Then up-up- into the air until Meloof’s line was almost perpendicular to the water. No rearing stallion of the gods and his deity rider had such a battle. The victory would go to the wiliest strategist, and this the cod seemed to sense, for, with its eyes red with fear and anger, its fins quivering with the strain of battle, it leapt into the air once more, and then plunged into the water, sounding bottom. There it pivoted about and headed straight for land. The water foamed white from the speed of the cod’s course, and, behind him, fanned out in an arc as it was cleaved by the bow of Meloof’s boat.

The bullet-like course which sped Meloof and his craft straight towards shore was perhaps more terrible than the actual battle in the ocean. The shore loomed bigger ahead of him, but still Meloof held fast. His tremendous strength was sapped from the strain of the battle, but he still had a giant’s determination to conquer. With a last surge of strength, the cod ceased its twisting, turning, gyrations and plowed through the shallow waters of the shore, up and over the beach, and straight into the Hills of Truro, dragging Meloof and his boat behind him!