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R. W. D. HOWELLS made a most pathetic confession some years ago in an
article contributed to a well-known journal when he said concerning
vacations, “Whatever choice you make, you are pretty sure to regret it.”
Either Mr. Howells was “out of tune with the universe” or he never tried
Edgartown.
Lest some of our readers should assume some selfish motive as prompting
this bold proclamation of Edgartown as an attractive spot in which to
spend the summer days, let it be said that the writer does not stand in
with any hotel proprietor or real estate dealer in this village by the
sea--or elsewhere.
Just how Martha’s Vineyard came by its name is not certain. One
tradition has it that when, in 1605, Bartholomew Gosnold sailed from
England for “Northern Virginia” and chanced upon No Man’s Land, he gave
it the name of Martha’s Vineyard, and that, for some unknown reason,
this name was transferred to the neighbouring island.
Still another tradition alleges that the first settler on the island
had a loved daughter to whom he gave a tract of land where vines grew
luxuriantly; and so not only her tract, but the whole island came to
be known as Martha’s Vineyard. Neither theory costs anything; they are
probably about equally true--you can take your choice.
At the extreme eastern end of Martha’s Vineyard is the quaint, restful
village of Edgartown. Turn your face towards the sun-rise and you
look across a narrow bay to Chappaquiddick Island, lying like a giant
earthwork to protect the village from the assaults of the ocean.
Wouldn’t you like to ramble about a bit? We’ll start in at this ravine
south of the town, for it was here that the first settler made his home.
Considering that he built his log cabin in 1630, only ten years after
the landing of the Pilgrims, it is not strange that nothing remains
to mark the place of his abode but this grass-grown depression in the
hill-side.
Going south along the main street we come to the old Mayhew house, built
in 1698, and looking as if it proposed to stand for a few centuries
longer. Tradition has it that during the Revolutionary War a cannon-ball
passed through its walls, going in at the rear and coming out at the
front. We stop just long enough to make an unsuccessful hunt for
the hole, and then on to the Collins place. What is there especially
interesting about this fairly modern house? Just this: that it was our
home through many summer days, and we can never think of it or of its
hospitable mistress without a thrill of delight. Out there in the front
yard gleam the white grave-stones which mark the resting places of
members of the family who died a hundred and fifty years ago. From
the wide porch at the back of the house you look out over the bay to
Chappaquiddick, and may even catch glimpses of the sea, looking either
to the north or to the south.
We’ve rested long enough, and will resume our journey up the street to
the Fisher house. Some day we will make a long stop here, for it is a
pre-revolutionary mansion and full of relics of the olden days. Here are
quaint old deeds, some of them in the Indian language, and no end of
curios gathered by members of the family during a prolonged stay in
Spain.
If you’ve leisure, let’s visit the piers. Time was when all was bustle
here, but it is depressingly quiet now. Forty vessels in a single year
sailed from this port in search of whales. An old record bearing date
of November 11, 1652, tells us that “Thos. Daggett and Wm. Weeks are
appointed whale cutters for this year; voted the day above written.” In
those days whales were frequently cast upon the beach by severe storms,
and whale cutters were appointed to insure a fair division of the spoil.
Now the whaling industry is a thing of the past. One of the pathetic
sights of the village is an old whaling vessel tied to the pier and
slowly rotting away. It is many a year since the last of these vessels
sailed from port, but if we are fortunate enough to meet one of
the retired captains and can induce him to tell us something of his
experiences, we shall come quite near enough to the hardships and
privations of those heroic days. Do you see that man going along Water
Street? He sailed a whaling vessel for forty years, and one of his
voyages lasted six years lacking ten days.
You can take your choice between visiting the old burial ground on
“Tower Hill” or going out for a sail. Take the sail? I thought so. Of
course, there are brown old head-stones with quaint epitaphs up there on
the hill, but who that is in possession of his senses would pass up the
chance to go sailing in a Cape Cod catboat on such a day as this?
Here we are on board the “Quickstep,” one of the smartest boats on the
coast, with a captain who knows the sea as a native New Yorker knows
Broadway. While we are dropping down the bay before the light wind, you
may like to hear of the gale when this same boat and captain were blown
out to sea. The storm came up suddenly and the wind blew directly off
shore. The captain was fishing just off the Muskeget shoals and tried
hard to beat in, but in vain. When the gale had blown itself out, wrecks
were strewn all along the coast, and the Edgartown people had given
up the captain for lost; but on the fourth day he came sailing into
harbour. Single-handed and alone he had fought the storm and had won the
fight.
Isn’t this a great day? and isn’t this the ideal way of getting over the
water? Better let the captain take the tiller, for we’re coming to the
bar and the channel is crooked. Now we’re over and you can see Nantucket
off there to the south. Where you see the rough water is Muskeget
shoals, and the captain says that at certain tides the strongest vessel
would be wrenched to pieces by the fierce currents and counter-currents.
Did you ever see sky more blue or feel air more full of tonic? Don’t
worry! We shall curtsy a little, but the water is not rough enough
to make trouble for the most sensitive landsman. Going around
Chappaquiddick, Captain? Good! That is just about a twenty-mile sail.
Have I ever been out here when it was rough? Haven’t I told you about
the trip after mackerel when we had on board a load of theology? No?
Well, we shall have plenty of time for the story before we sight the
light-house.
It was a nasty sort of a morning, but as friends had come over from
Cottage City the night before for the express purpose of having a day
with the mackerel we concluded to try it notwithstanding the weather.
Dr. G. had brought along his boy of twelve, and as we sailed down the
quiet water of the bay that boy was simply bubbling over with happiness.
The lad besought his father to make an arrangement with the captain
whereby he should spend at least a month on this boat the following
summer. The captain seemed willing, and as we crossed the bar the boy
was exulting in the assurance of long days of perfect bliss only one
year ahead. The wind was blowing fresh from the north-west and as soon
as we were out from under the shelter of the land the boat began to
curvet and jump and roll and quick-step just as any respectable boat is
bound to do under such circumstances.
In less time than it takes to write this down the joy of life had
departed for that lad and he was carefully laid away. The lone layman of
the party was a close second, and, losing all interest in mackerel, he
stretched himself out on deck. The Professor followed suit, and Dr. G.,
after a heroic struggle, proceeded to part company not only with one
breakfast, but, seemingly, with a dozen or more. The captain, who was
an interested spectator of the process, murmured to the writer, “Holy
mackerel! What an eater that man must be.” All day we rolled and
pitched, with three of the party groaning to be put on shore. We caught
only a few mackerel, but we had a great deal of exercise.
How do we catch mackerel? As you are asking how we do it, and not how it
is done by the heartless, unimaginative, commercialized Philistines who
chase the schools in steam vessels, I’ll tell you. The night before, the
captain gets the fodder ready. I mean the fodder for the mackerel, not
for the fishermen. It is about as nauseous a mess as one can imagine.
Salted menhaden and the refuse from scallops are ground up together,
forming a mass of about the consistency of thick molasses. There is the
grinder now, just inside the cabin! Looks like a big coffee-mill.
We usually start early in the morning, sometimes before daylight, in
order to take advantage of a favourable tide. When we are out to sea
a sharp lookout is kept for that peculiar ripple on the surface of the
water which denotes the presence of a school of mackerel. When we have
sailed to the spot we “come-to” and drift with the tide, while dipperful
after dipperful of the “chum”--as the sticky and malodorous mess is
called--is thrown out upon the water. The mackerel will throng about
the boat to feed upon this dainty, and then the fishing begins. Empty
barrels on deck, a line--some fifteen feet long--in each hand, with
hooks that are set into pieces of lead forming a “squid,” and the sport
begins. It is usual to bait with a piece of mackerel belly, pure white;
but very often the greedy fish will bite at the shining lead. You do
not stop to unhook the fish, but simply slap them over into the barrel
behind you, and then out with the hook again. Sport? Yes, of a sort.
Gets a little monotonous after a while. The captain fishes for the
Boston market, so we have no twinges of conscience about catching as
many as possible.
Do we catch anything besides mackerel? If you’ll put out that line and
the captain will sail along the edge of one of these “rips” you are very
likely to have a practical answer to your question. Nothing that time;
but the captain is coming about and we’ll see what happens on the other
tack. This is the poetry of sea-fishing. Here we are bowling along
with a full sheet and--hang on to him! No, you have not hooked on to a
railroad train but a blue-fish. Look out! Don’t slacken on your line or
you’ll lose him. Hurts your fingers? Of course it does. You should have
put cots on them. Give him a swing! Keep him clear of the boat! There!
There’s your answer. He’s the bravest, pluckiest, gamiest fish on the
coast. We sometimes spend a half day or so fishing for bottom-fish like
scup, black-fish, or even flounders, for they bite freely and bring a
fair price in the market; but if you’re fishing for sport, there is just
one fish in these waters which fills the bill completely, and that is
the blue-fish. Sometimes you fish for hours without getting a strike,
and then all at once you run into a school of them. When this happens
you have your work cut out for you. I remember a day at Block Island
when the Doctor and I had sailed almost entirely around the island
with our lines trailing unmolested behind the boat. Just as we were
approaching the starting place the captain said, “Look at the bluebills
jumping, over towards shore!” The bluebill is a small fish some four or
five inches long, and favourite food for the blue-fish. We tacked and
sailed across the school, back and forth, again and again, and when the
fray was over we had sixty blue-fish lying in the bottom of the boat
that averaged over five pounds in weight.
There’s the light-house; we’ll soon be in. See that hotel on the hill?
I’ve just time to tell you of something that happened there on a summer
morning a few years ago. I met Dr. -------- on the Providence boat and
he asked where we were stopping and if we had any fishing. When I told
him of the “Quickstep” and Captain Frank and the mackerel, he said,
“I’ll be over Monday morning. I’m tired of Assemblies and Chautauquas
and hotel piazzas.” Monday found him with us, and arrangements were made
to start at five o’clock Tuesday morning. The hour came, but Dr. --------
did not. The captain worried about the tide and the bar, and I
volunteered to see what had become of our tardy friend. Pounding on the
hotel door I finally managed to rout out the night watchman, who readily
went in quest of the Doctor.
Upon his return he reported that the would-be fisherman had been asleep,
but was now dressing and would be down very soon. The minutes passed,
the tide was ebbing, and no Doctor. Finally I suggested to the watchman
that he make another trip to see if he could not accelerate the Doctor’s
motions. Reappearing after a little, the watchman said, “What do you
think? That miserable old cuss had gone sound asleep again.”
“What a fall was there, my countrymen!” The D. D., the LL. D., the
eloquent preacher, the famous lecturer, the renowned defender of the
“faith once delivered to the saints,” the man whose name is a household
word among those affiliated with one of our largest Protestant bodies
catalogued as a “miserable old cuss!”
Here we are, at the pier. Confess now, that for unadulterated pleasure
a sail such as we’ve just had beats motoring, whether on land or water,
out of sight. Independent of the wind in a motor boat? Yes, but not of
the sputtering and chugging and smell. Remember what Tennyson says in
Locksley Hall? I don’t know that I can quote it accurately, but the idea
is that a day in a cat-boat is better than a thousand years in a naphtha
launch.
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```'T is night upon the lake,
```Our bed of boughs is built where--
`````high above-------------
```The pine tree soughs.
```'Tis still,--and yet what woody
`````noises loom
```Against the background of the silent
`````gloom;
```One well might hear the opening of
`````a dower,
```If day were hashed as this.
`````--Richard Watson Gilder,
`````_The Voice of the Pine._
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