THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY’S QUEER STORIES.
The Folk-Lore Society which became a part of the Village Improvement
Society in West Roxbury, used to have Story-Telling Nights, and on
these occasions elderly people were invited to attend and relate old
village stories. The Folk-Lore story is a very interesting department
of Folk-Lore; and of all places in America, the towns that follow
the windings of the Charles River, are rich in quaint old tales. The
Brook Farm-House, now the German Orphan Asylum, sent into the world
a coterie of magic story-tellers. The old houses around the Dedham
Woods all have their legends. West Roxbury and the Newtons are haunted
places.
Among the popular subjects of this antique story-telling, are “The
Old New England Ghost Story,” and “Funny Tales of Old Independence
Days.”
There were several of these stories that were particularly popular.
One of them was the reading of that masterpiece of old wonder-books,
known as “The Devil and Tom Walker,” a warning to usurers,
speculators, and all over-reaching people.
[Illustration: GOVERNMENT BUILDING.]
Stories of “Lord Timothy Dexter” and old New England Ghost Stories
were among the interesting narratives that had entertained the
society. We give two of these,—BLINGO THE BLACKSMITH, OR LORD
TIMOTHY DEXTER’S POET and THE DARBY RING.
[Illustration: THE AGRICULTURAL BUILDING.]
BLINGO, THE BLACKSMITH.
Tommy Topp sat sunning himself in the wide open door of Blingo’s
blacksmith shop, when a cloud of dust appeared in the highway; a
chariot presently broke into view from the dusty cloud, and four
black horses stopped under the golden elms that shaded a rustic
watering-trough near the rural smithy.
This was a strange event. People did not ride in “chariots” in
Massachusetts during the last century, as a rule, and never in a
chariot like this.
[Illustration: MACMONNIES (COLUMBIAN) FOUNTAIN.]
The vehicle was not of the classic Roman pattern, such as swept
under the triumphal arches in the purple days of the emperors; nor,
indeed, a state coach like the disjointed affairs of the days of
good Queen Anne. But it was as lively and picturesque in color as a
band carriage of to-day, and it was ornamented with a very curious
coat-of-arms, the design of which was mysterious, and probably was
intended to be so.
Tommy Topp started up with eyes wide with wonder. Blingo dropped an
iron whiffle-tree that he was making, and ran to the door, shading
his eyes with his sooty hand.
[Illustration: THE PERISTYLE.]
The horses having drank at the watering-trough, the liveried
coachman, or charioteer, drove them toward the door, exclaiming,
“Whoa!” in an imperial tone, as a footman alighted, in a glory of
shining buttons.
The door of the chariot was opened, and another wonder appeared
in the shape of an old man in a cocked hat, cape-cloak, and
knee-buckles, carrying a gold-headed cane. He rose up from under a
kind of canopy, and said in a terrific tone:—
[Illustration: AUDITORIUM. LAKE FRONT. PALMER HOUSE AND STATE STREET.
AUDITORIUM DINING ROOM. CHICAGO HOTELS.]
“_Where’s_ the blacksmith?”
The word “where” rasped the very air.
“Ah, ah—I see,—Lord Dexter,” stammered Blingo. “You do me great
honor. How can I serve you? What can I do for you?”
The old man turned to his coachman, and said, laconically,—
“You talk with him.”
“One of the horses has cast a shoe,” said the coachman.
The blacksmith at once examined the foot of the horse,—a matter in
which Tommy Topp took little interest, as that was a common affair.
The boy’s eyes were riveted on the infirm but pompous old man, as he
hobbled about with the aid of his gold-headed cane.
The strange restlessness of his eyes would have excited the curiosity
of any one, and seemed to fascinate Tommy, whose life had been
uneventful, but who had a very lively imagination.
The old man took a few turns under the trees, through which the
sunlight was sifting that bright, mellow afternoon. Then he turned
suddenly and exclaimed in a tone of command,—
“Plummer, get out.”
Another marvel appeared, a marvel to Tommy, and a spectacle that
would have been equally exciting to almost any one outside of the
sea-town of Newburyport and its neighborhoods.
Out of a richly embroidered or figured robe rose a figure covered by
a cloak that was decorated with stars and fringes. It was a poet,—an
unusual curiosity, for poets were not common in those days. He, too,
had a cocked hat, large silver knee-buckles, and a gold-headed cane.
Tommy had heard of Jonathan Plummer, the former fish-peddler, who
had discovered that he could make rhymes, and had been appointed
laureate by “Lord” Timothy Dexter, whose château, with its remarkable
statues and gilded eagle, looked down from a high street on the
blue harbor of Newburyport. To Tommy, this transformation of a poor
fish-peddler into the poet of the self-created “lord” was one of the
most marvellous events since the days of which he had read in the
“Thousand and One Nights.”
The poems of Jonathan Plummer are still to be found in the quaint
lore of antiquarian societies, in whose safe deposits so much of the
world’s genius has to wait appreciation.
Who was this strange man, thus impatiently waiting for the shoeing of
his horse, who so greatly excited the curiosity of the Yankee boy?
A more picturesque answer cannot be given than that presented in the
words of Jonathan Plummer, the poet, quoted from a long poem which
relates his master’s history:—
“Lord Dexter is a man of fame;
Most celebrated is his name,
More precious far than gold that’s pure
Lord Dexter shines forevermore.”
[Illustration: GOVERNMENT BUILDING.]
It will be seen that the poet sometimes used imperfect rhymes.
“His house is white, and trimmed with green;
For many miles it may be seen.
It shines as bright as any star;
The fame of it has spread afar.
“Lord Dexter, like King Solomon,
Had gold and silver by the ton,
And bells to churches he hath given,
To worship the Great King of Heaven.”
The Arabian kings had their astrologers, and so had other kings in
the Middle Ages. “Lord” Dexter was as famous for his intimacy with
fortune-tellers as for his garden of statues of heroes, among which
his own effigy occupied two pedestals at Newburyport.
[Illustration: THE TRANSPORTATION BUILDING.]
He was on the way to Lynn, when he drove up before Blingo’s door, to
visit “Moll” Pitcher, a woman who was reputed to have the gift of
second sight, and who “told fortunes by tea-cups.”
“Lord” Dexter, as he was called, but really Timothy Dexter, of
Newburyport, was a real and very famous character of the last
century. He was a mildly insane man, who had acquired a large fortune
by trading adventurously at sea. The grotesque fact of his sending
warming-pans to hot climates, and of the ship’s captain selling them
for ladles for molasses and returning with a fortune, was an old-time
wonder-tale, as well as the joke of his writing a book called “A
Pickle for the Knowing Ones,” and putting all the punctuation marks
on the last page, with the direction to the readers to “Pepper the
dish to suit themselves.”
His strange mansion and gardens and statues are still to be seen
pictured in old books, as is his own portrait in costume, with
embroidered vest, cocked hat, and laced trousers. There were many
stories of this eccentric man who so greatly enjoyed the fancy that
he was a lord.
Curious as is this history, well-known to the old New England
families, it is hardly more so than that of “Moll” Pitcher, who
figures in one of Whittier’s poems, and who was equally celebrated as
an odd character in New England a century ago, when trading by sea
was the principal business along the coast.
This strange woman seems to have been sincere in her belief that
she possessed the gift of “second sight,”—an hallucination that she
probably inherited from her grandfather, who thought that he was a
“wizard,” whatever that may have been.
The sailors went to consult her in regard to their voyages, and
crews sometimes refused to depart from port if her predictions were
unfavorable. She had a strong, masculine face, with something hidden
behind it; a rather kindly face withal, but self-conscious and keen.
Apart from her hallucination and its evil influences, she was a good
and self-respecting woman. The simple cottage where she lived was
visited for many years after her death, which occurred in 1813, by
collectors of traditions and folk-lore, and by nearly all strangers
who made a pilgrimage to Lynn.
Like Lord Dexter, this woman seems to have been mildly insane. The
two seemed to be confidential friends, and Dexter used to ride over
to Lynn to consult with her. He was reputed to have gained a part of
his wealth by the aid of her divining tea-cups.
Blingo soon shod the horse. The imaginary “lord” and his plebeian
poet entered the coach. The driver mounted his box, and the footman
his post. There was a crack of the whip, a rush of the startled black
horses, and a great cloud of dust rose again, as the grotesque
vehicle wheeled away under the glimmering autumn leaves, in the
direction of the blue capes of Lynn.
As it passed from the view of the humble smithy, Blingo the
blacksmith and Tommy Topp sat down beside each other in the open
door, and discussed the import of this curious event. The effect of
this harlequinade on the mind of the old blacksmith and the boy was
to make them ill at ease in their simple stations of life.
“This is a strange world,” said Blingo,—“a very strange, strange
world. Look at Timothy Dexter. He got rich by accident, and thinks
he’s a lord. Here I have to work hard all day in order to live, and
pay my honest debts, and then have nothing left for old age. That man
never worked as I work a day in his life. Now he’s going to see that
lying old fortune-teller. It’s all wrong, yet see how he prospers! I
declare I lose faith in everything.”
The sun was sinking over the autumn hills in mingled lustres
of vermilion and gold. The shadows were darkening in the woods
and orchards. Everywhere the crickets were chirping in the
fading grasses, and their lonesome notes only added to the honest
blacksmith’s dissatisfaction. There are times when even a true heart
becomes discouraged.
“Blingo!” said Tommy, “I’m thinkin’ that _we_ might be rich.”
“Are you? I should like to know how?”
“We might get Moll Pitcher to tell our fortunes, as well as Lord
Dexter. I have been told something that I believe is true.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ve been told that there is a pot of gold hidden in the High Rock
of Lynn.”
“Who told you _that_?”
“Grandma Pennypacker.”
There was a thoughtful silence.
“Well, what if there is?” continued Blingo.
“I’ve a plan,” said Tommy, hesitatingly. “I’d like to go and ask Moll
Pitcher if she’ll tell me where the money-pot is hidden. And then if
she tells me we can go and dig it up, and you can have half of the
gold and I will have half. That will be fair. Everybody knows it’s
up there somewheres, but no one knows where. She only asks three
shillings to look into her tea-cup. And then—and then—perhaps we
might ride in a chariot and have a big house.”
There had been a legend for nearly a hundred years in Lynn that
certain pirates landed on the coast, and buried treasures at High
Rock or Dungeon Rock, two well-known places near the village. Three
of these men were captured and taken to England, but a third one,
Thomas Veale, continued to live there for many years, but, it is
supposed, was buried in the rocks by the earthquake of 1658.
[Illustration: THE HORTICULTURAL BUILDING.]
This legend, as is usual with legends, grew with years, and it is
still repeated in Lynn. It filled the popular fancy more than one
hundred years ago, and was especially vivid in Lord Timothy Dexter’s
day.
Visions of riches began to expand in the boy’s mind, and his mental
mood perceptibly affected the honest soul of Blingo.
“Think what we might do if we were only rich!” said the boy, with
eager eyes.
“I don’t know. I’m afraid we shouldn’t feel just honest as we do now,
if we had money that we had not earned ourselves, and that didn’t
belong to us,” said Blingo. “It’s a great thing to feel that one’s
honest.”
“But the money-pot don’t belong to anybody. It’s as much yours and
mine as any one’s. It belongs to the man that finds it.”
“Yes, yes; p’r’aps so; p’r’aps not; and p’r’aps I’d lose my own
respect if I was to let you go to a fortune-teller to find it.
Stands to reason that the Lord don’t reveal His secrets through Moll
Pitcher’s tea-cups; and if He don’t _who_ does? That’s what I’d like
to know—who does? It’s the Evil One himself.”
The boy sat silent. The sounds around the farm-houses were echoed
here and there,—the dog’s bark and the chore-boy’s whistle. Now and
then a light gust of wind, like the passing of a messenger unseen,
shook down the yellow leaves, and left a rustling in the withered
trees.
Afar, a bell was ringing in a steeple of Lynn, and nearer there was a
rumble of cart-wheels laboring under a weight of corn.
“There is a great deal of comfort,” said Blingo, after this pause, as
if talking to himself, “there is a great deal of comfort to be taken
with money if it can be got honestly.”
“But _I’ll_ go to the fortune-teller.”
“That wouldn’t help me inwardly. I’m afeard it wouldn’t be right for
me to allow you to do what I wouldn’t like to do myself, and I never
heard of any good that ever come from consulting tea-grounds. Still—”
and there was another pause—“Still, money would be handy with a wife
and seven children, and gray hairs comin’. Yes, it would.”
The word “still” settled the question with Tommy, and he started
up and walked away without another word. He had almost reached the
decision to pay a visit to the Lynn fortune-teller, after the example
of Lord Dexter. As he hurried home that wish was confirmed, and he
fell asleep in the attic to dream of fortune and fame, chariots and
poets, and a château overlooking the blue capes of the sea.
[Illustration: MACHINERY HALL.]
The next morning Tommy arose, and after breakfast started in the
direction of Lynn. The first pause in his rapid journey he made at
Blingo’s smithy.
“Blingo, I’m goin’.”
“Do tell!” said Blingo, dropping his hammer. “Well, it may be right,
but I don’t feel quite right about it. Still, I would not fly into
the face of good fortune. Here, she’ll charge you three shillings for
lookin’ into the tea-cup, and I’ll pay my part. Here it is.”
Tommy took the money. Then his feet flew along the path by the
side of the turnpike. He did not stop again until he reached the
fortune-teller’s door.
The simple cottage of Moll Pitcher was gay with the last blossoms
of a morning-glory vine. Tommy paused to wonder a moment at the
pile of variegated bloom, when the small front door opened, and the
fortune-teller herself appeared, with an inquiring face.
“The frost has spoiled them,” said she, seeing Tommy looking at the
morning-glories. “They will all die in a few days; it is a pity.
Won’t you come in?”
Tommy entered the solitary cottage, and was shown a chair in a
simple, plain room.
“I’ve come to ask you about something,” he said. “I’m poor. We’re
all poor at home, and—and—I—I wish I had money. I’ve come to see if
you’ll help me to find some.”
“To find some? Mercy, child,—
“If I only knew, if I only knew,
What do you think that I would do?”
She sat down in a patched chair, and rocked to and fro.
“They say that you know everything,—all the secrets of the hidden
treasures, where the money-pots are, and all,” ventured Tommy.
She looked the lad sharply in the face with her keen eyes, then
smiled and said:—
“If I only knew, if I only knew,
What do you think that I would do?”
There was another silence, which Tommy ventured to break.
“Would you be willing to look into the tea-cup for me? I’ve brought
the pay with me.”
“What for?” asked the old woman.
“To tell me where the pirates hid the money-pot,” said Tommy, his
voice trembling.
“Mercy on ye, boy,—
“If I only knew, if I only knew,
What do you think that I would do?”
There was another long silence. Tommy was very nervous; he waited
until it seemed to him he could wait no longer, and then he asked,
faintly, “What _would_ you do, if you only knew?”
She drew her chair near to him. “Listen. What would I do? I’d go and
get it for _myself_. Now you’d better go home, my lad. This is all I
can do for you this morning. Go to work and honestly earn your money.
There, don’t say that Moll Pitcher has not given you good advice, and
I won’t charge you anything for it.”
The disappointed boy dragged his feet back to the smithy over the
highways and byways during the long autumn afternoon, and sank
down at last on the doorsill of the shop, where the vision of Lord
Dexter’s magnificence had appeared to him.
Blingo came and leaned over him.
“Well, what did she tell you?”
“She couldn’t find it,” said Tommy.
“What did she say?”
“She only said if she knew where the money was, she’d get it
_herself_.”
THE “DARBY RING.”[3]
When I was young, it was common to hear boys upon the skating ponds
speak of “cutting the Darby,” by which expression they were supposed
to indicate a swift ring movement upon the ice. The term, I believe,
is still used, although comparatively few people may be acquainted
with its origin. It came into use through a very singular occurrence,
which for a time was the one great local event of a considerable
farming and maritime region stretching along the northeastern shore
of Narragansett Bay.
In the summer of 1798, many respectable persons, whose homes were
in the pleasant towns of Bristol, Warren, and Barrington, R. I.,
together with some few in the neighboring communities of Swansea and
Rehoboth, Mass., were made the victims of a queer delusion.
A short time previous, a man named Darby, or Derby,—the first
being the form generally accepted by tradition,—had come to Warren
from some part of Connecticut, taken up his abode in the town, and
opened a school. As he was a person of pleasing address, he soon
became a decided favorite with the honest sea-captains and farmers,
who constituted the “solid men” of a population at once rural and
commercial.
A keen judge of human nature, he knew how to adapt his speech to
suit the character of the person whose sympathies he wished to
engage; while the fact that he was a schoolmaster made his utterances
oracular to a degree with a people to whom the “Columbiad” of good
Joel Barlow was the only known classic.
He was fond of conversing upon mineralogy; and thence gliding easily
into necromancy and kindred subjects, he would dwell upon the
possibility of unearthing buried treasure through the exercise of
some mysterious art akin to the supernatural.
[3] Adapted from a story by Mr. George Coomer in “Youth’s Companion.”
With abundant citations and authorities at his tongue’s end, he would
call up the traditions of Kidd, Bellamy and other freebooters, and
show how probable it was that much of their ill-gotten gain remained
somewhere hidden about the New England shores.
In the course of a few months he had wormed himself into the
confidence of a number of sober and substantial people,—but he always
chose for his intimate friends those who had property.
The generation of our great-grandfathers must have been much more
credulous than our own, for it is agreed upon all sides that the
crafty adventurer met with no difficulty in obtaining converts to his
pretended golden views. His operations were systematized more and
more, till they extended from Warren to the neighboring towns, where
he readily found those who became eager to sit at the feet of one
possessed of so much mystic learning.
Thus the plans of the schemer progressed to his complete
satisfaction, until the “Darbyites” began to hold regular
night-gatherings with a view to a more complete organization, and for
the perfecting of certain necessary charms. It appears surprising
that in so short a time he should have been able to find so many
victims, all of excellent character and social position. Of course,
the “Nobodies,” as the uninvited were called, were not wanted,—and it
was this class which stood off and hooted at the “Somebodies.”
The impostor was not long in giving his adherents to understand
that nothing could be effected without money,—metal must be made to
attract metal; and, however close-fisted they may have been in the
ordinary affairs of life, the excited old farmers and shipmasters
contributed liberally of their substance to further Darby’s scheme.
Would they not be repaid a thousandfold when the treasures of the
“Adventure” galley, buried with many a charm by Kidd’s own hand,
should be given forth to the light of the moon?
Imagination must have wrought powerfully with them, giving their
plodding, everyday hearts for the time a kind of poetry. No doubt
they had wonderful dreams by night and day, and saw many a tempting
vision:
“Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl;
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels.”
And now came the placing of the famous “Darby Rings,” one of which
was situated near the main road between the villages of Warren and
Bristol, and another at Mount Hope, once the home of the great Indian
sachem, King Philip; while others still were, I believe, established.
The “Darby Ring” was merely a circle of some forty feet in diameter,
about which the treasure-seekers, in single file, would follow their
leader at a dog-trot, reciting some exceedingly silly jargon, and
at times pausing to perform such grotesque and childish acts as
at a more rational moment would have disgusted them. A part of my
childhood was passed on the premises which embraced one of these; and
although nearly forty years had then gone by since the feet of the
Darbyites had paced its magic round, there were still visible some
faint traces of what had been. The earth was a little depressed, and
the outer edge of the circle showed something like a ridge.
It was in the southeast corner of an orchard; and, no doubt the soft,
golden buttercups sprang there in Darby’s time, as they did when we
children played about the spot years and years after.
The excitement was now at its height. Nothing was thought of among
the dancing, prancing treasure-hunters but Kidd, with his black flag
and his kegs of broad doubloons. With wild enthusiasm they recited
the lines of the old doggerel, wherein he recounts his fortune:—
“I had ninety bars of gold,
As I sailed, as I sailed;
I had ninety bars of gold,
As I sailed;
I had ninety bars of gold,
And dollars manifold,
And riches uncontrolled,
As I sailed.”
At each nightly meeting they were required to carry in their hands
sticks of witch-hazel, which were supposed to possess the power of
enabling their holders to detect the presence of buried treasure.
Thus each devotee had his little rod, carefully cut and trimmed in
some deep old swamp, where he had sought it out with a seriousness
and intentness of purpose that one smiles to think upon.
How they must have looked capering about the ring, each with his
stick of witch-hazel!—not boys, but men,—grave, practical old
fellows, some of whom had, perhaps, that very afternoon been hoeing
corn in their own broad fields, and others taking account of cargoes
of molasses and sugar at the village wharves.
That there might be no disposition to waver in the ranks, it was
Darby’s custom to cheer his retainers with encouraging words; and his
smooth and confident tones were as reassuring to them as the “honk”
of the leading gander to a flock of wild geese.
“Only be true to me,” he would say, “and I will get the money,”—a
remark of which they saw the significance a great deal better
afterwards than they did at the time.
[Illustration: MINES AND MINING BUILDING.]
Their case illustrated the homely aphorism that “they who dance must
pay the fiddler.”
They were subjected among other things to a constant expenditure for
a certain wonderful kind of sand, costing sixteen dollars an ounce,
which was indispensable to the success of Darby’s magic, and which he
alone could procure. It was this which was to unlock the secret of
the old-time buccaneer.
Again and again the supply was exhausted, only to be again and again
renewed; until it must have seemed, even to those patient trotters
about the ring, that the spirit who guarded the pirate’s gold could
be nothing short of sand-proof!
In the centre of the circle there was a hole several feet deep, into
which the schoolmaster magician and his followers would successively
pour small quantities of the precious material, during the intervals
of their antics.
A sight more unique than that of these decent, well-meaning
gentlemen, trotting about the enchanted ring, under the shadow of the
apple-trees, it would not be easy to imagine. Some of them were fat
and duck-legged, others tall and lean; but each one kept his pace
with tolerable accuracy to the music of the Darby chant.
The inexpressibly comic feature of the case was the entire
_respectability_ of the actors in this strange scene. They were
householders, owners of broad farms and tall ships. Yet trot, trot,
trot, they went, around and around, like so many mad dogs, in that
old Bristol Neck orchard! They were required, upon going home, to
write some strange characters with onion juice upon bits of paper,
which were to be carefully placed under their pillows as assistants
to divination. The characters were, of course, invisible, but this
did not affect their potency.
A paper called the “Herald of the United States” was at the time
published in Warren, and in its issue of August 25, 1798, we find
a communication written while the Darby affair was in full blast,
describing many of the performances, and expressing great disgust at
the silliness of the delusion. From this it appears that not all our
great-grandsires were trotters or prancers, but that some of them
looked upon the matter very much as we should do to-day.
At last, even the credulous victims themselves began to lose
patience, and whispers of discontent were passed from mouth to mouth.
It was the beginning of one of those revolutions which never go
backwards. It was discovered that the magic sand was obtained from
Connecticut, and two trusty members of the circle were appointed to
visit that State, for the purpose of gathering further information
with regard to the mysterious mineral, which, to eyes in some
measure disenchanted, had already begun to assume a woefully common
appearance.
The result of their mission was a complete exposure of the fraud.
With but little difficulty they obtained an interview with the
very person by whom the sand had been furnished, but who, however,
disclaimed all knowledge of Darby’s scheme. As to the magic article
itself, they discovered it to be the common burden of the seashore
in the neighborhood of New London, although of a more silvery hue
than the sand of the Narragansett shore,—a difference which the
wily impostor had turned to account through the simplicity of his
followers.
And now arose the question as to what should be done with the
recreant magician. Surrounded by his enraged dupes, he was still more
than a match for them in subtlety of tongue.
“I never told you that _you_ would get anything,” he said. “What I
did tell was, that if you would only be true to me, _I_ should get
the money, and so I should have done!”
We have thus far followed and quoted our friend Coomer’s historical
narrative, as it appeared in a popular paper. Mr. Coomer, an excellent
poet and writer of sea-stories, lives on the borders of the Mt. Hope
Lands, near the boundary-line between the towns of Warren and Bristol,
and quite near the place where these strange events occurred. The high
lands near to his home, overlooking the Mt. Hope and Narragansett
Bays, are full of haunting traditions. They are best visited from the
ancient highway between the two towns, now known as the Back Road. The
Rhode Island Soldiers’ Home is on this beautiful elevation, and the
outlook from it commands the most picturesque waters in New England.
The Kickemuit River is particularly beautiful, seen from these flowery
and orchard-shaded highlands on a mid-summer day. One of Massasoit’s
Springs was on this river, and the great legend of the Northmen is
connected with the Mt. Hope Bay. We will give this legend later in
verse. A ride of a few miles, out of Bristol or Warren, would enable
the visitor to Rhode Island to view from these Back Road farms,
or from Mt. Hope, the old Pokonoket country, which has the oldest
traditional history in America. Here it is supposed that the Northmen
landed, and here certainly is the ancient burying-grounds of the
Indian race. Near Massasoit Spring in Warren, R. I., Roger Williams
spent the famous winter of his exile, intent on the problems of soul
freedom, and the separation of church and state. King Philip must have
been a boy then. It is proposed to erect a memorial of Massasoit at
this spring.
[Illustration: UTAH STATE BUILDING.]
A very curious legend is associated with the Darby episode. We do not
know how well it is founded, but we give it here:—
The men whom he had deceived tarred and feathered him. In this
disgraceful garment of woe, looking like a gigantic half-plucked bird,
he ran away, and found shelter for the night in the cellar of one of
the quiet farmsteads.
The next morning the good woman of the house had occasion to go down
into the cellar. Her soap barrel, pork barrels, and probably cider
barrels were there.
A dark place is an old-time New England cellar,—dark and damp, with an
earthy smell. Lights burned low there.
Our good woman probably passed around the foundation walls of the
great chimney, where was a flue for ashes, passed the potato-bins and
turnip covers, and, with peering eyes, looked down on one of the many
platforms for barrels.
Cellars were haunted places. There was an awful story of a woman who
murdered her husband, and hid his body under the ash barrel, that had
taken hold of popular imagination in those revengeful times, and most
people thought of it as they made their uncertain ways around the
cellars. It was all poky and still, grewsome and tomb-like.
Our good woman heard a noise. That was not strange. Cats and rats
dwelt in the cellar, and the latter came out of their hiding-places
when the former were not at home.
She was ill prepared for what followed.
There arose up before her an awful object. Whatever ghost-stories she
may have heard by kitchen fires in the long evenings, she had never
had any account of anything like this.
Its body was like that of Apollyon, as represented in the
never-to-be-forgotten picture in the “Pilgrim’s Progress.” But it wore
the feathers of a goose.
_Erupit! evasit!_ Our good woman ascended the cellar stairs with a
celerity that spoke well for the power of latent nervous force. The
dreadful figure followed her, begging for mercy, and confessing that
he was Darby the Impostor. The poor woman supplied his wants, and
probably provided him with a suit of clothes, when he disappeared from
society forever.
[Illustration: MADISON STREET.]
[Illustration: THE LAKE FRONT.]