OTHER BOOKS
BY
CHARLES CLARK MUNN
UNCLE TERRY. A Story of the Maine Coast. Richly bound in crimson silk
cloth with gold and vignette of heroine. Illustrated by HELENA
HIGGINBOTHAM. Gilt top. 370 pp. Price, $1.50.
See description in back of book.
ROCKHAVEN. The Story of a Scheme. (In preparation. To be published in
the Spring of 1902.)
See announcement in back of book.
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POCKET ISLAND
A Story of Country Life in New England
By
CHARLES CLARK MUNN
Author of "Uncle Terry" and "Rockhaven"
New York International Association of Newspapers and Authors 1901
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Copyright, 1901, by Charles Clark Munn
All Rights Reserved
POCKET ISLAND
NORTH RIVER BINDERY PRINTERS AND BINDERS
NEW YORK CITY, N. Y.
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CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
Pocket Island 11
CHAPTER II.
The Sea Fox 18
CHAPTER III.
Nemesis 24
CHAPTER IV.
The Boy 31
CHAPTER V.
The Boy's First Party 41
CHAPTER VI.
Serious Thoughts 49
CHAPTER VII.
Liddy 58
CHAPTER VIII.
The Husking-Bee 66
CHAPTER IX.
Good Advice 74
CHAPTER X.
History 82
CHAPTER XI
War Clouds 91
CHAPTER XII.
A Day in the Woods 100
CHAPTER XIII.
The Girl I Left Behind Me 107
CHAPTER XIV.
Beside the Camp Fire 117
CHAPTER XV.
Mysteries 125
CHAPTER XVI.
The Grasp of Death 132
CHAPTER XVII.
Those Who Wait 137
CHAPTER XVIII.
A Few Bright Days 146
CHAPTER XIX.
Among the Wounded 156
CHAPTER XX.
Plans for Happiness 164
CHAPTER XXI.
Blue Hill 174
CHAPTER XXII.
The Maine Coast 182
CHAPTER XXIII.
Big Spoon Island 191
CHAPTER XXIV.
Pocket Island 199
CHAPTER XXV.
The Smuggler's Cave 208
CHAPTER XXVI.
The Fate of a Miser 216
CHAPTER XXVII.
Conclusion 224
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POCKET ISLAND.
CHAPTER I.
POCKET ISLAND.
In the year 185- a Polish Jew peddler named Wolf and a roving Micmac
Indian met at a small village on Annapolis Bay, in Nova Scotia, and
there and then formed a partnership.
It was one of those chance meetings between two atoms tossed hither and
thither in the whirligig of life; for the peddler, shrewd, calculating
and unscrupulous, was wandering along the Acadian shores driving hard
bargains in small wares; and the Indian, like his race, fond of a
roaming life, was drifting about the bay in a small sloop he owned,
fishing where he would, hunting when he chose, stopping a week in some
uninhabited cove to set traps, or lounging in a village drinking or
gambling.
The Jew had a little money and, what was of more value, brains and
audacity. He also knew the conditions then prevalent along the Maine
coast, and all the risks, as well as the profit, to be obtained in
smuggling liquor. Rum was cheap in Nova Scotia and dear in Maine. The
Indian with his sloop formed one means to an end; his money and cunning
the other. A verbal compact to join these two forces on the basis of
share and share alike for mutual profit, was entered into, and Captain
Wolf and the Sea Fox, as the sloop was named, with the Indian and his
dog for crew, began their career.
As a preliminary some fifty kegs of assorted liquors, as many empty
mackerel kits, a small stock of oil clothing, sea boots, fishing gear,
tobaccos, etc., were purchased and stowed away on the sloop, and then
she set sail.
There were along the coast of Maine in those days many uninhabited
islands seldom visited. Fishermen avoided them, for the deep sea
furnished safer and more profitable ground; coasters gave them a wide
berth, and there were no others to disturb them. Among these, and lying
midway between Monhegan and Big Spoon Islands, and distant from the Isle
au Haut, the nearest inhabited one, about twenty miles, was a freak of
nature known as "The Pocket," or Pocket Island, as shown on the maps.
This merits a brief description. It was hollow. That is, from a general
view it appeared like an attempt to inclose a small portion of the sea
within high, fir-covered walls. It resembled a horseshoe with the points
drawn close. Neptune beat Jove, however, leaving a narrow fissure
connecting the inclosed water and the outer ocean, and through this the
tides flowed fiercely; but so protected was the inner harbor that never
a ripple disturbed its surface. It was this harbor that gave the island
its name.
Occasionally a shipwreck occurred here. In 1842 the British barque
Lancaster was driven on to this island in a winter night snowstorm, and
all hands perished. Five of the crew were washed ashore alive, only to
freeze among the snow-covered rocks. The vessel went entirely to pieces
in one night and the wreck was not discovered until two years after by a
stray fisherman, who suddenly came upon the bleaching bones and grinning
skulls of those unfortunate sailors. The island was a menace to coasters
and bore an uncanny reputation. It was said to be haunted. During a
night storm a tall man had been seen, by a flash of lightning, standing
on a cliff. Strange sounds like the cries of dying men had been heard.
When the waves were high, a noise like that made by a bellowing bull was
noticed. The ocean and its storms play queer pranks at times, especially
at night. White bursts of foam leaping over black rocks assume ghostly
shape. Dark and grotesque figures appear crawling into or out of
fissures, or hiding behind rocks. Hideous and devilish, snarling and
snapping, sounds issue from caverns. In darkness an uninhabited coast
becomes peopled with demons who sport and scream and leap in hellish
glee.
Such a spot was Pocket Island.
Nature also played another prank here, and as if to furnish a lair for
some sea monster she hollowed a cavern in the island, with an entrance
below tidewater and at the head of this harbor. Inside and above
tide-level it broadened into a small room. As if to still further
isolate the island all about it were countless rocks and ledges bare
only at low tide and, like a serried cordon of black fangs, ready to
bite and destroy any vessel that approached. It is probable that the
Indians who formerly inhabited the Maine coast had explored this island
and discovered the cave. An Indian is always looking for such things. It
is his nature. It may be this wandering and half-civilized remnant of a
nearly extinct tribe whom the Jew had compacted with, knew of this sea
cavern and piloted his sloop into the safe shelter of "the pocket." And
it was a secure shelter. No one came here; no one was likely to. Its
uncanny reputation, added to the almost impassable barricade of rocks
and ledges all about, made it what Captain Wolf needed--a veritable
burrow for a sea fox. Here he brought his cargo of contraband spirits
and stored them in the cave. Here he repacked kegs of rum inside of
empty mackerel kits, storing them aboard the sloop with genuine ones. By
this ruse he almost obliterated the chance of detection. Like a sly fox,
he was always on guard. Even when the sloop was safe at anchor, he
worked only in the cave. When all was ready, he and his swarthy partner
would wait till low tide, then load the dozen or more rum-charged kits
and set sail for the coast. In these ventures Wolf realized what his
race have always wanted--the Jew's one per cent.
In this island cave nature had placed a curiosity, known as a rocking
stone. In was a boulder of many tons' weight near the wall of the room,
and so poised that a push of the hand at one particular point would move
it easily. When so moved a little niche in the rock-wall back of it was
exposed. Wolf had discovered this one day while alone in the cave and
utilized it as a hiding place for his money.
Here he would come alone and, taking out the increasing bags of coin,
empty them on a flat stone and, by the light of a lamp, count their
contents again and again. Those shining coins were his god and all his
religion; and in this damp and dark sea cavern and by the dim light of a
lamp he came to worship.
The Indian could neither read nor write, add nor subtract, and while he
knew the value of coins, he was unable to compute them. Wolf knew this
and, unprincipled as he was, he not only defied all law in smuggling,
but he had from the first defied all justice, and cheated his partner in
the division of profit. As the Indian was never present when either
buying or selling took place, and had no knowledge of arithmetic, this
was an easy matter. Wolf gave him a little money, of course. He needed
him and his vessel; also his help in sailing her. Not only was the
Indian a faithful helper, but he held his tongue as well, which was very
important. When in some Nova Scotia port the money Wolf gave him as his
share was usually spent in drinking and gambling, which suited Wolf, who
only desired to use him as a medium.
An Indian has no sense of economy, no thought of the morrow. To hunt,
fish and eat to-day and let the future provide for itself is enough. If
he works one day, it is that he may spend the next. Among the aborigines
thrift was an unknown quantity, and the scattered remnants of those
tribes existing to-day are the same. As they were hundreds of years ago,
so are they now. They were satisfied with bark wigwams then; a board and
a mud hovel is enough to-day. They cannot comprehend a white man's
ambition to work that he may dress and live well, and all money and all
thought spent in civilizing the Indian has only resulted in degrading
him. He absorbs all the white man's vices and none of his virtues. Not
only that, but the effort to redeem him has warped and twisted him into
a cunning and revengeful creature; all malice and no honor. So true is
this that the fact has crystalized itself into the universal belief that
the only good Indian is a dead one.
Such a one, though not comprehended by Wolf, was his partner. While that
fox-like Jew was reaping rich profit and deluding himself in believing
he was successfully cheating an Indian, he was only sowing the seed that
soon or late was destined to end in murder.