JOTHAM STORIES
Almost daily in our hottest season the east wind brings coolness
and refreshment to the dwellers at the sea beach. Nor does it stop
at the seacoast. Often hills a dozen miles inland feel its cool
caress.
The inland, simmering beneath the sun, with the thermometer in the
eighties or worse, sends heavenward great columns of heated air.
To take the place of this the lower strata draws in from the sea,
filled with the coolness and sparkle of the brine and informed
with that mysterious tonic which seems born of wind-tossed salt
water. At such times the east wind brings the breath of life to
our nostrils and sets the jaded motor centres of our nerves
atingle with new power.
Often we dwellers far inland get more than a cool breath of the
sea. Then for a day or two a northeaster comes pelting over the
seaward range of hills, murking the sky with dun clouds, whining
about the eaves and roaring down the chimney, bringing deluges of
rain to the heat-browned pastures and draping them in obscurity of
gray mists, blotting out the roar of cities and the flurry of
modern life, making us believe for a little that we are children
of the farm once more. On sunny days we do not quite get this.
Even in the east wind we smell the soot as well as the sea, but
the genuine northeaster shuts all that out.
On such days the work of the farm ceases. What hay is out is
cocked and capped, snugged down to wait for fair weather. The
weeds in the garden drink and drink again and forget the hoe which
idles in the tool-house corner, and Jotham putters about the barn,
making pretence of indoor work but really luxuriating in idleness.
The place is redolent of the rich, sweet odor of the new hay and
mingled with, this comes that salt tang of the east wind bearing
scent also of all the hills and pastures over which it has blown.
You may if you will tell what gust touched the elders in white
bloom down by the brook, which one lingered in the swamp a moment
to caress the azaleas, and which stopped only long enough to
snatch a kiss from the sweet fern on the pasture hill-top.
It is pleasant then to sit sheltered from the rain just within the
wide barn doors, to hear the twittering of the swallows as they
comfort their young on the beams, and to listen to the wind and to
Jotham. The old-time New England farm hand--he who wore the
smock frock as did his master while they both worked about the
barn and then, the chores done, stood for half an hour in the
dusk, either side of the barn door like caryatids, drinking in the
pleasures of rest in the twilight has passed, but Jotham remains.
He has told the tales of his grandfather's exploits as a hunter so
many times that he not only believes them himself but is equally
sure that everyone else believes them.
*****
Yet Jotham is in the main taciturn. It is only when the
northeaster soughs in the eaves and brings him leisure that he
drops into narrative. His tales are grotesque fancies, simple
yarns withal, such as fluttered from the homely life of pasture
and woodland in early days of enforced idleness to light on the
threshing floor of some great old barn, or to warm themselves at
the big kitchen fireplace on winter nights when the wind guffawed
down the throat of the big chimney and sprinkled the hearth with
an attic salt of snow for the seasoning of them for the country
palate. I do not doubt Jotham's grandfather told them of his
grandfather and that they belong to neither but are local folk
lore, pasture sagas, changelings born of the queer union of east
wind and blueberry blooms, brought up by hand--farm hand.
"My grandfather," says Jotham, "was a great hunter. On stormy days
like this he would take down his old long, singlebarrelled gun and
go out and bring home all kinds of game, mostly ducks and geese.
In his day the ducks and geese bred around here and you could get
'em any time, but the best shooting was in the early fall on a
northeaster. The heavy waves down on the coast drive the birds out
of their feeding grounds and they come up to the fresh-water ponds
inland to drink and get a change of feed. It is the same way with
the shore birds; yellow-legs and plover and the like; though in my
grandfather's day they didn't care much about such small game.
Bigger birds were plenty enough. Grandfather used to hate
yellow-legs, though, for they are telltales."
[Illustration: Wild Geese in Flight over the Pond]
"Once he went over to Muddy Pond loaded for duck. It is a great
place for ducks. In those days they used to come in there and
sometimes pack it solid full. You could hardly see the pond for
the ducks in it. Grandfather always knew just the right day to go,
and this time when 'he looked down on the pond from the hill he
saw hardly any water at all, nothing much but ducks. It was the
chance of his life. He slipped down the hill among the scrubs to
the cedars and then began to creep carefully up. You know what the
pond is like; perfectly round and only a couple of acres or so,
with a rim of marsh and then another big rim of swamp cedars, then
the hills all about; neither inlet nor outlet; a queer pond anyway
and queer things happen on it, same as they did that day.
Grandfather had got half way through the swamp cedars when he came
to a little opening which he had to cross. Just then there came up
on the east wind a big flock of telltales, 762 of them, whirling
over the hills without a sound till they saw him. Then they began
to yelp."
"Look here, Jotham," I am always careful to say at this point,
"How could he tell that there were just 762 of them? He couldn't
count so many as they flew."
"Didn't have to count 'em as they flew," answers Jotham. "He
counted 'em after he had shot 'em.
"Well, they began to yelp 'Look out for him! Look out for him!'
and the ducks knew what that meant. All that great blanket of
ducks uncovered the pond with one motion. Grandfather said it was
just like a curtain rising straight up, for they were all black
ducks. There is no other duck can go straight up in the air. Other
ducks slide off on a slant against the wind."
How Jotham manages to put the lonely quaver of the yellow-leg's
call into that phrase "Look out for him! Look out for him!" with
its four-note repetition is more than I know, but he always does,
and you can see the big flock swing through the mist as he says
it.
*****
"Grandfather was pretty mad to lose that chance at good game and
he made up his mind that he'd take it out of the telltales, so he
began to whistle 'em back. He was a master hand at any wild call
and pretty soon he lit the flock. There they were, a rim of
yellow-legs all around the pond, a perfect circle except in one
place, where some dogwood bushes made down to the water's edge.
Then granddad had a great idea. He saw his chance to kill every
one of those infernal telltales where they sat. He studied on the
size of that circle for a minute. Then he put the long barrel of
that old gun between two swamp cedar stumps and bent on it
carefully. He kept doing this, looking at the circle, then bending
the gun barrel till he had the gun bent just on the curve of the
circle of yellow-legs sitting round the pond. Then he smiled for
he knew he had 'em. He crept carefully into the dogwood bushes
till he was in just the right place, took a good aim round that
circle, and then he unlatched on 'em.
"Well, he'd figured that circle just right. The shot swung round
it and killed every one of them seven hundred and sixty-two
yellow-legs right where they stood. But tarnation! He'd forgotten
all about himself, he was so interested in the science of it. The
back of his neck was right in that circle and the shot came round
true as could be and hit him right there. The force of it was
pretty well spent going so far and killing so many yellow-legs,
but it dented some bits of dogwood leaves right into his system
and he had dogwood poisoning pretty bad. He used to have it every
year after that, about the time the first northeaster set in."
Anybody who knows Muddy Pond will know that Jotham's story ought
to be true, for the pond is there to prove it, just as he
describes it.
*****
"Of course," says Jotham at this point, "that was skill. Not one
hunter in a hundred would have thought to bend his gun so as to
throw the shot in a circle or would have been able to estimate the
amount of the curve so exactly right. Another thing happened to my
grandfather over at that pond that was part skill and part luck.
He was on his way home from partridge shooting one day just before
Thanksgiving. He found he was out of shot just before he got to
the pond. His flask had leaked and let every bit of the shot out,
and when he came to load up after shooting his last partridge he
stopped with the powder, for there was no shot to put in. Just
then he came in sight of the pond and there were seven geese
swimming round in it; and that the day before Thanksgiving!
"It was a tough time to be without any shot, but grandfather was
equal to the emergency. He simply left his ramrod right in the
gun, put on a cap, and began to worm his way through the cedars to
the shore, where he could get a good, close shot at the geese.
Just as he did this another hunter who was no kind of a shot, came
to the other side of the pond and saw the birds. He was one of the
kind that have the buck fever at the sight of game, and he put up
his gun and shot slam at the flock, too far away to do any
execution; then he let out a yell and began to run down to the
shore as fast as he could go.
"Of course he scared the geese and they lit out, swinging right by
grandfather. Grandfather was a nervy hunter. He held his fire till
he got the heads of those seven geese right in line, and then he
shot and strung 'em all right through the eyes with the ramrod.
Granddad couldn't quite see where he had hit 'em, but when the
smoke cleared away he saw the seven geese still flying and his
ramrod going off with 'em, and he was some considerable astonished
and a good deal put about at losing his ramrod."
*****
"Now here's the queer part of it: Those seven geese were blinded,
of course, with a ramrod strung right through their eyes, but the
life in a wild goose is powerful strong and they kept flying on
just the same, until they went out of sight, right in the
direction of granddad's home. But he got home and had hung up his
gun without seeing anything more of them and he thought his ramrod
was sure gone for good. Then grandmother came to him, kind of
scared, saying she heard spirit rappings on the pantry wall.
Granddad heard the noise, a sort of tapping, but he couldn't see
anything until he looked out the pantry window.
"Yes, there they were seven of 'em, hung on the ramrod and the
ramrod hung on a blind-hook, just outside Granddad's pantry
window, their wings still flapping a little and making that
rapping sound, just as if they were knocking to be let in at the
pantry of the man that had shot 'em. All the relations used to
come to grandfather's for Thanksgiving, and thirty-five of 'em sat
down to dinner that year and every one of 'em had all the roast
goose they could eat."
Frightened or injured game birds do perform strange feats as many
an honest huntsman will tell you. I myself have a neighbor, no
relative of Jotham's, who shot at a partridge in the woods a
quarter of a mile from his house and saw the bird fly away. When
he got home a half-hour later he found his pantry window broken
and a partridge lying dead on the pantry floor, either the one he
had shot at or another just as good and as the proverb has it, one
story is good until another one is told. Jotham usually caps his
list with the following:
"I guess the greatest wild goose hunting grandfather ever did was
the time the big flock got caught in the ice storm. It came in
November, a foot of soft snow and then one of those rainstorms
that freeze as soon as the rain touches anything. Every twig on
the trees that storm was as big as your wrist with ice and there
was an inch or two of clear ice on everything and more coming all
the time, when grandfather heard a big flock of wild geese
honking. They didn't seem to be going over, but their voices hung
in the air right over the big steep hill from the barn up into the
back pasture. After they'd been honking up there for some time
grandfather went up to see what it was all about, but he didn't
take his gun. As he climbed the hill through the wet snow he heard
'em plainer and plainer, and when he got to the top he saw a most
'strodinary sight. There was a good-sized flock, ninety-seven
geese, to be exact, that had got so iced up that they had to
settle on the top of the hill.
"The ice had formed on their feathers as they flew and they were so
weighted down they couldn't fly and they were getting more and more iced
up every minute. Granddad didn't care to go back for his gun for fear
some of the other nimrods in the neighborhood would come on the scene
and bag the game first, but there wasn't any need of a gun. All he had
to do was to drive 'em home. They were terribly iced up, but their legs
were still free and he chased 'em about for some time before he got 'em
started down hill. But once over the edge of the hill the weight of ice
on 'em turned 'em right over and over, and so they rolled on down. It
was a wet snow and as they rolled they took up more and more of it till
by the time they came slap up against the side of the barn every single
goose was sealed up in the middle of a hard, round snowball. They all
stopped there and all that grandfather had to do was to pile them up,
and there they were, in cold storage for the winter. Every time the
family wanted roast goose they went out and split open a snowball. The
folks in granddad's time used often to freeze their fresh meat and keep
it but in the snow all winter, but he was the only one that I ever heard
of that stored wild geese in that way."
There are worse tales and more of them, but I fear that cold type
chills out the subtle aroma of probability with which Jotham
always manages to invest them. One needs to hear them told with
the fragrance of a barn full of new-made hay in the nostrils, the
swish of the northeaster to accompany the voice in his ears, and
with his eye on the distant hillside pastures all hung with
mysterious draperies of mist to make a proper background of quaint
shadows of romance. Then he can really appreciate the folk lore
that goes with us by the familiar title of "Jotham stories."