Voyage of The Paper Canoe [43]
to settle in this country; the mild form of ague which exists in most of its localities being the only objection. While debating this point with a native, he attacked my argument by saying:
"Law sakes! don't folks die of something, any way? If you don't have fever 'n' ague round Massachusetts, you've got an awful lot of things we hain't got here -- a tarnashun sight wuss ones, too; sich as cumsempsun, brown-critters, mental spinageetis, lung-disease, and all sorts of brownkill disorders. Besides, you have such awful cold winters that a farmer has to stay holed four months out of the year, while we folks in the south can work most of the time out of doors. I'll be dog-goned if I hadn't ruther live here in poverty than die up north a-rolling in riches. Now, stranger, as to what you said about sickness, why we aren't no circumstance to you fellows up north. Why, your hull country is chuckfull of pizenous remedies. When I was a-coasting along Yankeedom and went ashore, I found all the rocks along the road were jist kivered with quack-medicine notices, and all the farmers hired out the outsides of their barns to advertise doctor's stuff on."
In no portion of America do the people seem to feel the burden of earning a livelihood more lightly. They get a great deal of social enjoyment out of life at very little cost, and place much less value on the "mighty dollar" than do their brother farmers of the northern section of the states. The interesting inquiry of "Who was his father?" commences at Philadelphia, and its importance intensifies as you travel southward. Old family associations have great weight among all classes.
It was six miles from the mouth of Love Creek across the little sound to Burton's marshy island at the entrance of Indian River Sound. Indian River supplies its bay with much of its fresh water, and the small inlet in the beach of the same name with the salt water of the ocean. Large flocks of geese and ducks were seen upon the quiet waters of the sound. Pursuing my southward course across Indian River Sound three miles, I entered a small creek with a wide mouth, which flows north from the cedar swamp, known as White's Creek, which I ascended until the stream became so narrow that it seemed almost lost in the wilderness, when suddenly an opening in the forest showed me a clearing with the little buildings of a farm scattered around. It was the home of a Methodist exhorter, Mr. Silas J. Betts. I told him how anxious I was to make a quick portage to the nearest southern water, Little Assawaman Bay, not much more than three miles distant by road.
After calmly examining my boat, he said: "It is now half-past eleven o'clock. Wife has dinner about ready. I'll hurry her up a little, and while she is putting it on the table we will get the cart ready." The cart was soon loaded with pine needles as a bed for the canoe. We lashed her into a firm position with cords, and went in to dinner.
In a short time after, we were rattling over a level, wooded country diversified here and there by a little farm. The shallow bay, the east side of which was separated from the ocean by sandy hills, was bounded by marshes. We drove close to the water and put the Maria Theresa once more into her true element. A friendly shake of the hand as I paid the conscientious man his charge of one dollar for his services, with many thanks for his hospitality, for which he would accept nothing -- and the canoe was off, threading the narrow and very shallow channel-way of this grassy-bottomed bay.
The tall tower of Fenwick's Island Light, located on the boundary line of Delaware and Maryland, was now my landmark. It rises out of the low land that forms a barrier against which the sea breaks. The people on the coast pronounce Fenwick "Phoenix." Phoenix Island, they say, was once a part of the mainland, but a woman, wishing to keep her cattle from straying, gave a man a shirt for digging a narrow ditch between Little and Great Assawaman bays. The tide ebbed and flowed so strongly through this new channel-way that it
"Law sakes! don't folks die of something, any way? If you don't have fever 'n' ague round Massachusetts, you've got an awful lot of things we hain't got here -- a tarnashun sight wuss ones, too; sich as cumsempsun, brown-critters, mental spinageetis, lung-disease, and all sorts of brownkill disorders. Besides, you have such awful cold winters that a farmer has to stay holed four months out of the year, while we folks in the south can work most of the time out of doors. I'll be dog-goned if I hadn't ruther live here in poverty than die up north a-rolling in riches. Now, stranger, as to what you said about sickness, why we aren't no circumstance to you fellows up north. Why, your hull country is chuckfull of pizenous remedies. When I was a-coasting along Yankeedom and went ashore, I found all the rocks along the road were jist kivered with quack-medicine notices, and all the farmers hired out the outsides of their barns to advertise doctor's stuff on."
In no portion of America do the people seem to feel the burden of earning a livelihood more lightly. They get a great deal of social enjoyment out of life at very little cost, and place much less value on the "mighty dollar" than do their brother farmers of the northern section of the states. The interesting inquiry of "Who was his father?" commences at Philadelphia, and its importance intensifies as you travel southward. Old family associations have great weight among all classes.
It was six miles from the mouth of Love Creek across the little sound to Burton's marshy island at the entrance of Indian River Sound. Indian River supplies its bay with much of its fresh water, and the small inlet in the beach of the same name with the salt water of the ocean. Large flocks of geese and ducks were seen upon the quiet waters of the sound. Pursuing my southward course across Indian River Sound three miles, I entered a small creek with a wide mouth, which flows north from the cedar swamp, known as White's Creek, which I ascended until the stream became so narrow that it seemed almost lost in the wilderness, when suddenly an opening in the forest showed me a clearing with the little buildings of a farm scattered around. It was the home of a Methodist exhorter, Mr. Silas J. Betts. I told him how anxious I was to make a quick portage to the nearest southern water, Little Assawaman Bay, not much more than three miles distant by road.
After calmly examining my boat, he said: "It is now half-past eleven o'clock. Wife has dinner about ready. I'll hurry her up a little, and while she is putting it on the table we will get the cart ready." The cart was soon loaded with pine needles as a bed for the canoe. We lashed her into a firm position with cords, and went in to dinner.
In a short time after, we were rattling over a level, wooded country diversified here and there by a little farm. The shallow bay, the east side of which was separated from the ocean by sandy hills, was bounded by marshes. We drove close to the water and put the Maria Theresa once more into her true element. A friendly shake of the hand as I paid the conscientious man his charge of one dollar for his services, with many thanks for his hospitality, for which he would accept nothing -- and the canoe was off, threading the narrow and very shallow channel-way of this grassy-bottomed bay.
The tall tower of Fenwick's Island Light, located on the boundary line of Delaware and Maryland, was now my landmark. It rises out of the low land that forms a barrier against which the sea breaks. The people on the coast pronounce Fenwick "Phoenix." Phoenix Island, they say, was once a part of the mainland, but a woman, wishing to keep her cattle from straying, gave a man a shirt for digging a narrow ditch between Little and Great Assawaman bays. The tide ebbed and flowed so strongly through this new channel-way that it