Voyage of The Paper Canoe [47]
while the rest seized upon the miscellaneous cargo, and a rush was made for the hotel, leaving me to follow at discretion and alone. The procession burst open the doors of the tavern, and poured through the entrance to a court-yard, where they laid the boat upon a long table under a shed, and thought they had earned "drinks." This was the spontaneous way in which the Chincoteague people welcomed me. "If you don't drink, stranger, up your way, what on airth keeps your buddies and soulds together?" queried a tall oysterman. A lady had kindly presented me with a peck of fine apples that very morning; so, in lieu of "drinks," I distributed the fruit among them. They joked and questioned me, and all were merry save one bilious-looking individual, not dressed, like the others, in an oysterman's garb, but wearing, to use a term of the place, "store clothes."
After the crowd had settled in the bar-room, at cards, &c., this doubting Thomas remained beside the boat, carefully examining her. Soon he was scraping her hull below the gunwale, where the muddy water of the bay had left a thin coat of sediment which was now dry. The man's countenance lighted up as he pulled the bartender aside and said, "Look ahere; I tell you that boat looked as if she was made to carry on a deck of a vessel, and to be a-shoved off into the water at night jest abreast of a town to make fools of folks, and git them to believe that that fellow had a-rowed all the way ahere? Now see, here is dust, dry dust on her hull. She ahain't ben in the water mor'n ten minutes, I sware," It required but a moment's investigation of my Chincoteague audience to discover that the dust was mud from the tide, and the doubter brought down the ridicule of his more discriminating neighbors upon him, and slunk away amid their jeers.
Of all this community of watermen but one could be found that night who had threaded the interior watercourses as far as Cape Charles, and he was the youngest of the lot. Taking out my note-book, I jotted down his amusing directions. "Look out for Cat Creek below Four Mouths," he said; "you'll catch it round there." "Yes," broke in several voices, "Cat Creek's an awful place unless you run through on a full ebb-tide. Oyster boats always has a time a-shoving through Cat Creek," &c.
After the council with my Chincoteague friends had ended, the route to be travelled the next day was in my mental vision "as clear as mud." The inhabitants of this island are not all oystermen, for many find occupation and profit in raising ponies upon the beach of Assateague, where the wild, coarse grass furnishes them a livelihood. These hardy little animals are called "Marsh Tackies," and are found at intervals along the beaches down to the sea-islands of the Carolinas. They hold at Chincoteague an annual fair, to which all the "pony-penners," as they are called, bring their surplus animals to sell. The average price is about ninety dollars for a good beast, though some have sold for two hundred and fifty dollars. All these horses are sold in a semi-wild and unbroken state.
The following morning Mr. J. L. Caulk, ex-collector of the oyster port, and about fifty persons, escorted me to the landing, and sent me away with a hearty "Good luck to ye."
It was three miles and three quarters to the southern end of the island, which has an inlet from the ocean upon each side of that end -- the northern one being Assateague, the southern one Chincoteague Inlet. Fortunately, I crossed the latter in smooth water to Ballast Narrows in the marshes, and soon reached Four Mouths, where I found five mouths of thoroughfares, and became perplexed, for had not the pilots of Chincoteague called this interesting display of mouths "Four Mouths"? I clung to the authority of local knowledge, however, and was soon in a labyrinth of creeks which ended in the marshes near the beach.
Returning over the course, I once more faced the four, or five mouths rather, and taking a new departure by entering the next mouth to the one I had so unsatisfactorily explored, soon
After the crowd had settled in the bar-room, at cards, &c., this doubting Thomas remained beside the boat, carefully examining her. Soon he was scraping her hull below the gunwale, where the muddy water of the bay had left a thin coat of sediment which was now dry. The man's countenance lighted up as he pulled the bartender aside and said, "Look ahere; I tell you that boat looked as if she was made to carry on a deck of a vessel, and to be a-shoved off into the water at night jest abreast of a town to make fools of folks, and git them to believe that that fellow had a-rowed all the way ahere? Now see, here is dust, dry dust on her hull. She ahain't ben in the water mor'n ten minutes, I sware," It required but a moment's investigation of my Chincoteague audience to discover that the dust was mud from the tide, and the doubter brought down the ridicule of his more discriminating neighbors upon him, and slunk away amid their jeers.
Of all this community of watermen but one could be found that night who had threaded the interior watercourses as far as Cape Charles, and he was the youngest of the lot. Taking out my note-book, I jotted down his amusing directions. "Look out for Cat Creek below Four Mouths," he said; "you'll catch it round there." "Yes," broke in several voices, "Cat Creek's an awful place unless you run through on a full ebb-tide. Oyster boats always has a time a-shoving through Cat Creek," &c.
After the council with my Chincoteague friends had ended, the route to be travelled the next day was in my mental vision "as clear as mud." The inhabitants of this island are not all oystermen, for many find occupation and profit in raising ponies upon the beach of Assateague, where the wild, coarse grass furnishes them a livelihood. These hardy little animals are called "Marsh Tackies," and are found at intervals along the beaches down to the sea-islands of the Carolinas. They hold at Chincoteague an annual fair, to which all the "pony-penners," as they are called, bring their surplus animals to sell. The average price is about ninety dollars for a good beast, though some have sold for two hundred and fifty dollars. All these horses are sold in a semi-wild and unbroken state.
The following morning Mr. J. L. Caulk, ex-collector of the oyster port, and about fifty persons, escorted me to the landing, and sent me away with a hearty "Good luck to ye."
It was three miles and three quarters to the southern end of the island, which has an inlet from the ocean upon each side of that end -- the northern one being Assateague, the southern one Chincoteague Inlet. Fortunately, I crossed the latter in smooth water to Ballast Narrows in the marshes, and soon reached Four Mouths, where I found five mouths of thoroughfares, and became perplexed, for had not the pilots of Chincoteague called this interesting display of mouths "Four Mouths"? I clung to the authority of local knowledge, however, and was soon in a labyrinth of creeks which ended in the marshes near the beach.
Returning over the course, I once more faced the four, or five mouths rather, and taking a new departure by entering the next mouth to the one I had so unsatisfactorily explored, soon