Part 3

Tom found the money, just as the Skeleton had said, distributed it among the amazed creditors of Cyrus Goodestone, and passed every night for the next month in the graveyard on the Hill of Storms. There, amidst the gravestones, he studied his accommodating Skeleton, who, as it turned out, was a congenial and humorous fellow. The Skeleton tirelessly moved into any position or pose Tom requested, giving the young anatomist an opportunity no other had ever, or will ever have, that of watching the actual bone movement of a live Skeleton!

By the end of the month, Tom and his Skeleton were warm friends, for they had discussed many things, and had played cribbage by the grave of Cyrus Goodestone, upon many occasions when the night’s posing was done. They parted with regrets, and the Skeleton wished Tom success and happiness in his career.

Tom completely retained in his mind all he had observed in his amazing month’s study, and by that knowledge, laid the foundation of a profound anatomical science by which he was afterwards to become famous.

It is needless to state that the above is the early history of an obscure Cape Cod boy with a dream who became a famous anatomist, and that any and all other accounts are baseless fabrications.

... The Mooncussers of Cape Cod

Remaining only in tradition as some of the most colorful characters in the unending novel of Cape Cod are the swashbuckling domestic pirates known politely as salvagers, romantically as mooncussers, and more authentically as bandits.

Fables and tradition say that a band of these men anciently infested the shores of Cape Cod. But they were not merely plunderers who swept down on unsuspecting victims; their business was a serious, planned and profitable one, flavored with a touch of the wildly romantic stuff of which pirate stories are made. Theirs was a dangerous game, and they played it well.

The whole band of them were mounted on horses when they began their nightly adventures. Up and down the beaches they rode, armed with large lanterns which they placed at strategically dangerous points along the shores. These decoy lanterns led ships astray on treacherous sandbars and shoals. This completed, they plundered them of everything, leaving the ships stripped and gutted.

A group of the mooncussers would divide, two of them tramping the beach in one direction, two in the other, a shingle held up to protect their eyes from the flying sand, and straining to pierce the darkness for a light from a ship in distress or for a glimpse of a hull on the bars off shore. Perhaps the first sign would be a spar flung up by the wild surf, the tattered remnants of a sail, or the still and battered form of a dead sailor. It is easy to see the origin of the word “mooncusser,” for moonlight nights held no profit for these men, and the beauty of moonlight on still ocean was cursed and not admired.

The nights of the mooncussers were the nights of howling winds, thundering surf, and a wild and turbulent sea, for those were the nights when the work of the mooncussers were the most profitable. It was a wild setting for a wild play.

But the advent of the huge lighthouses, put up after much opposition, especially from the men of Eastham, put an end to mooncussing, for the great white eye of the light beacon could pierce the darkness of a night even brighter than the hated full moon.

... How the Fogs Came to the Cape

For many, many moons, the great tribe of the Mattacheesits had lived in peace in their lodges near the clear blue waters of Cummaquid. It was a noble tribe, renowned for its beautiful young maidens, its fearless braves, and especially for its Great War Sachem, the Giant Manshope. But the heartbreaking mourning of the death dirge had many times wailed through the camp, for the Mattacheesits had a foe far more terrible than any fierce enemy tribe.

Twice each year since the beginning of Time--once in the Moon of Bright Nights, and again in the Moon of Falling Leaves--the Great Devil Bird from over the Southern Sea spread wide his smothering wings and swept down on the tribe, capturing in his terrible talons the little papooses, and even some of the youngest braves who had just learned the art of the tomahawk. With a laughing shriek, he bore them away to his secret lair in the Region of the South Wind, where no man had ever ventured. They were never seen again.

On the eve of a triumphant victory over the Nausets, Great War Sachem Manshope returned, leading his braves in the ritual chant-dance of victory. But the battlecry was mingled with the wail of the death dirge, floating up towards the braves from the camp, and echoing sorrowfully through the stillness of the summer evening. The Giant Manshope found his faithful squaw with face gashed and breast torn, the ashes heaped on her head mingling with tears of anguish, for the Great Devil Bird had carried away her first-born, a strong young brave of just sixteen summers. The Devil Bird had carried him off to the Unknown Place before the sun had dropped from the edge of the world.

A fierce cry, filled with all the venom and hate and sorrow of many moons and many deaths, tore from the throat of Manshope. His people trembled with fear and pride as they watched him stand there, his face aglow with the call of battle, his eyes savage with hate and revenge, for they knew that their great leader would leave for the Unknown Place, stalking the Great Devil Bird.

His huge war tomahawk in his hand, Manshope strode away without a word from the camp, the wails of the sorrowing squaws and the war shrieks of the braves echoing in his ears. The war drums beat their relentless rhythm of death for the Devil Bird. With giant strides that took him across the breadth of the Cape, Manshope plunged thigh deep through the deepest streams, pushed trees aside in forests he had no time to skirt, and came at length to the low treacherous swamplands that lay at the edge of the Southern Sea, the last barrier to the Unknown Place. In the misty half-light, Manshope saw, far in the distance, the Great Devil Bird, its human prey in its talons, winging its way swiftly towards its lair.

Many wondered, but none knew what lay in the Unknown Place across the Southern Sea, for no man had dared cross the churning waters to that island lair of the Devil Bird. But the Sachem’s eyes saw the turbulent waters not as danger, but as a bloody challenge. The Giant Manshope called out to the Great Spirit to give him the strength and cunning to follow the Devil Bird to its hiding place and slay him there. Then he strode boldly forth into the deep, treacherous waters.

Guided only by the stars, he came at length to the strange and feared Unknown Place, now Martha’s Vineyard. From the western end of the island, he saw majestically sheer cliffs which rose straight from the sea. At the narrowest end of the land, he saw something which made his heart sink, and his blood run cold in his veins, for there was a giant oak, its twisted exposed roots strewn with the white bleached bones of Indian children captured by the Devil Bird for countless years.

The Giant Manshope crept noiselessly towards the death tree. Under the enveloping shadows of its great branches he looked up, and saw the dim silhouette of the Devil Bird sleeping in the uppermost branches. Its head was beneath its wing, its beak dripped blood, and its belly was distended with gluttonous human feasting.

Manshope glanced at the stone tomahawk in his hand, and saw it gleam in the half-light. He fastened it to his belt, and then swung himself soundlessly up through the branches towards the sleeping Devil Bird. At last he reached his goal at the top of the Death Tree, so close to the Bird that the night breeze ruffled its feathers across Manshope’s cheek.

There he paused, gazing down at the Bird, hate in his eyes, his heart beating wildly with the excitement of near victory and revenge. He raised his weapon high over his head and brought it down with a crushing thud on the neck of the Devil Bird. The Great Evil One fell to earth, never to rise again.

Panting with excitement and triumph, Manshope waited until he was sure the Devil Bird was dead before he left the hated Death Tree and its sorrowful remains. But his triumph had a bitter taste, and his heart was heavy, for although he had vanquished the Great Evil One, his soul cried out in anguish for his beloved son.

Lost in sorrowful meditation, Manshope rested for a while at the northern end of the island before returning to his camp on the mainland. He drew forth his pipe, but the tobacco was dampened by the waters through which he had plunged, and would not burn, so he gathered some poke weed, and, loading his pipe, sat quietly smoking. As he smoked, the rings and swirls from his pipe billowed and rose through the early morning air. It floated across the Southern Sea, over the Cape moors and the lodges of the Indian camp, where his sorrowing squaw awaited his return.

Great was the rejoicing in the Indian lodges when Manshope’s people saw this smoke, for they knew that their Great Sachem would never linger to smoke his pipe while an enemy he was stalking was still alive.

The Great Devil Bird no longer ravaged and killed, and the Indians lived without fear once more. And when the sweet summer air drifted in from the woods, the mist lay low on the swamplands, and the fog bank from the sound curled in over the mainland just as the smoke from Giant Manshope’s pipe did on that morning--Indian mothers drew their children closer to the fire, and while the enveloping mists and fogs crept slowly in, they told them the legend of the Great Devil Bird, saying, “Here comes Old Manshope’s Smoke.”

... The Peddler’s Coffin

The winter nights are long on Cape Cod. When the lonely winds howled ’round the house, and the naked branches tap-tapped against the windowpane, friends and neighbors gathered in the big, warm kitchen of the old Nickerson farmhouse down Rock Harbor Road in Orleans for an evening of story telling and popcorn or apple roasting.

Jonathan Snow, twelve years old, full of imagination and very impressionable, loved these story evenings. Jonathan would curl up in his favorite niche between the fireplace and the window, and there, munching on apples, would listen pop-eyed to the spooky stories. Here he was close enough to the bright, friendly fireplace to feel secure, but also close enough to the dark eye of the window and the wild, windy night to feel a delicious tingle of fear run up and down his spine.

One bleak and howling February night, when the stories had been especially hair-raising, a lull in the conversation and a few yawns proclaimed that it was time for all to depart for their respective homes. Jonathan knew he should leave, but he felt chained to the fireside. He couldn’t stay, was too proud to voice his fears, and yet shuddered at the thought of leaving this warm kitchen for the dark and lonely walk home. But boy’s pride won. Jonathan buttoned up his greatcoat, pulled his wool cap down over his ears, and bidding the Nickersons a brave but reluctant good night, set off for home.

It was not far from the Nickerson to the Snow home, but the night was a wild one; a night of wind and floating mist, when familiar daylight objects assumed fantastic shapes, and the road was filled with shadowy forms. Jonathan held himself in admirable check for about 100 yards. He strolled along whistling casually, but when he glanced back and could see no more the winking lights of the Nickerson house, he was casual no longer, and tore at breakneck speed down the road.

Rounding the turn that meant the halfway mark to home, in the place where the road was flanked on one side by a high stone wall and on the other by a creek which ran parallel to it, Jonathan stood stock still, blood turning to slow ice in his veins. For there, not four yards before him, gleaming in a flickering pool of moonlight that filtered through the scudding clouds, was a coffin.

Three thoughts scampered through the terrified Jonathan’s mind. He could jump the stone wall, splash through the creek, or leap over the coffin and make a dash for home and safety. And jump he did. Now a twelve-year-old Cape Cod boy can jump like a grasshopper, but Jonathan did not jump high enough. Just as he thought he had cleared the coffin, and indeed, his feet were running before they touched the ground, his ankle was clutched by a bony hand, and he was pulled right into the terrible coffin!

Reflex action and young strength bounded together simultaneously. Using all his energy, Jonathan pushed out with his hands and heels and leaped from the coffin like fat from a hot skillet. Scared near out of his wits, Jonathan broke an all-time speed record to home. There he babbled out his story to puzzled parents, who, as hardy Cape Codders, scoffed at the idea of a coffin, but decided to go and investigate anyway. So Jonathan, armed with mother and father, returned to the fateful spot, only to find that the “coffin” was a two-bushel market basket which had rolled from a peddler’s cart, and which, in the dark night, Jonathan’s aroused imagination had turned into an occupied coffin. The resident of the coffin, which Jonathan believed had clutched his ankle, was only the high basket handle which he did not clear in his leap for life.

... The Whale that Went to New York

It all started when a seventy-ton whale washed ashore at Wellfleet. Now, seventy tons of whale is no easy thing to deal with, and the costs of towing the whale back out to sea were more than the town fathers felt the thin town treasury purse could afford. Many suggestions were offered, but two enterprising old sea captains hit on a plan to raise enough money for the project with perhaps money left over to add to the town funds.

Why not charge admission to see the whale? This seemed like an excellent scheme but the Board of Health had something to say about having a dead whale on the docks that squelched the plan before it got into motion. But the old seamen, undaunted, still thought it was a good plan.

Yankee ingenuity reached an all-time high when the captains decided to find out for themselves just how many people would pay fifty cents for the dubious privilege of seeing a seventy-ton dead whale. They decided to tow the monster to New York, paying all towing charges, which were by no means slight, themselves. Their fellow townsmen scoffed at the idea, but the two captains answered that the whole project would undoubtedly reap a goodly financial harvest, and that the town could whistle for a part of the expected profits. But, sad to relate, the get-rich-quick scheme back-fired, for the two down-Capers found that the New York Board of Health was no more eager to have a month’s dead whale reposing in smelly grandeur on their docks than were the Wellfleet officials. And so the two captains, poorer but wiser, and by this time sick and tired of the whole business, dug deep into their pockets once more and made suitable arrangements for the disposal of the whale. When they returned home and were met with a cross-fire of questions, they had not a thing to say.

... The Snake Biting Indian

Tall, straight, and dark browed, Joseph Naughaught was a familiar figure as he made his way throughout the Cape, Bible tucked under his arm. Wherever his wandering feet brought him, he stopped to preach for Christianity, for he was a converted Indian. Pious, rum-hating Joseph was a self-made man both educationally and religiously, and was well known as a religiously, and at times, fanatically, sincere man--so well known for this, in fact, that he soon came to be called “The Deacon.”

When “The Deacon” was not evangelicaling, converting, or leading future converts in prayer, he could be found, in all seasons, strolling leisurely through the woods and along the beaches.

One bright Fall day, when the Deacon was walking through the Truro Hills, he came to his favorite place of meditation, a rocky, cave-like shelter which was close to the ocean bluffs. There he sat for some time, quietly smoking and thinking, when his thoughts were arrested by a strange and ominous hissing.

The Deacon was trapped, for there directly before the mouth of the cave, was a huge circle of deadly black snakes. The Deacon was unarmed, and the snakes he knew, would close in on him faster than light at his slightest movement. He sat frozen with horror.

The minutes dragged by. The Deacon never took his eyes off the snakes, and they in turn were like frozen black ribbons, heads slightly raised, as they stared at him with eyes he could not see. The small gusts of occasional sea breeze were cold against the Deacon’s skin, for he was drenched with the sweat of fear.

The snakes crawled slowly towards him, with one of the black lines a little ahead of the others. When the reptiles reached his feet, they stopped once more. He could hear their soft hissing, and feel the weight of the lead snake across his foot. They moved again, like a soft, clinging wave, slithering and undulating towards him. Sluggishly and relentlessly they moved up his immobile form, until they had twined their dank bodies all around him. They clung to him like tenacious pieces of damp wool. The Deacon could see their wicked slit eyes, bright and expressionless, but deadly; he could hear their hissing breaths, and feel their hungry bodies in a horrid caress. Still he did not move a hair, a muscle--he seemed not to breathe. The leader snake was wound around his neck, and was looking, his head raised, right at the Deacon, darting its flat head in and out at the Indian’s face.

On one of these thrusts, when the snake’s head came within an inch of his mouth, the Deacon opened wide his great jaws, and at the moment when the snake thrust its head inquiringly inside, the Deacon clamped shut his huge teeth, and bit the snake’s head off. This so frightened the rest of the snakes that they hurtled themselves from the Deacon’s body and fled. Some of the black reptiles were stunned from their fall, and the Deacon, master of the field, quickly killed them with a huge stone. The dead snakes he skinned, and brought their dried hides home as evidence of the terrible encounter.

... Johnny Blunt’s Courtship

After the sleigh ride last winter and the slippery tricks served by Patty Bean, nobody would suspect Johnny Blunt hankering after women again in a hurry. To hear him rave and take on, and rail out against the whole feminine gender, you would have taken it for granted that he would never look at one again, to all eternity.

Johnny did take an oath and swore if he ever meddled, or had any dealings with women again--in the sparking line, he meant--he might be hung or choked. But swearing off women, and then going into a meeting house chock full of gals, all shining and glistening in their Sunday clothes and clean faces, is like swearing off liquor and going into a grog shop--it’s all smoke.

Johnny held out pretty well for three whole Sundays but on the fourth there were strong symptoms of a change. A chap looking very much like Johnny, was seen on his way to the meeting house, with a new patent hat on, his head hung by the ears upon a shirt-collar, his cravat had a pudding in it, and branched out in front into a double-bow-knot. He carried a straight back, and a stiff neck, as a man ought to when he has his best clothes on, and every time he spit, he sprung his body forward like a jack-in-the-box, in order to shoot clear of the ruffles.

Squire Jones’ pew was next but two to Johnny’s and when Johnny stood up he naturally looked straight at Sally Jones.

Now Sally had a face not to be grinned at in a fog. She was easy to look at and Johnny succumbed.

Squire Jones had got his evening fire on and set himself to read the great Bible, when he heard a rap at his door.

“Walk in. Well John, howder do? Git out Pompey!”

“Pretty well, I thank you Squire; and how do you do?”

“Why, so as to be crawling. Ye ugly beast, will ye hold yer yop! Haul up a chair and sit down, John.”

“How do you do, Mrs. Jones?”

“Oh, middlin’. How’s yer marm?”

“Don’t forget the mat there Mr. Blunt.”

This put Johnny in mind that he had been off soundings several times in the long muddy lane, and that his boots were in a sweet pickle.

It was now old Captain Jones’ turn, the grandfather. Being roused from a doze by the bustle and rattle, he opened both his eyes, at first with wonder and astonishment. At last, he began to halloo so loud that you could hear him a mile, for he took it for granted that everybody is just as exactly deaf as he is.

“Who is it, I say? Who in the world is it?”

Mrs. Jones going close to his ear, screamed out, “It’s Johnny Blunt!”

“Ho, Johnny Blunt! I remember he was one summer at the siege of Boston.”

“No, no, father; bless your heart, that was his grandfather, that’s been dead and gone this twenty years!”

“Ho! But where does he come from?”

“Daown taown.”

“Ho! And what does he foller for a livin’?”

And he did not stop asking questions after this sort, till all the particulars of the Blunt family were published and proclaimed by Mrs. Jones’ screech. Then he sunk back into his doze again.

The dog stretched himself before one andiron, the cat squat down before the other. Silence came on by degrees, like a calm snowstorm, till nothing was heard but a cricket under the hearth, keeping time with a sappy yellow birch forestick. Sally sat up prim as if she were pinned to the chairback, her hands crossed genteelly upon her lap, and her eyes looking straight into the fire.

For Johnny’s part he sat looking very much like a fool. The more he tried to say something, the more his tongue stuck fast. He put his right leg over his left, and said “Hem!” Then he changed, and put the left over the right. It was no use, the silence kept coming thicker and thicker. Drops of sweat began to crawl all over him. He got his eye upon his hat, hanging on a peg by the door, and then he eyed the door. At this moment, the old Captain all at once sung out:

“Johnny Blunt!”

It sounded like a clap of thunder and Johnny started right up on end.

“Johnny Blunt, you’ll never handle sich a drumstick as your father did, if you live to the age of Methuselah. He would toss up drumsticks, and while it was wheelin’ in the air, turn twice around, and then ketch it as it come down, without losin’ a stroke in the tune. What d’ye think of that, ha? But scull your chair round close alongside er me, so you can hear. Now what have you come arter?”

“I arter? Oh, jist takin’ a walk. Pleasant walkin’. I guess I mean, jist to see how ye all do.”

“Ho, that’s another lie! You’ve come a courtin, Johnny Blunt, and you’re a’ter our Sal. Say, now, do you want to marry, or only to court?”

This was a choker. Poor Sally made but one jump, and landed in the middle of the kitchen; and then she skulked in the dark corner, till the old man, after laughing himself breathless, was put to bed.

Then came apples and cider, and the ice being broke, plenty of chat with Mammy Jones about the minister and the “sarmon.”

At last, Mrs. Jones lighted t’other candle, and after charging Sally to look well to the fire, she led the way to bed, and the Squire gathered up his shoes and stockings and followed.

Sally and Johnny were left sitting a good yard apart. For fear of getting tongue-tied again, Johnny set right in with a steady stream of talk. He told her all the particulars about the weather that was past, and also made some pretty ’cute guesses at what it was like to be in the future. Johnny gave a gentle hitch to his chair until finally he planted himself fast by Sally’s side.

“I swow, Sally, you looked so plaguy handsome today, that I wanted to eat you up!”