Short & Tall Tales Read online

  One Thursday morning Bridget was sitting at her rolltop desk when she heard a frantic banging on the door. There on the doorstep was a young boy, out of breath from running. “Them men!” he gasped. “At the saloon. They be blowin’ up your mine!” Then he dashed away.

  That evening Bridget went to the saloon in her tentlike black dress and pancake hat, carrying a shotgun. She barged in, knocked over a few chairs, and shouted, “Where are those dirty rats?” Customers hid under tables as she swept toward the back room. “Who’s gonna blow up my mine?” she thundered and pointed the gun at Ned Bucksmith. He went out the window headfirst, and the other men piled out the back door. She followed them and unloaded a few warning shots.

  There was no more trouble at the Big B. Now if you’re wondering about the youngster who tipped her off, he was Ned Bucksmith’s boy, and he had a crush on Bridget’s daughter. When they grew up, they were married, and that young boy became my grandfather.

  * * *

  8.

  The True (?) History of Squunk Water

  —According to Haley Babcock, Retired Land Surveyor

  I met him in the bar at the Black Bear Café. I was waiting for a burger and sipping Squunk water with a lemon twist; he was drinking it neat. He leaned over and said, “Good stuff you’re drinkin’, mister. I been drinkin’ it all my life, and I’m ninety.” I protested that he didn’t look a day over seventy, and he showed his driver’s license for proof. “Yup! I were a tiny tot when my grampa discovered Squunk water. . . .” Mr. Babcock wanted to talk, and I put my tape recorder on the bar.

  —JMQ

  * * *

  Well, now, my grampa’s farm was all rocky pasture. Not a bush in sight. Gramma tried plantin’ vines to shade the front porch, but they grew poorly. Then one day Grampa went to livestock market and come home with some little green twigs. He’d given a Canadian feller a dollar for ’em. Fast growin’ and healthy for livestock, he said.

  Well, sir! They growed a foot the first day. In two weeks they covered the dang porch and started over the roof. Grampa cut ’em back, and, by golly, they crawled across the yard to the dog kennel. Afore we knew it, they were all over the outhouse and the fence. All that summer the family had to fight ’em with axes. You couldn’t find the front door.

  Grampa wished he had his dollar back again—and no vines. He hoped the snow and ice would kill ’em over the winter. The dratted vines just went to sleep and woke up livelier than ever. Filled the drainage ditch! Crept across the road! Got Grampa in trouble with the county road people.

  Then one day Grampa heard a bubblin’ and gurglin’ in the ditch! He put down a pipe and pumped up the cleanest, purest water you ever tasted! The county people tested it and said it was full of healthy minerals. Neighbors started comin’ with jugs to fill up—free. Then somebody told Grampa he should bottle it and sell it.

  Funny thing, though. The livestock—they wouldn’t have nothin’ to do with them pesky vines!

  JMQ postscript: I later told the bar keeper what I had decided: Mr. Babcock was a shill to promote the sale of Squunk water. As for his look of eternal youth . . . a driver’s license can be falsified. Still, I’ve been consuming more of the stuff lately.

  * * *

  9.

  Whooping It Up with the Loggers

  From a Speech by Roger MacGillivray

  Roger, a reporter-photographer for the Moose County Something, formerly taught history in the public schools. “I fed the kids salty bits of lumberjack lore to keep them awake,” he says. Lately, Roger has been a consultant to history reenactment groups.

  —JMQ

  * * *

  You can’t blame the lumberjacks for whooping it up on Saturday night. All week they worked long hours, and it was hard labor. Dangerous, too. The cry of “Timber-r-r!” meant a falling tree. A logger, dashing to get out of the way, might trip over a tree root.

  In winter they worked in freezing cold and deep snow as loads of logs were hauled along skid roads on ox-drawn sledges, to wait for the spring thaw. With their boots full of snow and wet socks, they felled trees, loaded the logs, built the skid roads, drove the oxen.

  But they were young! Many were in their late teens. They did it for adventure—and something to boast about in future years.

  They lived on beans and salt pork, turnips, hardtack, and strong tea boiled with molasses. No booze or fist-fighting were allowed in the lumber camps.

  At the end of the day they bunked down in a shanty around a potbellied stove—as many as forty men in one room, with forty pairs of wet socks hanging around the stove. Try that on your olfactory senses! And how about snoring? They say it sounded like the Hallelujah Chorus!

  But they were young.

  On Saturday night they collected their pay and hiked to the nearest lumbertown that had a saloon and a church. Some of the young fellows attended church socials and met nice girls; they were logging to earn enough money to buy a farm. The majority, they say, went to the saloon to blow their week’s pay. They bought drinks, played cards, had fistfights, and bantered with the women who hung around.

  If one of their buddies drank too much and passed out, they carried him outside and nailed his boots to the wooden sidewalk.

  There was always a derelict at the bar who would do anything for a drink: swallow a live minnow or bite the head off a live chipmunk.

  Then there is the story about the drinking pal who died (cause of death is not on record). They took up a collection to buy him a coffin, but he couldn’t be buried until spring; the ground was frozen. Meanwhile he was in the deepfreeze shed behind the furniture store, which was also the undertaking establishment. The friends of the deceased thought it would be only right and proper to bring him back for one last time—to the place where he had spent so many happy hours. A task force was sent to break into the undertaker’s shed. The coffin was propped against the bar. Everyone rose and drank a solemn toast to good old Joe.

  This actually happened. What can you say? It was more than a hundred years ago. And they were young.

  * * *

  10.

  “The Princess” and the Pirates

  A Legend from the Days of Sailing Ships

  The town of Horseradish on the shore of Lockmaster County was once a shipping port as well as an agricultural center. (It was once the horseradish capital of the Midwest.) Now it’s a resort town, but the natives cling to their colorful legends. I was privileged to have a conversation with Dr. Teresa Bunker and capture it on tape.

  —JMQ

  * * *

  Is it true, Dr. Bunker, that horseradish fumes still linger and make an invigorating atmosphere for tourists?”

  “Absolutely, but please call me Tess.”

  “Were your forebears horseradish farmers?”

  “No, they were in shipping. Our town was the chief port for all of Lockmaster County, and my great-grandfather’s adventures as captain of the sailing vessel Princess have made him a legendary figure. You see, all sorts of commodities were being shipped in and out. There was still some gold-mining in the interior, as well as a thriving fur trade, especially beaver. This made cargo ships prey to buccaneers. Did you know there were pirates on the lakes at one time?”

  “Your cousin told me that their victims were often made to walk the plank. He never mentioned the Princess.”

  “Oh, she was famous in her day! On one occasion the Princess sailed out of harbor with a cargo and had just lost sight of land when a craft with a black flag loomed on the horizon. Captain Bunker gave some unusual orders: When the pirate ship hove to, the crew would go below with crowbars and wet rags.

  “A volley was fired across the bow of the Princess, and she dropped sail. Then all hands disappeared into the hold, which was stowed with kegs of grated horseradish mixed with vinegar. The pirates came aboard, stomping and cursing. Where was the blankety-blank crew? It was a blankety-blank ghost ship! They stormed down the hatch. . . . Immediately the lids came off the kegs, and the fumes rose like p
oison gas! The pirates choked and staggered blindly, while the crew—masked with wet rags—threw handfuls of the stuff and swung their crowbars. Overpowered, the pirates were dragged to the deck and heaved overboard.

  “The pirate story is true, but there are many Bunyanesque tales about our town, like the cargo ship powered by horseradish fumes before steam boilers came into use.”

  * * *

  11.

  Wildcattin’ with an Old Hog

  The Recollections of an “Old Hoghead”

  I first met Ozzie Penn in a retirement center for railroadmen—and immediately turned on my tape recorder. He spoke the Old Moose dialect, which still falls pleasantly on the ear. He had the engineer’s symbolic gold watch—a reward for always coming in on time.

  —JMQ

  * * *

  You were a master of your craft, I’m told. What does it take to make a good engineer?”

  “L’arnin’ to start up slow and stop smooth. . . . L’arnin’ to keep yer head when it be hell on the rails. . . . Prayin’ to God fer a good fireman. . . . And abidin’ by rule G.”

  “What’s the fireman’s job on a steam locomotive?”

  “He be the one stokes the firebox an’ keeps the boiler steamin’. Takes a good crew to make a good run and come in on time. Spent my whole life comin’ in on time. Eleventh commandment, it were called. Now, here I be, an’ time don’t mean nothin’.”

  “Why was it so important to be on time?”

  “Made money for the comp’ny. Made wrecks, too . . . takin’ chances, takin’ shortcuts.”

  “Were you in many wrecks?”

  “Yep, an’ on’y jumped once. I were a youngun, dead-headin’ to meet a crew in Flapjack. Highballin’ round a curve, we run into a rockslide. Engineer yelled ‘Jump!’ an’ I jumped. Fireman jumped, too. Engineer were killed.”

  “What do you know about the famous wreck at Wildcat, Ozzie?”

  “That were afore my time, but I heerd plenty o’ tales in the SC and L switchyard. In them days the yard had eighteen tracks and a roundhouse for twenty hogs.

  “The town weren’t called Wildcat in them days. It were South Fork. Trains from up north slowed down to twenty at South Fork afore goin’ down a steep grade to a mighty bad curve and a wood trestle bridge. The rails, they be a hun’erd feet over the water. One day a train come roarin’ through South Fork, full steam, whistle screechin’. It were a wildcat—a runaway train—headed for the gorge. At the bottom—crash!—bang! Then hissin’ steam. Then dead quiet. Then the screamin’ started. Fergit how many killed, but it were the worst ever!”

  “Did they ever find out what caused the wreck?”

  “Musta been the brakes went blooey, but the railroad, they laid it on the engineer—said he were drinkin’. Saved the comp’ny money, it did, to lay it on the engineer. Poor feller! Steam boiler exploded, an’ he were scalded to death.”

  “Horrible!”

  “Yep. It were bad, ’cause he weren’t a drinkin’ man.”

  “So that’s why they changed the name of the town to Wildcat! You’re a very lucky man, Ozzie, to have survived so many dangers! If you had your life to live over again, would you be a hoghead?”

  “Yep.”

  * * *

  12.

  The Scratching Under the Door

  As Recalled by Emma Huggins Wimsey, Age Eighty-nine

  She was a frail little woman in a wheelchair when I interviewed her at a family reunion. A caregiver had brought her from the Senior Care Facility in order to maintain her record: She had not missed a reunion since the age of two. Emma’s eyes still sparkled with loving memories when she talked about her cat, Punkin.

  —JMQ

  * * *

  When I was a little girl I had a cat named Punkin because she was orange. Such a dear kitty! We had a game we played. After my mother put me to bed each night and closed the bedroom door, Punkin would come and scratch under the door as if she was trying to get in. I’d jump out of bed and grab her paw. She’d pull it away and stick another paw under the door. Oh, we had such fun! And we never got caught. We played our secret game all the time I was growing up.

  Punkin and I were secret conspirators for many years. Then she passed away, and I went away to teacher’s college—or normal school, as it used to be called. Schoolteaching in those days was the only respectable work for a respectable young woman to do. Students lived in dormitories, and that’s where I first experienced a strange incident.

  In the middle of the night I woke up and heard a familiar scratching under the door. How could it be? Punkin was dead—and buried under the old oak tree. And then I smelled smoke! I dragged my roommate out of the bed and screamed, “The building’s on fire!” We ran down the hall in our nightclothes, banging on doors and shouting “Fire! Fire!”

  The firewagon came and poured on buckets of water, and the dormitory was saved. And I was honored in assembly for detecting the danger and rousing my fellow students. Imagine that! I didn’t tell them about Punkin. They would have laughed at me.

  I never told anyone about Punkin—not even my husband. We lived in a comfortable farmhouse, where we were raising a family. Then one windy night I woke up again and heard scratching under the door. I woke up my husband, and he jumped out of bed and shouted, “Take the children down in the basement!” It was a tornado, and it took the roof off our house, but the family was safe. Of course, I never said a word about Punkin.

  There was another time, too, when a burglar got in the house in the middle of the night . . . but I’m getting tired . . .

  Postscript: A short note came from a caregiver at the Senior Care Facility. “It is our sad duty to inform you that Emma Huggins Wimsey passed away last night at 4:30 A.M. She had just turned ninety and was alert and cheerful all day. Shortly before the end dear Emma said, “I hear Punkin scratching under the door.”

  * * *

  13.

  The Dimsdale Jinx

  Homer Tibbitt Tells about the Village that Disappeared

  In the mid–eighteenth century, Dimsdale was a thriving community built around the Dimsdale mine: homes and gardens for the miners, plus a chapel and a general store. And Seth Dimsdale took a paternal interest in his workers. A few years later, it was all gone. What happened? Our county historian knows the answer.

  —JMQ

  * * *

  It started about a hundred years ago, when the mines were going full blast, and this was the richest county in the state. This isn’t a tall tale, mind you. It’s true. It isn’t short either.

  There was a miner named Roebuck Magley, a husky man in his late forties who worked in the Dimsdale mine. He had a wife and three sons, and they lived in one of the cottages provided for workers. Not all mine owners exploited their workers, you know. Seth Dimsdale was successful but not greedy. He saw to it that every family had a decent place to live and a plot for a vegetable garden, and he gave them the seed to plant. There was also a company doctor who looked after the families without charge.

  Roebuck worked hard, and the boys went to work in the mines as soon as they finished eighth grade. Betty Magley worked hard, too, feeding her men, scrubbing their clothes, pumping water, tending the garden, and making their shirts. But somehow she always stayed pretty.

  Suddenly Roebuck fell sick and died. He’d been complaining about stomach pains, and one day he came home from work, ate his supper, and dropped dead. Things like that happened in those days, and folks accepted them. Men were asphyxiated in the mines, blown to bits in explosions, or they came home and dropped dead. Nobody sued for negligence.

  Roebuck’s death certificate, signed by Dr. Penfield, said “Heart failure”. Seth Dimsdale paid Mrs. Magley a generous sum from the insurance policy he carried on his workers, and she was grateful. She’d been ailing herself, and the company doctor was at a loss to diagnose her symptoms.

  Well, about a month later her eldest son, Robert, died in the mine shaft of “respiratory failure”, according to the death certifi
cate, and it wasn’t long before the second son, Amos, died under the same circumstances. The miners’ wives flocked around Betty Magley and tried to comfort her, but there was unrest among the men. They grumbled about “bad air”. One Sunday they marched to the mine office, shouting and brandishing pickaxes and shovels. Seth Dimsdale was doing all he could to maintain safe working conditions, considering the technology of the times, so he authorized a private investigation.

  Both Robert and Amos had died, he learned, after eating their lunch pasties underground; Roebuck’s last meal had been a large pasty in his kitchen. The community was alarmed. “Bad meat!” they said. Those tasty meat-and-potato stews wrapped in a thick lard crust were the staple diet of miners and their families.

  Then something curious happened to Alfred, the youngest son. While underground, he shared his pasty with another miner whose lunch had fallen out of his pocket when he was climbing down the ladder. Soon both men were complaining of pains, nausea, and numb hands and feet. The emergency whistle blew, and the two men were hauled up the ladder in the “basket”, as the rescue contraption was called.

  When word reached Seth Dimsdale, he notified the prosecuting attorney in Pickax, and the court issued an order to exhume the bodies of Roebuck, Robert, and Amos. Their internal organs, sent to the toxicologist at the state capital, were found to contain lethal quantities of arsenic, and Mrs. Magley was questioned by the police.