Short & Tall Tales Read online

  At that point, neighbors started whispering: “Could she have poisoned her own family? Where did she get the poison?” Arsenic could be used to kill insects in vegetable gardens, but people were afraid to use it. Then the neighbors remembered the doctor’s visits to treat Mrs. Magley’s mysterious ailment. He visited almost every day.

  When Dr. Penfield was arrested, the mining community was bowled over. He was a handsome man with a splendid mustache, and he cut a fine figure in his custom-made suits and derby hats. He lived in a big house and owned one of the first automobiles. His wife was considered a snob, but Dr. Penfield had a good bedside manner and was much admired.

  It turned out, however, that he was in debt for his house and car, and his visits to treat the pretty Betty Magley were more personal than professional. He was the first defendant placed on trial. Mrs. Magley sat in jail and awaited her turn.

  The miners, convinced of the integrity of the doctor, rose to his support, and it was difficult to seat an unbiased jury. The trial itself lasted longer than any in local history, and when it was over, the county was broke. Twice its annual budget had been spent on the court proceedings.

  The story revealed at the trial was one of greed and passion. Dr. Penfield had supplied the arsenic—for medical purposes, he said, and any overdose was caused by human error. Mrs. Magley had baked the pasties and collected the insurance money, giving half to the doctor. He was found guilty on three counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison.

  Mrs. Magley was never tried for the crime because the county couldn’t afford a second trial. The commissioners said it wasn’t “worth the candle”, as the saying went. It would be better if she just left town, quietly.

  So she disappeared, along with her youngest son, the only one to survive. Seth Dimsdale retired to Ohio and also disappeared. The Dimsdale mine disappeared. The whole town of Dimsdale disappeared. It was called the Dimsdale Jinx.

  * * *

  14.

  The Mystery of Dank Hollow

  A True Story of Pioneer Days, Circa 1850

  The tale is corroborated by the discovery of a diary belonging to the pastor who heard the dying man’s last words. The diary is now in the historical collection of the public library. I am indebted to Silas Dingwall for permission to tape his account.

  —JMQ

  * * *

  One day a young fisherman by the name of Wallace Reekie, who lived in the village here, went to his brother’s funeral in a town twenty miles away. He didn’t have a horse, so he set out on foot at daybreak and told his new bride he’d be home at nightfall. Folks didn’t like to travel that road after dark because there was a dangerous dip in it. Mists rose up and hid the path, you see, and it was easy to make a wrong turn and walk into the bog. They called it Dank Hollow.

  At the funeral, Wallace helped carry his brother’s casket to the burial place in the woods, and on the way he tripped over a tree root. There was an old Scottish superstition: Stumble while carrying a corpse, and you’ll be the next to go into the grave. It must have troubled Wallace, because he drank too much at the wake and was late in leaving for home. His relatives wanted him to stay over, but he was afraid his young wife would worry. He took a nap before leaving, though, and got a late start.

  It was a five-hour trek, and when he didn’t show up by nightfall, like he’d said, his wife sat up all night, praying. It was just turning daylight when she was horrified to see her husband staggering into the dooryard of their little hut. Before he could say a word, he collapsed on the ground. She screamed for help, and a neighbor’s boy ran for the doctor. He came galloping on horseback and did what he could. They also called the pastor of the church. He put his ear to the dying man’s lips and listened to his last babbling words, but for some reason he never told what he heard.

  From then on, folks dreaded the Dank Hollow after dark. It was not only because of the mists and the bog but because of Wallace’s mysterious death. That happened way back, of course. By 1930, when a paved road bypassed the Hollow, the incident was mostly forgotten. And then, in 1970, the pastor’s descendants gave his diary to the Trawnto Historical Society. That’s when the whole story came to light.

  Wallace had reached the Dank Hollow after dark and was feeling his way cautiously along the path, when he was terrified to see a line of shadowy beings coming toward him out of the bog. One of them was his brother, who had just been buried. They beckoned Wallace to join their ghostly procession, and that was the last thing the poor man remembered. How he had found his way home in his delirium was hard to explain.

  The pastor had written in his diary: “Only the prayers of his wife and his great love for her could have guided him.” And then he added a strange thing: “When Wallace collapsed in his dooryard, all his clothes were inside out.”

  * * *

  15.

  Tale of Two Tombstones

  As the Stonecutter Told It to His Grandson

  Thornton Haggis said, “Gramps wouldn’t want this printed because it involves a customer, and he was punctilious about such things. But all of them are long gone, so . . . what the heck! Just change the names.” The following was taped for this volume.

  —JMQ

  * * *

  This was before I was born, but my dad told me after I started getting interested in local history. After World War One, he said, the stonecutting business wasn’t doing too well. The mines had closed; the county had been lumbered over, and there was an economic bust and general exodus. Thousands were going Down Below to work in factories—and to die there, apparently. At any rate, they weren’t coming north to be buried. He had a Model T truck and did some hauling jobs to make ends meet, but it was rough. People were living on oatmeal and turnips, and families were having to double up.

  Then, one day Ben Dibble came in to order a tombstone for his uncle, who’d been living with them. The old fellow had been struck down by lightning and was being buried on the farm. Dad chiseled a stone and delivered it in his truck—all Ben had was an oxcart—and the two of them set up the stone on a fresh grave by the river. Dad was glad to get the business; his family was in need of shoes, and Ben paid cash.

  In a week or so, Ben was back for another stone; his aunt had died of a broken heart. Dad cut the stone and, while delivering it, wondered about burying somebody on a riverbank. What if there was a flood? . . . Anyway, he and Ben set up the stone, and Ben asked to look at the truck; he was thinking of buying one. To Dad’s embarrassment, it wouldn’t start! He tinkered with the motor until the farm bell called Ben in to supper.

  As soon as Ben had left, Dad sneaked back to the graves. He’d only pretended the truck wouldn’t start. Scraping the topsoil away, he found some loose planks, and under the planks he found cases of booze! Old Log Cabin whiskey from Canada.

  Rumrunners were bringing it across the lake and up the river, where it was stashed on Ben’s farm until it could be delivered Down Below. Well! Dad had three options: report ’em, ignore ’em, or join ’em. Prohibition was bringing prosperity back to Moose County. People were flocking north by the trainload, and everybody was smuggling contraband in from Canada or out by train and Model T. Some of today’s old families who claim to be descended from lumber barons or mining tycoons are really descended from bootleggers.

  I can honestly say I’m the son of a stonecutter. Dad was too busy cutting stone to break the law. He said the tombstone business was very good during Prohibition. All I know is that all of us kids had shoes and went away to college.

  * * *

  16.

  The Pork-and-Beans Incident at Boggy Bottom

  As Confirmed by the County Historian

  Homer Tibbitt, who taught in a one-room schoolhouse in the 1930s, knew the hero of this tale and also the junior-grade terrorist.

  —JMQ

  * * *

  Wesley Prescott was a good kid. Studied hard but would rather be playing baseball. Finished the eighth grade but dropped out because the high school was thirteen miles aw
ay, and there was no public transportation. Also, Moose County had been in a depression ever since the mines closed before World War One. People had left in droves, to seek work in cities Down Below. So . . .

  Mr. Prescott, a skilled carpenter and housebuilder, had gone to Detroit to look for any kind of work, leaving his wife and three kids in the small village of Isbey. He wrote to them weekly—no luck. They were living mainly on oatmeal and turnips. The church had a cow, and Wesley would go there with a jug—and stay to muck the barn.

  Then the first money came from Detroit, and Mr. Prescott wrote: “I got a job as a White Wing. You should see me in my white suit.” They never dreamed that he was a street sweeper. Mrs. Prescott made out a shopping list for Wesley to take to the general store in Fishport. It was a three-mile walk in each direction, but he was used to that. Now, at age fifteen, he was the man of the household and took his responsibilities seriously. It was Saturday afternoon, and he even offered to give up his weekly ball game with a scrub team in a vacant lot behind the church, but his mother said he could do the shopping after the game, if he didn’t dawdle. She knew how much baseball meant to him. It was hardball, and he was a champ at hitting, running, fielding, and catching men off bases with a swift, straight throw. People predicted that Wesley would land in the big leagues but suggested that he change his name to something more shoutable in the bleachers.

  So Wesley had his nine innings before hiking to the Fishport General Store with his list: more oatmeal, more turnips, but also potatoes, onions, flour, molasses, barley, and—for a treat—four cans of salt pork and beans with tomato sauce.

  The groceries filled the largest brown paper bag in the store—about a bushel of them. And heavy! Wesley decided to take the shortcut home, although his mother wouldn’t approve. It was only a mile and a half but through back country. A trail ran through a wooded area and down into a gully called Boggy Bottom; there was swampland on either side of the footpath. Shadowed by ancient trees and tangled vines, it was gloomy at any time of day but scary at twilight.

  It was twilight when Wesley reached Boggy Bottom. All was still. And then he heard a moaning sound. Hugging the bagful of food with both arms, he plodded on. Then he heard a human cry, and an apparition rose from a clump of bushes—white except for two hollow eyes. It came closer, making unearthly sounds.

  With great deliberation Wesley set the loaded bag down in the path, braced between his legs, and hurled a can of pork and beans swiftly and accurately at the pair of haunting eyes.

  The apparition crashed into the bushes with a howl of pain, and Wesley picked up his load and trudged home.

  As Mrs. Prescott unloaded the groceries, she said, “I thought I ordered four cans.”

  “That’s all they had,” Wesley said. It was the first time he had ever fibbed to his mother.

  Meanwhile, a youth with a broken nose staggered into Fishport. This was the end of the scary happenings at Boggy Bottom. This small-town terrorist had been spooking nervous travelers and causing them to drop everything and run.

  As for the Prescott family, they eventually got back on their feet, and—yes—Wesley got into the major leagues, but he changed his name.

  * * *

  17.

  At Last, a Hospital in the Wilderness

  Ten Beds, Two Nurses, Many Volunteers!

  The early medical history of Moose County could not have been written without the support of the women’s auxiliary—those dedicated volunteers—sewing, visiting patients, supplying them with books and magazines, bringing fruit and flowers, and, of course, fund-raising.

  —JMQ

  * * *

  Those were days when women wore high lace collars and skirts that swept the sidewalk, not to mention hats of prodigious size. Horse-and-buggy traffic thronged the main street of “bright, busy, bustling Pickax”, as the picture postcards labeled it. This was the local scene when the auxiliary was formed.

  The minutes of the first meeting still exist in a yellowed ledger, written in old-fashioned script with a nib pen. “At a meeting of the Ladies of the City of Pickax, held on June 25, A.D. 1906, the following ladies were present.” There follows a list of forty names, a veritable Who’s Who of Pickax.

  Dues were fixed at a dollar a year, payable quarterly, and officers were elected.

  A Work Committee was immediately organized to make gowns for the patients, and also for the nurses to wear in the operating room.

  A Soliciting Committee got busy, and contributions started to come in from other organizations, whereupon the Purchasing Committee bought such amenities as cushions, hassocks, and a baby basket. The Work Committee covered the cushions and made leggings for the patients to wear on the operating table. They also covered two bricks, according to the minutes of August 6, 1906, the purpose of which was not disclosed.

  The Literature Committee arranged for subscriptions to Collier’s and Leslie’s magazines, and a member donated a copy of a book that had been a best-seller since 1901: Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch.

  The Purchasing Committee then bought an invalid’s chair for $18—and a blanket for it, costing $2.25. The Work Committee kept on sewing: sheets, pillowcases, doilies for the sideboard, napkins, bedspreads, more towels, more bandages.

  Meanwhile, the Ways and Means Committee bubbled with ideas. They considered selling postcard views of the hospital. They thought about publishing a cookbook, or a “receipt book”, as it was called in those days. They staged a social affair called a “10-cent coffee” and cleared $12.70 for the treasury. An ice-cream social brought in $12. A Tag Day and a public supper helped support the hospital’s needs.

  A crying need was a mangle for the laundry room, but it would cost $116—an enormous sum, it seemed. All efforts were then concentrated on the Mangle Fund. A Junior Auxiliary of eighty-six young people was formed to help raise money. On March 13, thirteen hostesses invited guests to thirteen “13-cent coffees” and realized $15.06. The first charity ball in 1908 netted the princely sum of $72.89.

  Meanwhile, committees had been organized in other towns. Their particular responsibility was the hospital pantry, and they worked hard at canning home-grown fruits and vegetables and making jellies for the pantry shelves.

  Not only was the Auxiliary able to purchase that mangle, but they raised money for the first electric appliances: first, an electric iron for the laundry room, then in 1911 the first electric washing machine.

  And the Work Committee kept on sewing!

  * * *

  18.

  Emmaline and the Spiral Staircase

  Both Have Been Gone for a Hundred Years, But . . .

  On every dark and stormy night, they say, Emmaline can be seen walking up the stairs that are no longer there. On one dark and stormy night, I was there!

  —JMQ

  * * *

  On the farm and adjoining the Goodwinter Farmhouse museum there is an old Victorian mansion with a tower built by Captain Fugtree, an American war hero of the nineteenth century. He had a daughter, Emmaline, who was in love with Samson Goodwinter. Her father, not thinking highly of the Goodwinters, forbade her to see Samson. Nevertheless, Emmaline would go into the tower and signal the Goodwinter farmhouse, and the lovers would meet on the banks of the creek.

  Then Samson was thrown from his horse and killed, and two weeks later, their child was born. Considering the mind-set of that period in history it’s possible to imagine that the baby was taken away, and the young mother was shunned by family and friends. One thing is known: Emmaline went to the tower “on a dark and stormy night”, opened a window, and jumped to her death. Her infuriated father responded by ripping out the spiral staircase and replacing it with a conventional flight of stairs.

  Now flash-forward a hundred years or more. Emmaline’s granddaughter, Kristi, is living in the old house and raising goats. And on every dark and stormy night she turns off the lights and watches the shadowy form of her grandmother ascending the spiral stairs—the stairs that were ripped out lon
g ago. “She’s so beautiful,” Kristi murmurs. On one occasion the new museum manager and myself were honored by an invitation to the solemn event, and we agreed with Kristi that Emmaline was beautiful.

  We said good night and left Kristi in a state of radiant transfixation.

  On the way back to the museum, we walked in silence for a while until I said, “It was an interesting evening.”

  “Yeah,” he said, “but the house was kind of damp and chilly.” There was another silence before he blurted, “Tell me honestly, Qwill. Did you see Emmaline?”

  I took a deep breath and said, “No. . . . Did you?”

  “Not really.”

  * * *

  19.

  The Curious Fate of the Jenny Lee

  Commercial Fishermen Think They Know What Happened

  John Bushland, a commercial photographer, was showing off his new cabin cruiser, the View Finder, and we anchored in a cove for a picnic lunch. I said, “For a landlubber, Bushy, you know your way around the lake pretty well.” He not only corrected me, but an enlightening conversation ensued. As usual, I had a tape recorder in my pocket, and I let him do most of the talking.

  —JMQ

  * * *

  You’ve got me wrong, Qwill. I was born and brought up near the lake. I relocated in Lockmaster when I married. Believe me, it’s good to be back here. I have a passion for fishing and boating. You probably never heard this, but my family was in commercial fishing for three generations before my grandfather sold out to the Scottens. He was always telling me about the herring business in the twenties and thirties. They used wooden boats and cotton nets—and no echo sounders or radio phones. You wouldn’t believe what fishermen went through in those days.”