Part 22

In Western Florida they will show roses to you that drop red dew, like blood, and have been doing so these many years, for they sprang out of the graves of women and children who had been cruelly killed by Indians. But there is something queerer still about the Micah Rood--or “Mike”--apples of Franklin, Connecticut, which are sweet, red of skin, snowy of pulp, and have a red spot, like a blood-drop, near the core; hence they are sometimes known as bloody-hearts. Micah Rood was a farmer in Franklin in 1693. Though avaricious he was somewhat lazy, and was more prone to dream of wealth than to work for it. But people whispered that he did some hard and sharp work on the night after the peddler came to town--the slender man with a pack filled with jewelry and knickknacks--because on the morning after that visit the peddler was found, beneath an apple-tree on Rood farm, with his pack rifled and his skull split open.

Suspicion pointed at Rood, and, while nothing was proved against him, he became gloomy, solitary, and morose, keeping his own counsels more faithfully than ever--though he never was disposed to take counsel of other people. If he had expected to profit by the crime he was obviously disappointed, for he became poorer than ever, and his farm yielded less and less. To be sure, he did little work on it. When the apples ripened on the tree that had spread its branches above the peddler's body, the neighbors wagged their heads and whispered the more, for in the centre of each apple was a drop of the peddler's blood: a silent witness and judgment, they said, and the result of a curse that the dying man had invoked against his murderer. Micah Rood died soon after, without saying anything that his fellow-villagers might be waiting to hear, but his tree is still alive and its strange fruit has been grafted on hundreds of orchards.

A DINNER AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

The Nipmucks were populous at Thompson, Connecticut, where they skilfully tilled the fields, and where their earthworks, on Fort Hill, provided them with a refuge in case of invasion. Their chief, Quinatisset, had his lodge on the site of the Congregational church in Thompson. They believed that Chargoggagmanchogagog Pond was paradise--the home of the Great Spirit and departed souls--and that it would always yield fish to them, as the hills did game. They were fond of fish, and would barter deer-meat and corn for it, occasionally, with the Narragansetts.

Now, these last-named Indians were a waterloving people, and to this day their “fishing fire”--a column of pale flame--rises out of Quinebaug Lake once in seven years, as those say who have watched beside its waters through the night. Knowing their fondness for blue-fish and clams, the Narragansetts asked the Nipmucks to dine with them on one occasion, and this courtesy was eagerly accepted, the up-country people distinguishing themselves by valiant trencher deeds; but, alas, that it should be so! they disgraced themselves when, soon after, they invited the Narragansetts to a feast of venison at Killingly, and quarrelled with their guests over the dressing of the food. This rumpus grew into a battle in which all but two of the invites were slain. Their hosts buried them decently, but grass would never grow above their graves.

This treachery the Great Spirit avenged soon after, when the Nipmucks had assembled for a powwow, with accessory enjoyments, in the grassy vale where Mashapaug Lake now reflects the charming landscape, and where, until lately, the remains of a forest could be seen below the surface. In the height of the revel the god struck away the foundations of the hills, and as the earth sank, bearing the offending men and women, waters rushed in and filled the chasm, so that every person was drowned, save one good old woman beneath whose feet the ground held firm. Loon Island, where she stood, remains in sight to-day.

THE NEW HAVEN STORM SHIP

In 1647 the New Haven colonists, who even at that early day exhibited the enterprise that has been a distinguishing feature of the Yankee, sent a ship to Ireland to try to develop a commerce, their trading posts on the Delaware having been broken up by the Swedes. When their agent, Captain Lamberton, sailed--in January--the harbor was so beset with ice that a track had to be cut through the floes to open water, five miles distant. She had, moreover, to be dragged out stern foremost--an ill omen, the sailors thought--and as she swung before the wind a passing drift of fog concealed her, for a moment, from the gaze of those on shore, who, from this, foretold things of evil. Though large and new, the ship was so “walty”--inclined to roll--that the captain set off with misgiving, and as she moved away the crew heard this solemn and disheartening invocation from a clergyman on the wharf:--“Lord, if it be thy pleasure to bury these, our friends, in the bottom of the sea, take them; they are thine: save them.”

Winter passed; so did spring; still the ship came not; but one afternoon in June, just as a rain had passed, some children cried, “There's a brave ship!” for, flying up the harbor, with all sail set and flaunting colors, was a vessel “the very mould of our ship,” the clergyman said.

Strange to tell, she was going flat against the wind; no sailors were on her deck; she did not toss with the fling of the waves; there was no ripple at her bow. As she came close to land a single figure appeared on the quarter, pointing seaward with a cutlass; then suddenly her main-top fell, her masts toppled from their holdings, the dismantled hulk careened and went down. A cloud dropped from heaven and brooded for a time above the place where it had vanished, and when it lifted the surface of the sea was empty and still. The good folk of New Haven believed that the fate of the absent ship had been revealed, at last, for she never came back and Captain Lamberton was never heard from.

THE WINDAM FROGS

On a cloudy night in July, 1758, the people of Windham, Connecticut, were awakened by screams and shrill voices. Some sprang up and looked to the priming of their muskets, for they were sure that the Indians were coming; others vowed that the voices were those of witches or devils, flying overhead; a few ran into the streets with knives and fire-arms, while others fastened their windows and prayerfully shrank under the bedclothes. A notorious reprobate was heard blubbering for a Bible, and a lawyer offered half of all the money that he had made dishonestly to any charity if his neighbors would guarantee to preserve his life until morning.

All night the greatest alarm prevailed. At early dawn an armed party climbed the hill to the eastward, and seeing no sign of Indians, or other invaders, returned to give comfort to their friends. A contest for office was waging at that period between two lawyers, Colonel Dyer and Mr. Elderkin, and sundry of the people vowed that they had heard a challenging yell of “Colonel Dyer! Colonel Dyer!” answered by a guttural defiance of “Elderkin, too! Elderkin, too!” Next day the reason of it all came out: A pond having been emptied by drought, the frogs that had lived there emigrated by common consent to a ditch nearer the town, and on arriving there had apparently fought for its possession, for many lay dead on the bank. The night was still and the voices of the contestants sounded clearly into the village, the piping of the smaller being construed into “Colonel Dyer,” and the grumble of the bull-frogs into “Elderkin, too.” The “frog scare” was a subject of pleasantry directed against Windham for years afterward.

THE LAMB OF SACRIFICE

The Revolution was beginning, homes were empty, farms were deserted, industries were checked, and the levies of a foreign army had consumed the stores of the people. A messenger rode into the Connecticut Valley with tidings of the distress that was in the coast towns, and begged the farmer folk to spare some of their cattle and the millers some of their flour for the relief of Boston. On reaching Windham he was received with good will by Parson White, who summoned his flock by peal of bell, and from the steps of his church urged the needs of his brethren with such eloquence that by nightfall the messenger had in his charge a flock of sheep, a herd of cattle, and a load of grain, with which he was to set off in the morning. The parson's daughter, a shy maid of nine or ten, went to her father, with her pet lamb, and said to him, “I must give this, too, for there are little children who are crying for bread and meat.”

“No, no,” answered the pastor, patting her head and smiling upon her. “They do not ask help from babes. Run to bed and you shall play with your lamb to-morrow.”

But in the red of the morning, as he drove his herd through the village street, the messenger turned at the hail of a childish voice, and looking over a stone wall he saw the little one with her snow-white lamb beside her.

“Wait,” she cried, “for my lamb must go to the hungry children of Boston. It is so small, please to carry it for some of the way, and let it have fresh grass and water. It is all I have.”

So saying, she kissed the innocent face of her pet, gave it into the arms of the young man, and ran away, her cheeks shining with tears. Folding the little creature to his breast, the messenger looked admiringly after the girl: he felt a glow of pride and hope for the country whose very children responded to the call of patriotism. “Now, God help me, I will carry this lamb to the city as a sacrifice.” So saying, he set his face to the east and vigorously strode forward.

MOODUS NOISES

The village of Moodus, Connecticut, was troubled with noises. There is no question as to that. In fact, Machimoodus, the Indian name of the spot, means Place of Noises. As early as 1700, and for thirty years after, there were crackings and rumblings that were variously compared to fusillades, to thunder, to roaring in the air, to the breaking of rocks, to reports of cannon. A man who was on Mount Tom while the noises were violent describes the sound as that of rocks falling into immense caverns beneath his feet and striking against cliffs as they fell. Houses shook and people feared.

Rev. Mr. Hosmer, in a letter written to a friend in Boston in 1729, says that before white settlers appeared there was a large Indian population, that powwows were frequent, and that the natives “drove a prodigious trade at worshipping the devil.” He adds:--“An old Indian was asked what was the reason of the noises in this place, to which he replied that the Indian's god was angry because Englishman's god was come here. Now, whether there be anything diabolical in these things I know not, but this I know, that God Almighty is to be seen and trembled at in what has been often heard among us. Whether it be fire or air distressed in the subterranean caverns of the earth cannot be known for there is no eruption, no explosion perceptible but by sounds and tremors which are sometimes very fearful and dreadful.”

It was finally understood that Haddam witches, who practised black magic, met the Moodus witches, who used white magic, in a cave beneath Mount Tom, and fought them in the light of a great carbuncle that was fastened to the roof. The noises recurred in 1888, when houses rattled in witch-haunted Salem, eight miles away, and the bell on the village church “sung like a tuning-fork.” The noises have occurred simultaneously with earthquakes in other parts of the country, and afterward rocks have been found moved from their bases and cracks have been discovered in the earth. One sapient editor said that the pearls in the mussels in Salmon and Connecticut Rivers caused the disturbance.

If the witch-fights were continued too long the king of Machimoddi, who sat on a throne of solid sapphire in the cave whence the noises came, raised his wand: then the light of the carbuncle went out, peals of thunder rolled through the rocky chambers, and the witches rushed into the air. Dr. Steele, a learned and aged man from England, built a crazy-looking house in a lonely spot on Mount Tom, and was soon as much a mystery as the noises, for it was known that he had come to this country to stop them by magic and to seize the great carbuncle in the cave--if he could find it. Every window, crack, and keyhole was closed, and nobody was admitted while he stayed there, but the clang of hammers was heard in his house all night, sparks shot from his chimney, and strange odors were diffused. When all was ready for his adventure he set forth, his path marked by a faint light that moved before him and stopped at the closed entrance to the cavern.

Loud were the Moodus noises that night. The mountain shook and groans and hisses were heard in the air as he pried up the stone that lay across the pit-mouth. When he had lifted it off a light poured from it and streamed into the heaven like a crimson comet or a spear of the northern aurora. It was the flash of the great carbuncle, and the stars seen through it were as if dyed in blood. In the morning Steele was gone. He had taken ship for England. The gem carried with it an evil fate, for the galley sank in mid-ocean; but, though buried beneath a thousand fathoms of water, the red ray of the carbuncle sometimes shoots up from the sea, and the glow of it strikes fear into the hearts of passing sailors. Long after, when the booming was heard, the Indians said that the hill was giving birth to another beautiful stone.

Such cases are not singular. A phenomenon similar to the Moodus noises, and locally known as “the shooting of Nashoba Hill,” occurs at times in the eminence of that name near East Littleton, Massachusetts. The strange, deep rumbling was attributed by the Indians to whirlwinds trying to escape from caves.

Bald Mountain, North Carolina, was known as Shaking Mountain, for strange sounds and tremors were heard there, and every moonshiner who had his cabin on that hill joined the church and was diligent in worship until he learned that the trembling was due to the slow cracking and separation of a great ledge.

At the end of a hot day on Seneca Lake, New York, are sometimes heard the “lake guns,” like exploding gas. Two hundred years ago Agayentah, a wise and honored member of the Seneca tribe, was killed here by a lightning-stroke. The same bolt that slew him wrenched a tree from the bank and hurled it into the water, where it was often seen afterward, going about the lake as if driven by unseen currents, and among the whites it got the name of the Wandering Jew. It is often missing for weeks together, and its reappearances are heralded by the low booming of--what? The Indians said that the sound was but the echo of Agayentah's voice, warning them of dangers and summoning them to battle, while the Wandering Jew became his messenger.

HADDAM ENCHANTMENTS

When witchcraft went rampant through New England the Connecticut town of Haddam owned its share of ugly old women, whom it tried to reform by lectures and ducking, instead of killing. It was averred that Goody So-and-So had a black cat for a familiar, that Dame Thus-and-Thus rode on a broomstick on stormy nights and screeched and gibbered down the farm-house chimneys, and there were dances of old crones at Devils' Hop Yard, Witch Woods, Witch Meadows, Giant's Chair, Devil's Footprint, and Dragon's Rock. Farmers were especially fearful of a bent old hag in a red hood, who seldom appeared before dusk, but who was apt to be found crouched on their door-steps if they reached home late, her mole-covered cheeks wrinkled with a grin, two yellow fangs projecting between her lips, and a light shining from her eyes that numbed all on whom she looked. On stormy nights she would drum and rattle at windows, and by firelight and candle-light her face was seen peering through the panes.

At Chapman Falls, where the attrition of a stream had worn pot-holes in the rocks, there were meetings of Haddam witches, to the number of a dozen. They brewed poisons in those holes, cast spells, and talked in harsh tongues with the arch fiend, who sat on the brink of the ravine with his tail laid against his shoulder, like a sceptre, and a red glow emanating from his body.

In Devils' Hop Yard was a massive oak that never bears leaves or acorns, for it has been enchanted since the time that one of the witches, in the form of a crow, perched on the topmost branch, looked to the four points of the compass, and flew away. That night the leaves fell off, the twigs shrivelled, sap ceased to run, and moss began to beard its skeleton limbs.

The appearance of witches in the guise of birds was no unusual thing, indeed, and a farmer named Blakesley shot one of them in that form. He was hunting in a meadow when a rush of wings was heard and he saw pass overhead a bird with long neck, blue feathers, and feet like scrawny hands. It uttered a cry so weird, so shrill, so like mocking laughter that it made him shudder. This bird alighted on a dead tree and he shot at it. With another laughing yell it circled around his head. Three times he fired with the same result. Then he resolved to see if it were uncanny, for nothing evil can withstand silver--except Congress. Having no bullets of that metal he cut two silver buttons from his shirt and rammed them home with a piece of cloth and a prayer. This time the bird screamed in terror, and tried, but vainly, to rise from the limb. He fired. The creature dropped, with a button in its body, and fell on its right side. At that moment an old woman living in a cabin five miles distant arose from her spinning-wheel, gasped, and fell on her right side-dead.

BLOCK ISLAND AND THE PALATINE

Block Island, or Manisees, is an uplift of clayey moorland between Montauk and Gay Head. It was for sailors an evil place and “bad medicine” for Indians, for men who had been wrecked there had been likewise robbed and ill treated--though the honest islanders of to-day deny it--while the Indians had been driven from their birthright after hundreds of their number had fallen in its defence. In the winter of 1750-51 the ship Palatine set forth over the seas with thrifty Dutch merchants and emigrants, bound for Philadelphia, with all their goods. A gale delayed them and kept them beating to and fro on the icy seas, unable to reach land. The captain died--it was thought that he was murdered--and the sailors, a brutal set even for those days, threw off all discipline, seized the stores and arms, and starved the passengers into giving up their money.

When those died of hunger whose money had given out--for twenty guilders were demanded for a cup of water and fifty rix dollars for a biscuit--their bodies were flung into the sea, and when the crew had secured all that excited their avarice they took to their boats, leaving ship and passengers to their fate. It is consoling to know that the sailors never reached a harbor. The unguided ship, in sight of land, yet tossed at the mercy of every wind and tenanted by walking skeletons, struck off Block Island one calm Sunday morning and the wreckers who lived along the shore set out for her. Their first work was to rescue the passengers; then they returned to strip everything from the hulk that the crew had left; but after getting her in tow a gale sprang up, and seeing that she was doomed to be blown off shore, where she might become a dangerous obstruction or a derelict, they set her on fire. From the rocks they watched her drift into misty darkness, but as the flames mounted to the trucks a scream rang across the whitening sea: a maniac woman had been left on board. The scream was often repeated, each time more faintly, and the ship passed into the fog and vanished.

A twelvemonth later, on the same evening of the year, the islanders were startled at the sight of a ship in the offing with flames lapping up her sides and rigging, and smoke clouds rolling off before the wind. It burned to the water's edge in sight of hundreds. In the winter following it came again, and was seen, in fact, for years thereafter at regular intervals, by those who would gladly have forgotten the sight of it (one of the community, an Indian, fell into madness whenever he saw the light), while those who listened caught the sound of a woman's voice raised in agony above the roar of fire and water.

Substantially the same story is told of a point on the North Carolina coast, save that in the latter case the passengers, who were from the Bavarian Palatinate, were put to the knife before their goods were taken. The captain and his crew filled their boats with treasure and pulled away for land, first firing the ship and committing its ghastly freight to the flames. The ship followed them almost to the beach, ere it fell to pieces, as if it were an animate form, bent on vengeance. The pirates landed, but none profited by the crime, all of them dying poor and forsaken.

THE BUCCANEER

Among the natives of Block Island was a man named Lee. Born in the last century among fishermen and wreckers, he has naturally taken to the sea for a livelihood, and, never having known the influences of education and refinement, he is rude and imperious in manner. His ship lies in a Spanish port fitting for sea, but not with freight, for, tired of peaceful trading, Lee is equipping his vessel as a privateer. A Spanish lady who has just been bereaved of her husband comes to him to ask a passage to America, for she has no suspicion of his intent. Her jewels and well-filled purse arouse Lee's cupidity, and with pretended sympathy he accedes to her request, even going so far as to allow Senora's favorite horse to be brought aboard.