The Wreck of the Red Bird: A Story of the Carolina Coast

by George Cary Eggleston

  CHAPTER III.

  AFLOAT.

  Once asleep on the cool, breeze-swept piazza, the three tired boys werenot inclined to wake easily. The sun went down, but still they slept.Finally the teamster from Hardeeville arrived with the trunks on anox-cart, and his loud cries to his oxen aroused Charley, who sprang upsuddenly. Forgetting that his couch was a joggling board more than threefeet high he undertook to step upon the floor as if he had been sleepingon an ordinary sofa. The result was that his feet, failing to reach thefloor at the expected distance, were thrown backward under the board bythe forward motion of the upper part of the body, and Master CharlesBlack, of Aiken, fell sprawling on the floor, waking both the other boysin alarm.

  "What's up?" cried Ned.

  "Nothing. I'm down," replied Charley. "I thought you said the thingwouldn't turn over."

  "Well, it hasn't," said Ned. "Look and see. It's you that turned over.Are you hurt, old fellow?"

  Charley was by this time on his feet again, and declared himself whollyfree from hurt of any kind. The trunks were brought in, the driverturned over to Maum Sally's hospitality, and Ned declared it to be timefor bed.

  "Whew! how cold it is!" exclaimed Jack. "Do you have such changes ofweather often, down here on the coast?"

  "Only twice in twenty-four hours at this season," answered Ned, as theywent into the house.

  "Twice in twenty-four hours! What do you mean?"

  "I mean once in twelve hours," answered Ned.

  "How is that? I don't understand."

  "Well, you see our late summer dews have begun to fall. If you were togo out now, you would find the water actually dripping from the trees.From this time on it will be chilly at night, almost cold, in fact, buthot as the tropic of Cancer in the daytime. So we have a sudden changeof temperature twice a day--once from cold to hot, and once from hot tocold."

  The boys were too sleepy to talk long, and the sun was shining in at theeast windows when Maum Sally waked them the next morning for a breakfastas miscellaneous as the supper had been; sliced tomatoes and figs, stillwet with the dew, being prominent features of the meal.

  After breakfast Ned looked up a great variety of fishing tackle and gotit in order.

  "Where are your fish poles?" asked one of the boys.

  "Fish poles! we don't use them in salt water. We fish with tight lines."

  "What are they?"

  "Why, long lines with a sinker at the end and no poles."

  "Do you just hold the line in your hand?"

  "Certainly. And another thing that we don't use is a float. We just fishright down in the deep water--or the shallow water rather, for the bestfishing is on bars where the water isn't more than twenty feet deep; butdeep or shallow, the fish are at the bottom, except skip-jacks; theyswim on top, and sometimes we troll for them. They call them blue fishup North, I believe, but we call them skip-jacks or jack mackerel."

  "What's that?" asked Jack, as Ned spread out a round net for inspection.

  "A cast net."

  "What's it for?"

  "Shrimps."

  "But I thought we were going fishing."

  "So we are. But we must go shrimping first. We must have some bait."

  "Oh, we are to use shrimps for bait, are we?"

  "Very much so indeed," answered Ned. "They are capital bait--the best wehave, unless we want to catch sheephead; then we use fiddlers."

  "What are fiddlers?"

  "Little black crabs that run about by millions over the sand. They havehard shells that whiting and croakers can't crack, while the sheephead,having good teeth, crush them easily. So when we want to catchsheephead, and don't want to be bothered with other fish, we bait withfiddlers."

  "Then I understand that fish are so plentiful here and so easily caughtthat they bother you when you want to catch particular kinds?" saidJack, incredulously.

  "If you mean that for a question," answered Ned, "I'll let you answer itfor yourself after you've had a little experience."

  "Well, if we don't get any shrimps," said Charley, "we'll fish forsheephead with musicians."

  "Musicians? oh, you mean fiddlers," said Ned. "But we'll get shrimpsenough."

  "Do they bother you, too, with their abundance?" asked Jack, stillinclined to joke his friend.

  "Come on and see," said Ned, who had now prepared himself for wading.

  Taking the cast net in his hand, and giving a pail to Jack, he led theway to the sea. Wading into the mouth of a little inlet he cast the net,which was simply a circular piece of netting, with a string of leadenballs around the edge. From this lead line cords extended on the underside of the net to and through a ring in the centre where they werefastened to a long cord which was held in Ned's hand. A peculiar motionin casting caused the net to spread itself out flat and to fall in thatway on the water. The leaden balls caused it to sink at once to thebottom, the edges reaching bottom first, of course, and imprisoningwhatever happened to be under the net in its passage. After a moment'spause, to give time for the lead line to sink completely, Ned jerked thecord and began to draw in. Of course this drew the lead line along thebottom to the centre ring, and made a complete pocket of the net,securely holding whatever was caught in it.

  It came up after this first cast with about a hundred shrimps--of thelarge kind called prawn in the North--in it. The boys opened their eyesin surprise, and Ned cast again, bringing up this time about twice asmany as before.

  "They have hardly begun to come in yet," said Ned. "The tide is tooyoung."

  "Hardly begun to come in?" said Jack, "why, the water's alive with them.Let me throw the net."

  "Certainly," said Ned, "if you know how."

  "Know how? Why, there's no knack in that; anybody can do it."

  With this confident boast Jack took the net and gave a violent cast.Neglecting to relax the rope at the right moment, however, the confidentyoung gentleman made trouble for himself. The lead line swung aroundrapidly, the net wrapped itself around Jack, and the leaden balls struckhim with sufficient violence to hurt. He lost his balance at the sameinstant, and, his legs being held close together by the wet net, hecould not step out to recover himself. The result was that he fellsprawling into the water and was fished out in a very wet condition byhis companions.

  Jack was a boy capable of seeing the fun even in an accident of which hewas the victim. He stood still while the net was unwound, and for amoment afterward. Then, seeing that the other boys were too considerateto laugh at him while in trouble, he quietly said:

  "I told you I could do it."

  "Well, you caught more in the net than I did," said Ned. "Now take holdagain and I'll show you how to manage it. Your wet clothes won't hurtyou. Sea-water doesn't give one cold."

  A few lessons made Jack fairly expert in casting, but Charley had nomind to court mishaps, and would not try his skill. The pail was soonwell filled with shrimps, and the boys returned to the boat house,where Jack changed his wet clothes for dry ones.

  Then all haste was made to get the boat out, in order that they mightfish while the tide was right. The boat was a large launch named _RedBird_; a boat twenty-four feet long, very broad in the beam, and verystoutly built. It was provided with a mast and sail, but these were ofno use now as there was no wind, and the bars on which Ned meant to fishwere only a few hundred yards distant.

  No sooner was the anchor cast than the lines were out, and the fishbegan accepting the polite invitation extended to them.

  "What sort of fish are these, Ned?" asked Charley, as he took one fromhis hook.

  "That," said Ned, looking round, "is a whiting--so called, I believe,because it is brown, and yellow, and occasionally pink and purple, withchangeable silk stripes over it. That's the only reason I can think offor calling it a whiting. It is never white. It isn't properly a whitingfor that matter. It isn't at all the same as the whiting of the North,at any rate."

  "Why, they're changing color," exclaimed Jack.

  "Look! they actually change color under you
r very eyes."

  "Yes, it's a way whiting have," said Ned. "And some other fish do thesame thing, I believe."

  "Dolphins do," said Charley.

  "Yes, but the whiting isn't even a second cousin to the dolphin. That'sa croaker you've got, Jack; spot on his tail--splendid fish to eat--andhe croaks. Listen!"

  The fish did begin to utter a curious croaking sound, which surprisedthe boys. Other croakers were soon in the boat, and the company of themset up a croaking of which the inhabitants of a frog pond might not havebeen ashamed.

  "They call croakers 'spot' in Virginia," said Ned, "because of the spotnear the tail. Look at it. Isn't it pretty? and isn't the fish itself abeauty?"

  "But the whiting is prettier," said Charley; "at least in colors. I say,Ned, do you know if whiting ever dine on kaleidoscopes?"

  "Look out! hold that fellow away from you! hold the line at arm's lengthand don't let the brute strike you with his tail for your life!"exclaimed Ned, excitedly, as Charley drew a curious-looking creatureup.

  "LOOK OUT! HOLD THAT FELLOW AWAY FROM YOU!"]

  "What is the thing?" asked both the up-country boys in a breath.

  "A stingaree," replied Ned, "and as ugly as a rattlesnake. See howviciously he strikes with his tail! Let him down slowly till his tailtouches the bottom of the boat. There! Now wait till he stops strikingfor a moment and then clap your foot on his tail. Ah! now you've gothim. Now cut the tail off close to the body and the fellow's harmless."

  "What is the creature anyhow?" asked Jack, who had suspended his fishingoperations to observe the monster. "What did you call it?"

  "Well, the gentleman belongs to a large and distinguished family. Tospeak broadly, he is a plagiostrome chondropterygian, of the sub-order_raiiae_, commonly called skates. To define him more particularly, he isa member of the trygonidae family, familiarly known as sting rays, andcalled by negroes and fishermen, and nearly every body else on thecoast, stingarees."

  "Where on earth did you get that jargon from?" asked Charley.

  "It isn't jargon, and I got it from my uncle. He told me one day not tocall these things stingarees, but sting rays, and then for fun rattledoff a lot of scientific talk at me, which I made him repeat until I knewit by heart. What I know about sting rays is this: there are a good manykinds of them in different quarters of the world. In the North they havethe American sting ray, which is much larger than ours down here, thoughwe sometimes catch them two or three feet wide. Ours is the Europeansting ray, I believe; at any rate, it isn't the American. They are allof them closely alike. They are brown on top and white beneath. You seethe shape--not unlike that of a turtle, but with something like wings atthe sides, and with a skin instead of a shell, and no legs. The mostinteresting things about them are their long, slender tails. See,"picking up the amputated tail and turning it over; "see the gentleman'sweapons. Those bony spikes, with their barbed sides, make very uglywounds whenever the sting ray gets a good shot at a leg or an arm. Thenegroes say the barbs are poisonous, like a rattlesnake's fangs; but thescientific folk dispute that. However that may be, a man was laid up forthree months right here in Bluffton, during the war, with a foot so badthat the surgeons thought they would have to cut it off, and all from avery slight wound by a sting-ray."

  "Ugh!" cried Jack. "It isn't necessary to suppose poison; to have one ofthose horrible bones driven into your flesh and then drawn out with thenotches all turned the wrong way, is enough to make any amount oftrouble, without adding poison."

  "Perhaps that accounts for the stories told of the Indians shootingpoisoned arrows," said Ned. "They used sting-ray stings for arrow-headsat any rate."

  "And very capital arrow-heads they would make," said Charley, examiningthe spikes, which were about the size of a large lead-pencil, aboutthree or four inches long, and barbed all along the sides, so that theylooked not unlike rye beards under a microscope. These spikes are placednot at the end of the tail, but near the middle.

  "Are sting rays good to eat?" asked Jack, examining the slimy, flabbycreature.

  "It all depends upon the taste of the eater," replied Ned. "The negroessometimes eat the flaps or wings, and most white people on the coasthave curiosity enough to taste them. They always say there's nothingbad about the taste, but I never knew anybody to take to sting rays as adelicacy. Some people say that alligator steaks are good, and a goodmany people eat sharks now and then. For my part good fish are tooplentiful here for me to experiment with bad ones."

  The fishing was resumed now, and it was not long before Jack confessedthat the fish were beginning to "bother" him by their abundance andeagerness.

  "Ned," he said, "I apologize. If you've any fiddlers about your clothes,I believe I'll confine my attention to sheephead; I'm tired of pullingfish in."

  "Well, let's go ashore, then," said Ned, laughing, "and have dinner."

  "Do fish bite in that way generally down here?" asked Charley.

  "Yes, when the tide isn't too full. Fishing really gets to be a borehere, it is so easy to fill a boat; anybody can do that as easily asthrow a cast net."

  "Now hush that," said Charley. "Jack has owned up and apologized, andagreed that he knows more than he did this morning."