by Van Reid
“Can’t tell you what it means.”
“It is an agricultural query,” suggested Brink.
“Will you walk with us?” invited Ephram.
“I think not,” said Durwood. “We are returning to the Land of Ports.”
“Do tell!” said Ephram.
“Are you?” Thump hadn’t heard of the place.
“The Hallowell atmosphere is a little rough for our constitutions,” admitted Waverley. “Avalanches falling out of the sky, gentlemen such as yourselves filling the air with missiles.”
The Moosepathians were a little concerned to have encouraged the Dash-It-All Boys’ early departure.
“We never brought any clothes,” said Brink.
“It has been a great pleasure,” said Eagleton. He offered his hand to Waverley. With his other hand he was fiddling with something beneath his collar, a gesture that his friends had noted several times in the last day or so. Eagleton had grown quite used to the little silver cross and the delicate chain from which it hung; he hadn’t meant to be secretive about the gif and the incident that led to it; he had simply not thought to tell the tale when there was time to tell it, and when he had thought to tell it, paradoxically, the opportunity did not avail itself.
“If you ever come back to Portland from the Land of Ports,” said Ephram as he took Brink’s hand, “we would be delighted to have you join us any Thursday night at the Shipswood.”
Thump cleared his throat, but said little as he took Durwood’s hand. In the press between the two clubs, it went unnoticed that Durwood slipped something into Thump’s coat pocket, even as they bade each other farewell. The round of handshakes took up some minutes, and before they were done, even the manager came within the Moosepathians’ goodwill and hearty thanks, though they were not officially leaving the hotel till afternoon. The manager, somewhat confused, was concerned about the bill.
Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump removed to the dining room, however; the flurry of handshaking had worked them into an appetite, and they were in hopes of prevailing upon an early lunch.
Fearing that her cousin Roger Noble might appear on the scene at any moment, Charlotte Burnbrake accompanied her uncle to the lawyer’s, where the old man hoped to garner some explanation regarding the failed land deal with Mr. Tempest. It was a curious business, but Mr. Tollback, the lawyer, had had several communications with the prospective buyer and may have in the process formed some impression of the man.
Charlotte was invited into Mr. Tollback’s office, and while the two men exchanged pleasantries and recent news, she looked out the window and considered the snowy scene. She had not been at this long before the figure of Daniel Plainway, looking distracted and perplexed, appeared across the main street. He had promised her the night before that he would not leave without saying good-bye, and it occurred to her that he was simply marking time till he had that opportunity. She watched as he considered first one direction, then the next; a fondness, coupled with a confusion, both of that fondness and of a melancholy to think that he would soon be gone, welled up within her.
It had been a short adventure, but in the course of it she had felt the beginnings of a deep friendship for Daniel Plainway. Some compound of their informal situation, her own sympathetic nature, and his plain and honorable manner had enriched the growth of understanding between them. She had surprised herself by teasing him, however quietly; he had proved to have a sense of humor as well as scruples and had read less into her teasing than might have other men, though more might have been fairly made of it.
She wished she could excuse herself and go out to him, as much for herself as for the possibility that she might somehow relieve his distracted state. She was pleased when Mr. Moss appeared, walking down Winthrop Street, and seemed to talk Mr. Plainway into accompanying him.
Phileda McCannon had a simple way of dressing that went as far as the coat she wore, which was without braid or embroidery save at the button frogs. Her hat was austere in comparison with those of the women they met, though it did not appear so on her. Her dark eyebrows curved handsomely over the rims of her spectacles, and her hair was done up behind in chestnut plaits. She could never be deemed willowy—she appeared too strong for that-and the directness of her apparel offered every compliment. She moved with athletic energy, but being an accomplished walker himself, Mister Walton was able to keep her pace without difficulty.
They had only just started out on their walk when she asked him, “Did you think that Charleston was paying me court?” She slipped her arm in his and pulled him along the snowy sidewalk with her brisk movement and the wry look that invariably made him laugh.
The one thing that Mister Walton had kept from Miss McCannon the night before was the fact that he had seen Thistlecoat leave her house and by extension the confusion of feelings he had experienced. “I am found out,” he said ruefully through a deep chuckle.
“It is simply that I had the mark of you when I noticed someone walking by,” she said. “Thinking back on it, I couldn’t imagine that I was so prescient as to know of your arrival before you came.”
“I have no privilege to think of Mr. Thistlecoat and yourself in any context,” he said, attempting a reply to her question.
“Don’t you?”
“Do I?” he said, a little unnerved.
She laughed. “Toby!”
He laughed as well, but more from nervous reaction than real humor. “I suppose,” he said, after scrambling for a thought, “a friend might have an opinion.”
“A friend might,” she said without the slightest shade of meaning.
“Well…he seems a decent enough fellow.”
“Does he?”
Mister Walton had felt such a jealousy toward the man that he feared it would color his words if he said too much; consequently he said nothing.
“He has been paying me court, to be truthful,” she admitted.
“Oh.”
“But he’s a decent enough fellow.”
“Yes,” said Mister Walton, though weakly. If he was able to keep pace with Phileda’s walk, Mister Walton had more trouble keeping up with the pace of her conversation, and he felt that he had missed some salient opportunity when she directed the discourse to other matters.
What was she trying to tell me? he wondered, when he considered the news that Charleston Thistlecoat had been paying her court, and Good heavens! when those green feelings began to rise in him again. He fought them back, refusing to let the tall, handsome, somewhat younger man haunt his time with Phileda McCannon.
“I hope he’s here,” said Sundry. He knocked on the door.
Daniel glanced back at the riverbank, wishing he hadn’t gotten so far afield, worrying that he might miss even a single extra moment with Miss Bumbrake. They were out on a boardwalk that reached from the shore to a small house, the pilings of which half waded in the river at high tide.
Sundry knocked again, and the door opened before the third rap touched the door. “Mr. Tolly!” he said to the white-bearded fellow who stood before them.
“Why, Mr. Moss!” said the old man, his face lighting with recognition. He and Sundry had struck up a friendship the previous fall, and Sundry had been much impressed with Isherwood Tolly’s adventurous life, his knowledge of people and things, and his ability to spin verbal yam. “Come in, come in!” Mr. Tolly was saying as he ushered Sundry and Daniel before him into a dark hallway and a further room lit by windows over the water and a cheery fire. “What a very fine surprise!” he said several times. “I only got in the other day myself. My cousin is asleep,” he said. They could hear snores coming from another room.
Mr. Tolly was a small man with handsome white hair and a well trimmed beard. He had done many things in his life, and most of them proved fodder for at least a story or two; but wild as those tales might be, Sundry had come to respect the man’s knowledge and his opinions. “Have you ever heard of a place called Council Hill?” asked the young man when the conversation turned to recent
events.
“I’ve known of several Council Hills,” said Mr. Tolly. “There was one down by Parsonfield, as I recall, and another below Sabbath Day Pond over in one of the townships.”
“Did you ever know of a Council Hill in Skowhegan?” pressed Sundry.
“Now that you mention it, I may have.”
“But no particular tales?”
“Is that the one with the strange writing on the big rock?”
Sundry nearly came out of his seat. “Yes!” he said with more emphasis than volume. “You know it?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been there, but I’ve heard tell, to be sure. John Neptune’s the man you want to talk to.”
“I wish I could,” said Sundry.
“No sooner said,” replied Mr. Tolly. “Get on your coats, and we’ll trek up the hill.”
“John Neptune’s here in Hallowell?”
“He’s at his cousin’s at Manchester, but just up Winthrop Street and within a couple hours’ walk, I should say.”
“I’ll hire a sleigh,” said Sundry. “Mr. Plainway? Will you join us?”
Daniel considered this but answered without certainty. “I’ll see what’s happening when we get back to the hotel.”
43. Uncle Francis Neptune
From a height of land on the border of Hallowell and Manchester they caught a glimpse of Cobboseecontee Lake, “the Place of Many Sturgeon,” and they were indeed entering one of the many lake countries that constitute the inland reaches of the state of Maine. Larger lakes might abide in other corners of the nation, but few tracts are more beautifully situated than that between Cobboseecontee, Messalonskee, Maranacook, and Annabessacook. By the 1890s the towns that shared these waters were drawing rusticators and sportsmen; even in winter their icy surfaces were dotted with shacks and fishing holes.
There are several Maines, and Sundry was entering one of them for the first time. The day was glorious and could not have boasted the land’s attractions with more confidence. They descended some steep grades, and Mr. Tolly directed the sleigh down a side road to the west that entered the domain of three evenly spaced hills. Not far down this trail they pulled up to a small log-built house and several outbuildings; the trees and bushes in and around the yard and the structures themselves were stark and black against the snowy slopes. a single chimney rising from the house breathed thin smoke into the bright air two or three crows carried on a rough dialogue from an elm tree behind the barn, and Sundry was reminded of the crow that had conversed with Capital Gaines.
Mr. Tolly jumped down, as spry as a teenager. Sundry was soon after him, then Daniel Plainway; Miss Burnbrake had not returned to the hotel, and Daniel had decided that he needed distraction.
A dog was barking, and they had not reached the door of the house when a man’s voice called out to them. Sundry was delighted to see John Neptune standing at the door of a small barn. “I’m graining the animals,” he called, and they trudged along the path that had been beaten through the deep snow from the house to the barn.
The low-ceilinged barn was warm with the breath and heat and manure of the animals stanchioned there. It was a tidy stable, with hay strewn beneath the feet and a beautiful roan horse in one corner. Two oxen shared the general quarters with a cow and a year-old bull.
John Neptune hardly looked his years, which Sundry had estimated in the seventies, perhaps even older than Mr. Tolly; the Indian’s hair was without a strand of gray, and though his face was well lined, his dark eyes shone with the peculiar interest that one expects, however mistakenly, of a young man. His back was straight, and his bearing seemed without the accoutrements of age.
They leaned on the stable gates and considered the animals; Sundry, who was farm-bred himself, recognized some fine creatures. John Neptune smiled to see the young man.
“She’ll bust her feeding,” said Sundry, looking over the stables. He didn’t know why the strange phrase should haunt him so lately, though it was natural, he supposed, that it would come to him when he saw an ox.
“What’s that?” asked Daniel Plainway.
“It’s something my father always says about oxen, usually when they’re at the plow.’She’ll bust her feeding.’ Haven’t the foggiest notion what it means.”
Daniel repeated the phrase under his breath. It tickled his memory, and he searched his own farming background for a clue to the phrase’s meaning.
“I’ve seen Eugene two or three times over by the Abadagasset,” said John Neptune, referring to the juvenile raccoon that had once been in his keeping. “He seems to like it there.”
“Give him my best,” said Sundry. totem to John Neptune, and i would not be unusual for him to hold a “I will,” said the Indian without drollery. The raccoon was the family conversation with the creature.
“John,” said Mr. Tolly, “you know that old Council Hill up Skowhegan way.”
“I believe so,” said the old Indian. “Up by Lake George.”
“That’s it.”
John Neptune nodded quietly. “The blond men have been there,” he stated softly.
“How did you know that?” asked Sundry, a good deal astonished. “That only happened the day before yesterday!”
“I don’t know about the day before yesterday, but they were there many years ago.”
“They were? Do you remember them there?”
“No, many years ago, long before my grandfather’s grandfather, long before your people came.”
Sundry grasped the import of what John Neptune was telling him. “The blond men,” he said. “You mean, hundreds of years ago.”
The old man nodded. “They wrote something on a rock there.”
Sundry was almost gasping with incredulity. “How could you know that?”
John Neptune only laughed softly. “How could I not? My people have been here for some time now, and we have good memories.”
“And you remember the Vikings coming here?” said Sundry.
“I think that’s what they call them now.”
“Why haven’t you told anyone about this?”
“Oh, I have. I spoke to a man after the war, who was a professor somewhere, but he didn’t seem very interested.”
“Do you know what the writing on the rock says?” wondered Sundry.
“I think I remember, more or less. But you want to hear it from my uncle, who lives here. He will know it better than I, and perhaps it is a good thing for me to hear it again myself. It is a story I’ve always liked.”
They followed John Neptune back to the house and kicked the snow from their feet at the door stoop. They came to a small hall filled with boots and coats; the murmurings of voices and movement and the crackling of a fire could be heard further on.
John Neptune ushered them into a cozy kitchen and sitting room. a cat sat by a stove, the firebox of which was open as a middle-aged woman stoked it with several pieces of wood. She looked up only when she was done with the chore, whereupon she turned around and greeted the visitors mildly. a man of European descent sat at the kitchen table, repairing the bindings on a snowshoe, and further into the room sat an ancient Indian, who had to be John Neptune’s uncle.
Sundry had been a little surprised to hear that an uncle to John was still around to tell a tale, but here was a figure to fit the description. Uncle Francis Neptune was perhaps not as young as he looked (he looked about ninety); his hair was a beautiful charcoal gray, and his face was a web of wrinkles and lines. He had been a tall man, and he maintained, like his nephew, some remnant of youthful posture. He sat straight in his chair at the other end of the room and watched the appearance of John Neptune’s friends and Daniel Plainway with interest.
The woman, whose name was Attean, was the daughter of Johnneptune’s cousin, and the man at the table was her husband, Hardy Millwright. Hardy was a quiet man, and after learning the purposes of his visitors, he welcomed them amiably enough and returned to his work. Mrs. Millwright put on coffee and found chairs so that they could attend Uncle
Francis Neptune.
“How are you, Uncle Francis?” said Mr. Tolly.
The ancient man said something that Sundry and Daniel did not unwhen John Neptune said, derstand, and they were attempting to make a word of English from it “He says he is taking food,” which was as much as to say that Uncle Francis was still functioning. He shook Sundry’s and Daniel’s hands and nodded while his nephew explained, in the Penobscot tongue, Sundry’s interest in the runes on Council Hill.
“Sun-haired, we called them,” said John Neptune when the old man and that Uncle Francis was speaking as if he had been there himself. The spoke again. Sundry sensed that the nephew was translating pretty literally old man continued to speak, and John Neptune, himself an old man, picked up the thread of those words and spun them into English. “We had never seen anything like them, unless it was a white deer, which we stalked but never killed.”
“Does he know what those runes say?” wondered Sundry.
It was not necessary for John Neptune to speak to Uncle Francis Neptune in his ancient tongue; though he chose not to speak in English or found it unwieldy, he understood most of what was said in that language.
He nodded when Sundry spoke, then said something with great weight and method.
“It is a story to be told from beginning to end,” said John Neptune.
Sundry wondered what the time was, knowing that Daniel Plainway had other fish to fry. But he raised an eyebrow toward the lawyer, and Daniel, who was himself fascinated by the old man as well as by the tale he might tell, said, “Let us hear it.”
Sundry said to John Neptune, “Would he be so good as to tell us from beginning to end?”
John Neptune did repeat these words in the Penobscot. Ancient Uncle Francis seemed pleased to be asked, and he looked with his remarkable eyes past his nephew, past Sundry and Daniel, past the kitchen and the without a word of translation from John Neptune. Sundry wondered if he kitchen wall. He said something very slowly and spoke for some moments was to hear the entire story in a language he didn’t understand when John Neptune said, “He is asking our ancestors to help him recall the time when the sun-haired people first came to the Council Hill. He is asking that everything he says be true or as close to the truth as his ancestors can remember, since it was a long time ago and they have probably been thinking of other things.
