Farther on they passed the long, treeless, granite hump of Wooden Ball, with its few lobstering-shacks, and sheep grazing in its grassy valleys. Ledge after ledge went by, until at last they entered the little rocky haven of Matinicus, crammed with moored sloops and power-boats, and ran in beside the high, granite fish-pier at its head.
Percy found everything new and strange—the stilted wharves on the ledges, heaped with lobster-traps and festooned with buoys of all shapes and colors; the fish-pier with its open shed, sheltering the dark, discolored hogsheads rounded up with salted fish; the men in oilskin "petticoats," busy with splitting-knives on hake and cod and pollock and haddock, brought in by the noisy power-boats; the lighthouse-keepers from Matinicus Rock, five miles south, in military caps, oilskins, and red rubber boots, towing a dory to be dumped full of slimy hake heads for lobster bait; the post-office and general store above the cove, and the spruce-crowned rocks beyond it.
THE CAMP AT SPROWL'S COVE
Jim pointed out a bronze tablet on a slanting ledge.
"In memory of Ebenezer Hall, first English settler on Matinicus. He lived with his family in a log house at the head of this cove. In 1757 some Indians were camped on one of the Green Islands, six miles or so northwest, living on the eggs of seabirds. Hall went over to the island one day and set fire to the grass, destroying the nests and eggs. Next morning five Indians in two canoes came over to Matinicus to take revenge. They landed on this beach, built a fire, and began cooking their breakfast. Hall had barricaded himself indoors, but he could put his head up through a little lookout in the top of his cabin. He wanted to shoot the Indians, but his wife wouldn't let him. After they had eaten they scattered and opened fire on the house from different points. Hall replied. Finally the Indians were reduced to their last half-bullet. One of them lay flat in that little hollow, while the others pretended to launch their canoes. Hall stuck his head up through the lookout to see what was going on, and the ambushed Indian sent the half-bullet through his brain. He dropped back inside. They wouldn't have known he was hit if his wife hadn't cried out for quarter. They burst open the door and carried her off, with her daughter and one son. Another boy escaped out of a back window and hid in the swamp, and they couldn't find him. Afterward he settled on an island close to Vinalhaven, where Heron's Neck Light is now."
"Hall had better not have burned that grass," said Percy.
"Yes," replied Jim. "If he had minded his own business and let the Indians alone he wouldn't have stopped that last half-bullet."
The fish-pier was in charge of a superintendent, employed by a large Gloucester concern. Jim arranged to sell here whatever fish they might catch during the summer. He also bought several bushels of salt, as well as two barrels of hake heads to start them in lobstering. The Barracouta's tank was filled with twenty-five gallons of gasolene, and six five-gallon cans were purchased besides. The boat would require about seven gallons a day for ordinary fishing, so this would supply them for more than a week.
"How often do you get the mail?" asked Jim of the storekeeper, who was also postmaster.