Legends of Fire Island Beach and the South Side

by Edward R. Shaw

John an’ me intended to put ’em in a pen, let ’em be thar till we could bring on the scow to load ’em into, and then tow ’em off. One year we got purty nigh three thousan’ hossfeet in one night. It’s excitin’ work to wade along, lookin’ close to see ’em, fur the water’s dark an’ they’re dark; ur else hittin’ ’em with your feet, an’ then reachin’ to find ’em. You got to be more’n car’ful, though, ’bout one thing, an’ that’s not to git their tails stuck into yer feet ur hands. Ef you do, an’ it goes in deep, ten chances to one you’re a “goner.”

Well, John an’ me expected to mek a big haul that night. We went down to the [landin’], an’ fussed ’roun’ thar, gittin’ the old skiff ready. We warn’t in any hurry, fur we hed all day afore us. ’Twur one o’ them shiny, quiet June days, an’ it bein’ Sunday made it ’pear all the more so.

The Bay wuz ez blue ez could be—the water wuz becomin warm—that’s what made it blue. Thar wuz only a little mite o’ wind, jist enough to fill the sail.

I remember that sailin’ ez plain ez if it all happened yisterday. I steered part o’ the way, then John took hold, an’ I stretched myself out in the skiff. The sun shun warm—that kind o’ pleasant warmth that you wanted to let soak in an’ in.

The skiff slid for’ard easy—no tuggin’ an’ jumpin’; the waves—the water wuz only roughened a little—rippled an’ slapped up alongside, soundin’ holler to me in the bottom of the skiff, an’ the water bubbled aroun’ the rudder—that’s ’bout all thar wuz to it, but somehow I could ’a sailed on for a fortni’t.

The tide wuz low when we got across, but we had no diffikilty to git close to the medder, ez John steered up into a dreen. We took out the mast, rolled the mutton-leg sail round it, an’ drawed the skiff up into the grass. Then we eats somethin’, put the rest o’ our victuals away till night, an’ went over to the surf shore. Thar we set down a short spell, jist ez ev’rybody does, I guess, when they go over to the ocean an’ have a plenty o’ time to spar’, ez we hed. Fin’ly we begun our walk ’long shore to see what we could find.

This ere walk ’long shore wuz one reason why we’d come over to the Beach in the forenoon. I don’t remember how fur we walked, but we sauntered along an hour or so—the sun wuz quite a piece to the west—when all on a sudden John p’inted off shore an’ says, “Jess, look-a-thar. What do you mek o’ that? Thar she is ag’in standin’ right onto shore.”

“That’s her,” says I; “that’s the same ship, an’ she ain’t a-beatin’ nuther, with the wind this way.” I somehow kind o’ felt that that ship wuzn’t standin’ close in fur no good puppose, and I didn’t care to be in sight on-shore, ez thar hed been no end o’ strange things done on that Beach fust an’ last. I thought quick o’ what, accordin’ to all accounts, hed happened in my granther’s days, an’ even thirty year back, in my father’s, so I says agin to John, “Come, let’s git up in the hills out o’ sight.”

In less ’an no time, we slipped round the hills, climbed up one on ’em to where we could jist peek over, an’ laid down. The ship kep’ a comin’. She didn’t seem to change her course by a yard’s breadth. Ev’ry sail wuz spread an’ pullin’, an’ I tell you she wur a purty sight to look at.