Legends of Fire Island Beach and the South Side

by Edward R. Shaw

’Fore long, John says, “Jess, that vessel’s got some puppose, an’ we’d better go east.”

So we scooted ’long behind the hills, an’ ev’ry low gap atween the hills we come to, we’d stop car’ful an’ look out to see ef the ship kep’ on the same course. Ev’ry time we looked out, she wuz nigher an’ nigher. When we’d got a stretchin’ good piece east we didn’t run any further, but crawled up a low hill to take a good look-out agin. By this time, the ship wur pretty well in. Afore long, she rounded up into the wind, clewed up her squarsails, an’ anchored.

“What’re they doin’ now, John?” I asked; “kin you mek out?”

“Lowerin’ a yawl, it looks like to me,” he says.

An’ so they wuz. In a short time the yawl pushed out from the ship, an’ then I could see plain enough what it wuz, an’ that some on the ship’s crew wuz comin’ ashore in that ere yawl.

We hunted round fur a place to hide, ’cause we knowed they couldn’t be a-comin’ ashore fur water. There wuzn’t no water to be got. Behind us wuz a clump o’ cedars purty thick, so we run ’long a windin’ holler, an’ crep’ up into that bunch o’ low cedars. When we looked out, the yawl wuz behind the hills; but purty soon it come into range near shore, an’ disappeared ag’in, fur the way on it wuz, thar wur a small gap ’tween the hills that give us this sight o’ the yawl. Arter the yawl got across that gap, we waited a long time—I tell you it wuz long—afore we see anythin’ more on ’em. We got scared a-waitin’; fur how could we tell but what they wuz mekin’ towards us? While I’d got sort o’ tired a-strainin’ an’ lookin’ here an’ thar, an’ fell to conject’rin’ what under the sun wuz goin’ to turn out on it all, John says all on a sudden, “Jess, look, thar’s one on ’em on yunder hill.”

I looked quick, and thar stood a sailor with a spy-glass searchin’ in ev’ry d’rection. We crouched flat, scratchin’ our hands an’ face in gittin’ under the branches near ground. We’d a been layin’ down all the time, but a spy-glass is purty fur-sighted, an’ we knowed it, so we crawled under the branches to be all the more out o’ sight.

In jist about three minutes the sailor wuz gone. Then we hed another time o’ fearin’ what ’ud come next, but soon some men ’peared on the top o’ the hill. Thar wuz five on ’em. I breathed hard, an’ so did John, till we see they wurn’t comin’ towards us. They wuz carryin’ somethin’ heavy, ez they’d stop, set it down, an’ take turns. An’ when they changed what they wuz carryin’, they changed shovels. They hed shovels with ’em, for these we could see plain enough.

These five men went onwards to a hill in the middle of the Beach—the highest hill within sev’ral miles—an’ stopped on the side o’ it toward the ocean. They stopped a long while an’ ’peared to be takin’ certain ranges. Fin’ly they begun to dig. Ev’ry single one o’ the five wur a-diggin’. The bank o’ course kep’ a growin’, and got so high, ur the hole got so deep, I dun know which, that we couldn’t see ’em any longer a-diggin’. Nex’ they all come out, took what they hed fetched with ’em, and put it into the hole. Then thar wuz a long halt—all on ’em down in the hole. Not one on ’em wuz seen fur a long time. That time they wuz out o’ sight so long that John proposed to skulk to our boat.