Well, early next morning, Joe went down to sell his fish, but the market prices had taken a sudden weekend drop, and the sperm oil man wouldn’t buy. So there was Joe, left with a beach full of smelly blackfish. And you’ve never smelled such a stench as comes up from a beached school of blackfish when the wind is coming from the sea. The townspeople finally couldn’t stand it another minute, and a group of them came down to the beach to get rid of the school. And sure enough, there were Joe’s initials, carved in the skulls where he had put them on Sunday forenoon. Those initials J.C. were enough to convince every man jack of them that the whole smelly job was up to one man—the owner, and the owner was obviously Joe Crocker. He put up quite an argument, but he finally had to hire a half dozen fishermen to tow the blackfish back out to sea. The Methodist minister was heard to remark that some people had to learn the hard way that it pays “to keep the Sabbath day.” Joe didn’t have a thing to say, and he still didn’t come to Sunday meetin’, but no one ever saw him looking for easy work on the Sabbath again.
... Timmy Drew and
The Bull Frogs
Once upon a time, it is said, there lived in Chatham on Cape Cod a little whipper-snapper of a fellow, named Timothy Drew. Timmy was not more than four-feet-eight, and that standing in his thick-soled boots. And so, as befalls so many unfortunates of Timmy’s stature, he was forced to accept heckling from his taller associates, among whom Timmy appeared a dwarf. But long-legged men held no fears for Timmy, for although small, he made up in spirit what he lacked in bulk, as is so often the case with small men. Timmy was all pluck and gristle, and no steel trap was smarter.
When Timmy refused to stand for the gibes that were thrown at him, he was chock full of fight. To be sure, he could hit his tormentors no higher than the belt-buckle, but his blows were so rapid and full of force that he beat the daylights out of many a ten-footer. When Timmy was in his fiery youth, the words “If you say that ’ere again, I’ll knock you into the middle of next week!” were enough to quell any belligerent.
Timmy Drew was a natural born shoemaker. No man around could hammer out a piece of leather with such speed and accuracy. Timmy used his knee for a lap stone, and years of thumping made it hard and stiff as an iron hinge. Timmy’s shoe shop was near a pleasant valley on the edge of a pond. In the Spring, this pond was a fashionable gathering place for hundreds of bull frogs, that came there from all parts to spend the warm season. Several of these bull frogs were of extraordinary size, and as they became used to Timmy, who spent some time down near the pond’s edge feeding them, they would draw near to his shop, raise their heads, and swell out their throats like balloons until the area vibrated with their basso music. Timmy, keeping busily at his work to the accompaniment of this bull frog male chorus, beat time for them with his tooling hammer, and in this manner the hours passed away as pleasantly as the day is long.
Now Timmy was not one of those shoemakers who stick eternally to their bench like a ball of wax. In fact, Timmy made a habit of carrying his work to his customer’s house, partly for assurance of perfect fit and partly for company. Then, too, he always stopped at the tavern on his way home from work for sociability and to inquire about the day’s news. It was here especially that Timmy found his size unfortunate, for here gathered all the jokers and wags of the neighborhood, as well as the notoriously teasing and practical joking peddlers. Although Timmy felt as uncomfortable as a short-tailed horse in fly time in this company, he loved to be there and reveled in the conversation and the stories that were told.
Unfortunately for Timmy, however, the peddlers took the keenest delight in imposing on his credulity as well as on his stature. They always seemed to have the most amazing conglomeration of tall stories at hand, but also seemed to have even more amazing ones when the gullible Timmy was present. They had learned long before that Timmy was not to be toyed with about his height, but still retained their practice of goading him on to believe their incredibly tall tales. And there was no one who can describe an incredible fact with more plausibility than a peddler. His profession alone had taught him to maintain an iron gravity when selling his wares, which, with very few exceptions, could certainly not sell themselves. Thus their tales, sufficient in themselves to embarrass any other narrator, carried great conviction.
But there was a joke which the peddlers played on Timmy that carried itself out far beyond any and all expectations. Many and diverse were the pranks played on Timmy the gullible, but never before one with such repercussions as this one, which, from the start, seemed made to order for him.
A fashionable tailor in the neighboring and larger village decided to advertise in Chatham, thereby bringing to himself trade from the small community and others like it. This tailor took it on himself to have a large and flaming advertisement made which was posted in the tavern which Timmy frequented on his way home from the shoe shop. The advertisement excited general interest, for the tailor asserted to have, at greatly reduced prices, a splendid assortment of coats, pantaloons and waistcoats of all colors and fashions, as well as a great variety of trimmings such as tape, thread, buckram, ribbons, and—this last item was especially stressed—“frogs,” those cord material hooks in the shape of that deep-throated and squat reptile.