It was at Chincoteague two Spanish galleons went ashore in the old days and some ponies swam ashore. To this day they have a yearly round-up on the island where the breed of these ponies is coralled, a short special breed of horse.
Tangier Island is another place. That's where the sheriff shot the boy who wouldn't go in off his front porch on Sunday morning during church service. Either in church or in the house during that hour. He shot him all right. They have little individual canals up to their back doors from the bay.
And the native, coming up to him suddenly with a knife as long as your arm, said; Yo soy mas hombre que tu! and started a swing at him. Had he not been so quick to seize a chair and bring it down on the man's head—What would have happened?
[CHAPTER XIX]
Sometimes the men would come in and say there was a turkey nest down in the meadow and they'd send me to look for it.
Once I fell in the mireage up to my waist. My, they was mad at me. "Can't tramp a meadow without falling in the mireage?" they said.
I miss it often. At nine they let me drive the hay-hoist with one horse and later with two. One morning I had the young team out. It was Allie's team of greys, they was only just no more than colts. They shied at a piece of paper. I could hear the men up in the barn yelling. "Hey, what's the matter down there!" But it was no use. I tried to get to their heads. I wasn't afraid of them. Allie said afterward he wouldn't have been surprised to have seen me killed.
One of the women stood in the road waving a broom. I can see her yet. I might have been able to manage them if it hadn't been for her but they simply jumped over a wagon and smashed the hay-fork and ran down the road two miles. Then they came back again. My but the old man was mad at me. All the black looks I got!
I used to hate the Old Man. Sometimes I'd be getting wood and he'd ask me why I hadn't done something. I'd say I hadn't gotten round to it yet. Maybe he'd throw a piece of wood at me.