Soon
He Was Scraping Her Hull Below The Gunwale,
Where The Muddy Water Of The Bay Had Left A
Thin Coat Of Sediment Which Was Now Dry.
The
man's countenance lighted up as he pulled the
bartender aside and said, "Look ahere;
I tell you that
Boat looked as if she was made to
carry on a deck of a vessel, and to be a-shoved off
into the water at night jest abreast of a town to
make fools of folks, and git them to believe that
that fellow had a-rowed all the way ahere?
Now see, here is dust, dry dust on her hull.
She ahain't ben in the water mor'n ten minutes,
I sware," It required but a moment's
investigation of my Chincoteague audience to discover
that the dust was mud from the tide, and the
doubter brought down the ridicule of his more
discriminating neighbors upon him, and slunk
away amid their jeers.
Of all this community of watermen but one
could be found that night who had threaded the
interior watercourses as far as Cape Charles, and
he was the youngest of the lot. Taking out my
note-book, I jotted down his amusing directions.
"Look out for Cat Creek below Four Mouths,"
he said; "you'll catch it round there." "Yes,"
broke in several voices, "Cat Creek's an awful
place unless you run through on a full ebb-tide.
Oyster boats always has a time a-shoving through
Cat Creek," &c.
After the council with my Chincoteague
friends had ended, the route to be travelled the
next day was in my mental vision "as clear as
mud." The inhabitants of this island are not all
oystermen, for many find occupation and profit
in raising ponies upon the beach of Assateague,
where the wild, coarse grass furnishes them a
livelihood. These hardy little animals are called
"Marsh Tackies," and are found at intervals
along the beaches down to the sea-islands of the
Carolinas. They hold at Chincoteague an annual
fair, to which all the "pony-penners," as they
are called, bring their surplus animals to sell.
The average price is about ninety dollars for a
good beast, though some have sold for two
hundred and fifty dollars. All these horses are sold
in a semi-wild and unbroken state.
The following morning Mr. J. L. Caulk,
ex-collector of the oyster port, and about fifty
persons, escorted me to the landing, and sent me
away with a hearty "Good luck to ye."
It was three miles and three quarters to the
southern end of the island, which has an inlet
from the ocean upon each side of that end - the
northern one being Assateague, the southern one
Chincoteague Inlet. Fortunately, I crossed the
latter in smooth water to Ballast Narrows in
the marshes, and soon reached Four Mouths,
where I found five mouths of thoroughfares, and
became perplexed, for had not the pilots of
Chincoteague called this interesting display of
mouths "Four Mouths"? I clung to the authority
of local knowledge, however, and was soon in a
labyrinth of creeks which ended in the marshes
near the beach.
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