Classic Audiobook Collection - American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner ~ Full Audiobook [folklore]

Starting point is 00:00:00 american myths and legends volume one by charles m skinner the smoking pine on the banks of the brook that bears the name of vaughan at hallowell maine stands the smoking pine when the stream then known as the bombah hook was first seen by white men the wigwams of many indians stood near this water and the red people were friendly with the invaders they asked only to be let alone they wished to live beside the stream but whether they were led into conflict with the whites or whether they succumbed to the diseases and vices sewn among them by the english and deadlier they were than the weapons of their armies the indians began ere long to peek away in body and lose the hold they had on life when they were free of all horizons their chief asonimo realized before many years had passed that the place which his brothers had held in the land was no longer secure that although the white people might still smile and withhold their hands from wrath the woods in which his fathers had chased the deer and the fields where the squalls had raised corn and fruits were not much longer to be called his own so he gathered his people and told them that the great spirit had spoken their fate it was to be destruction yet he warned them how useless it would be to strive against their doom the great spirit had willed it so let it be they could at least spend their declining days in peace with the newcomers and secure life and some of the comforts of life for their children

Starting point is 00:02:00 and he called the english that were near and bade the red men like the peace-pipe and smoke it with the settlers as a token that nevermore should strife before between them and said he when i am gone a pine shall come from the earth above my body and from that pine the smoke shall rise for a sign of friendship that must always be between you it was but a little later that osonimo was struck dead by a thunderbolt near the spot where this council had been held the fate ordained by the god had begun its work he was put into the earth and surely as he had spoken there grew from his grave by and by a pine that seems to carry in its tough branches the stoutness of the life that had been ended there in early summer when his people went back to that spot great was their surprise to see that the tree had grown to full height and low as he had told the smoke of peace floated from its branches and spread mist-like on the breeze it was a sign they dared not disobey they ceased their murmurings against the newcomers in the land and went their way toward the setting sun in sorrow but the sorrow but in wonder. End of Section 1.

Starting point is 00:03:32 Recording by Alan Mapstone. Section 2 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. Read by Laura.

Starting point is 00:03:58 Judith Bobro, American Mids and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner, Section 2, various grindstone hill. Near the west branch of the Penobscot stands a tall hill in the form of a grindstone on edge and half sunk in the ground. The oddity of Grindstone Hill has given rise to many queer tales, and none of those concerning its origin agree with one another. The Indian story is this. Long before the white men crossed the blue water to vex the red people, a little yellow moon used to float through the heavens in the wake of the bigger one that is still shining. Melgassoway, a boy who was like other boys in that he would rather practice with his bow and arrows and murray the dogs and go fishing and swimming and kill snakes and climb trees and tear his breech-cloud and pick berries than gather firewood and do errands,

Starting point is 00:05:20 was sent by his mother to fetch a pumpkin out of a cornfield for supper. No doubt, Melgassoi intended to gather the fruit and dutifully return with it, but he saw a rabbit and he chased it so long that when the sun set, he found himself miles from home and pretty tired and hungry. The big moon set soon after the sun So that the boy would not have been back until morning Had it not been for the little moon's light As this orb lifted into view

Starting point is 00:06:02 He stood still and laughed aloud For seen through interlacing branches It was wondrous like a pumpkin Malgassoway did not dare to go back with what he had been sent for, but the cornfield was a mile or so out of his way. His mother was old and near-sighted, and this moon might pass for a pumpkin, if only he could bring it down. As it came swinging above him, he drew his arrow to the head and shot. The shaft passed out of his sight, and he thought he had missed his mom.

Starting point is 00:06:47 but after a little the moon began to quiver. Then it pitched out of the sky and tumbled toward the earth. Now it had been supposed that this little moon was just above the treetops and was no larger than a pumpkin. Great was the astonishment of Melgasso Way when it grew and grew in his sight until he saw that he would be crushed if he stayed there any longer, and he didn't. He bounded off to his spanking at home, yelling with dismay, for while the falling mass was still at some distance from the earth, he saw that hundreds of devils were clinging to it,

Starting point is 00:07:37 yellow devils with long tails and claws. Malgassoway took his whipping with positive enjoyment, for he expected worse now that he had destroyed a moon and released a company of imps into the woods. Yet he told his people what he had done, and they who had met the devils already in the neighborhood and had discovered the moon stuck in the swamp with its light out, praised him for his daring, and made him medicine man. so Mel Gassaway lived to the end of his days in honor

Starting point is 00:08:18 in sight of the hill he had brought down from the sky. As for the Yankee version, that the hill was put where it is by a wizard in order to accommodate the mowers at opposite ends of the hayfield when they might need to sharpen their size and that it used to turn by means of a water wheel in the West Branch, and the Irish version, that the hill is the wheel of a barrow on which a stout fellow

Starting point is 00:08:53 was trundling a monument back to the North Pole where his ancestors had placed it, but which had been brought down to Maine on an iceberg. They may be dismissed as inventions of a day of sensational journalism. The French habitant, who comes down to chop wood and goes back to Canada at the end of the lumbering season, eagerly clutching all but four or five of the American dollars he has earned, knows Grindstone Hill and tells his version of how it came there. His story slightly suggests the Indians. It is that during the war, which

Starting point is 00:09:39 ended French rule in Canada, a number of Frenchmen were marching across Maine to reinforce Malcolm's garrison in Quebec. It was August, and the heat and thunderstorms were trying to the temper of the men. One afternoon, when it was raining especially hard, and there was not one in the dripping draggled party who had not sworn all he knew how to swear. and wished that he was fluent in English so that he could swear better, that being the tongue in which past masters of the art exploit themselves, the captain, one Antoine LeBlanc, roared out with a compound oath in two languages that nearly loosened his molars, that he wished it would rain grindstones and harrow teeth

Starting point is 00:10:37 and have done with it. Hardly had he uttered this dreadful wish, and coupled it with an invocation to the devil, ere a dense shadow fell upon the spot, and a fearful rushing sound was heard. Then plunging through the clouds came this father of all rhinestones, and tumbling on the company, buried them two thousand feet deep in mud. All but the man who said, survived to tell what happened. And this he would not have done but for being so frightened at the oaths that his

Starting point is 00:11:15 legs were weak and he could not keep up with his comrades. End of section 2. Read by Laura Judith Barbro, Leesford, Virginia, July 2nd, 2022. Section 3 of

Starting point is 00:11:39 American Myths and Legends Volume 1. This is a Libby Box recording. All Libby Box recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libbybox.org. American Myths and Legends Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner A Prophet of War Nell Hilton's Ghost will appear on the big rock of Hilton's neck, Jones Romain, wave its hands, and give it. give the Pasamaquoddy war-whoop at dawn on the 1st of March of any year in which this country shall engage in war. She foretold the French and Indian troubles and the revolution before her

Starting point is 00:12:27 death, and after it, she prophesied our break with England in 1812, with Mexico, and the Civil War. Nell Hilton was a Puritan girl who, in 1740, wearying of the coldness and strictness of life in Plymouth, prevailed on her father to move to the Pasamaquoddy country where they might enjoy a little liberty. She proposed to have her own share of it, anyhow, for her father, returning to his cabin in Jonesborough on a certain evening, found her in the embrace of a big Indian and submitting with smiles to his kisses. After killing and scalping his visitor, he learned that the girl had just engaged herself too, him as his future wife. In disgust, Hilton told her that if she was so fond of Indians,

Starting point is 00:13:20 she could go and live with them. And she did. The Puritans would sell no powder to the natives, while the French in Canada would sell no rum. Hence the savages had to travel constantly, selling their skins in the south for ammunition, with which to get more skins, and selling those skins in the north were strong waters in which to pickle their own skins from the inside. Nell's services were in demand at the frontier as bargain-maker and interpreter, for she spoke French and Indian as well as English, and taught in the rude schools of Maine and New Brunswick. Though she never married, she gained power over the natives, who regarded her as a queen and invited her to all their councils.

Starting point is 00:14:11 In 1746, when the English drove the Arcadians from Nova Scotia, she foretold the war that was to follow, and advised the Indians to remain true to the French who had exhibited more regard for their physical, if not their moral, anchorings than had been shown by the English. In 1775, she reappeared among her neighbours in Jonesborough to urge them to prepare for war, outlining the history of the revolution from Lexington's skirmish to Yorktown surrender. Two years later, she was captured by Tories and carried to St John for trial as a Yankee spy, and though everyone who knew her testified to her charities and virtues, she was declared guilty and hanged. It was on the gallows that she promised to be true to the American people, and to revisit them on her death day anniversary whenever they were to prepare for war.

Starting point is 00:15:13 There, on her rock of prophecy, people always saw and heard her when strife was imminent. End of Section 3, recording by Alan Mapstone. Section 4 of American Myths and Legends Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. American Myths and Legends Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner, a shot in the moonlight. On the Stroudwater Road leading out of Portland, Maine, stood the horse tavern, a mere watering place in the woods, but a landmark,

Starting point is 00:16:05 for it occupied the site of a cabin put up there in 1740 by Joe Wire, known more generally as the scout. Wire dressed in leather with a powder horn and a knife slung from his shoulder, and this hut was his lonely shelter when he was not hunting Indians. In the summer of 1746, word reached him from horse beef falls 10 miles away, that his sister had been killed by the savages and her daughter carried into captivity. He was on the trail within the minute. The girl had evidently been confident of rescue, for she had struck her heel into the earth occasionally to leave a mark, had broken off twigs and leaves, and on one rock where she had rested had scattered some beads from a bracelet that the scout had given her on a birthday. Wyer's trained

Starting point is 00:16:55 eye was quick to see and understand these tokens. He followed fast. Once, as he slipped on a ledge, he caught a branch tearing its foliage. The noise was heard, for presently an Indian came slinking back upon the trail, peering cautiously about. Wire dropped behind a bush and held his breath. The Indian listened long, then straightened and went back, evidently believing that the sound had been made by a deer, and unsuspecting longer that an Avenger might be on his track. The Indian soon overtook a comrade of his own race, who had been walking onward with the girl. She had small reason to fear harm, for she guessed that she would be sold to the French in Canada, and to make the march a long and slow one, she was affecting lameness.

Starting point is 00:17:46 When the two savages stopped at nightfall, they bound her wrists and ankles, but allowed her to sit beside their fire while they prepared some venison and berries for her supper. After smoking for a while, one of the Indians rolled himself in his blanket and instantly went to sleep. leaving the other to watch beside his prisoner. Luckily, a wind was stirring the forest, and the slow steps of wire were not heard amid the sway, creek, and crackle of the branches. Waiting patiently in the shadows

Starting point is 00:18:17 until the Indian had turned his head, he crept behind the captive and cut her bonds. She was frontier-bred, and not a start or murmur of surprise betrayed her glad emotion. Wire approached closer, and in the faintest of whispers, asked if any other Indians were of the party.

Starting point is 00:18:37 She shook her head. The guard, who an instant before had been seated stolidly on the earth with his eyes seemingly fixed on vacancy, noticed the motion and leaped up, knife in hand. Almost at the instant, wires rifle spoke, and the man fell, dead. The sleeping Indian wakened by the report sprang to his feet with senses all alert, and hoping to get the girl away from her rescuers. he grasped her wrist and urged her into the darkness. She broke and ran.

Starting point is 00:19:09 Double on him, cried Wire, who was hastily reloading his gun, and she did so. In a little break where the moonlight came down, he could see the two running toward him, exactly aligned. Evidently the Indian had now given up the thought of saving the girl alive

Starting point is 00:19:26 and was bent upon her death and that of her friend. The scout could not fire without imperiling the girl, though the savage was gaining on her and had pulled out his axe. The risk must be taken, though, it might be death in either case. The Indian was a head taller than his captive, but both were in quick motion, and it was dark and confused under the trees. Growning a prayer wire through the piece to his shoulder, he saw the axe lifted and glint in the moon.

Starting point is 00:19:56 Another report. A lock of hair flew up, cut from his niece's head by the bullet that pierced through the Indian's brain. The girl was saved. As they set off homeward way, they heard wolves quarreling over the corpses. End of Section 4. Section 5 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. American Myths and Legends Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. The Rescue of Molly Finney. In 1756, Thomas Mainz had cleared some acres in what is now Freeport Maine,

Starting point is 00:20:46 and had put up a comfortable log house, but he was not to enjoy his possession long. The Indians came to the place in the night, slew him and one of his children, wounded his wife, and carried into captivity his sister-in-law, the pretty, pert, and lively, Molly Finney. One of the Red Raiders had been shot, and on the six weeks' march into quote, where the band was to collect the bounty offered by the French for English and Yankee scalps, and where they expected to sell their captive, the girl was compelled to serve as nurse to the wounded man. It is thought that she put more salt and tobacco than emoliance into the dressing,

Starting point is 00:21:24 where the patient would spring from his couch with the most awful howls and threaten her with beatings. But the others always interfered, for they were forced to admire her pluck and pride. albeit they told her that if the injured one died on the journey, they would surely make an end of her at the same time. On reaching Quebec, she was sold to a man named Le Moyne, who treated her fairly except that he gave her no more liberty than she needed, for the sweeping of dust from the walks under his eye and into it when she could. She was a good cook and manager, hence she presently reached a place in the kitchen, and was there seen by one master Buivé, a soft-hearted, none too stout-headed, neighbor, who found frequent reason for calls on the Le Moynes, and who presently began open court

Starting point is 00:22:10 to the red-cheeked wench. Old Le Moyne did not like this. An elderly wife of acid temper had suspected him of pinching the cheek of their housemaid. But, be that as it might, the old fellow had paid hard cash for Molly, and the servant question was as much of a problem then as it has often been since. He was not going to let his prize escape. And biding the time when she might be trusted abroad on errands, he kept close watch upon her and locked her into her room every night. This precaution was to her ultimate advantage. One morning she answered a knock at the front door, and was confronted by a young, well-appearing Yankee sea captain, whose ship had recently come to port for trading. For hostilities were over, and the colonists were eager to make money again.

Starting point is 00:22:58 before she could ask his errand, a commonplace one made up for the occasion, he had thrust a note into her hand with a sign of caution. This paper she read in her room. It told her that friends in Maine had commissioned a bearer to smuggle her away from Quebec as quickly and secretly as possible. He had learned, through diplomatic inquiry, where she was, and how closely guarded, so he would await her reply at seven o'clock next morning. At that hour she was industriously sweeping the walk. and one of the things that was swept almost into the hands of Captain McClellan as he strolled past was a folded letter, which that worthy read as soon as he had rounded the corner, for old Lemoyne was glaring upon them both from the doorway. It revealed the plan of the house, showed the position of Molly's room,

Starting point is 00:23:48 and appointed 11 o'clock that night as the time for the escape. Prompt at the hour the sailor was under her window. He tossed a rope to her which she made fast to her bed, and descended. send it into his arms. In a quarter of an hour, the two were aboard the Hesaba Strong, which was off for her home port Falmouth at daybreak, and after the journey, of course, they were married. When Daddy Lemoyne unlocked Molly's door in the morning, he knocked and called, but there was no response. He entered, gone, ha, a note. What was that? Woman's will is the Lord's wheel. Good day, Master Lemoine. A rope to the minks. An elopement. That's what it

Starting point is 00:24:28 was, that sneaking scamp Buivé, with his soft voice and smooth ways. Lemoine seized his cane, and a good stout timber it was. He went around to neighbor Buivé, and before that worthy could offer any protest or explanation, he had given him a dreadful basting. End of Section 5. Section 6 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public do.

Starting point is 00:25:03 For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. American Myths and Legends Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner Dead Man's Ledge Dead Man's Ledge, near Gull's Head, on the main coast, has borne that name since the finding of a body there, the body of a man clinging to the kelp and swinging grotesquely in the surges. His ship had been pounded to splinters the night before. People on the head have claimed that they could hear the man wailing whenever a storm was coming up. Wrecking little of this superstition, old John Brown and his wife, Bess,

Starting point is 00:25:43 set up a ship-shaped cabin near the ledge and eeked out a living by gardening, jobbing, fishing, and gathering stores and timber such as washed along the shore. A sturdy soul was brown, and although they called him a wrecker, he never in his life had shown a false beacon or kept property claimed by any other. Solace of his age was his foster-daughter Nell, a precious bit of floatsome that in her infancy had come to land from a stranded bark, while a fourth inmate of the place, that is, for several years, was Antonio, a strong, quiet, dark-faced Spaniard, who sometimes helped Brown in his work on the boats, but was allowed to ramble, much as he chose, often wandering alone for hours together on the rocks, muttering to himself, his eyes that could gleam lovingly, flashing in a dangerous fashion. For another had come to the crowded little house, a young southerner, Edward Irving,

Starting point is 00:26:41 whom old Brown had rescued offshore from a capsized yacht. Irving was a student, a fellow of taste, manner, and reading, and Antonio saw with misgiving the dawn of an interest on Nell's part in this visitor, who had so much to tell her of the life of the field and the sea that she had never known, and to whose interpretation she owed a new love,

Starting point is 00:27:03 for the grandeur and beauty of nature. Antonio shadowed them in their walks, and his way of moodiness and silence increased upon him. One evening he proposed that Irving should go with him to a rock beyond dead man's ledge, where some curious purple shells were to be found, with a promise to return presently, the two sailed off together. The ledge was but three feet out of water, and the tide was coming in, the tide that in a few hours would bury the rocks under two fathoms of sea. Knowing that the time was short, Irving bent so earnestly to the search that he had no eyes for anything else.

Starting point is 00:27:40 He did not see Antonio wander in pretended aimlessness back to the boat. He did not see his black scowl as he clambered in and cast off. The rattle of the sail as it was hauled into place aroused him. The incoming waves were wetting his feet. Antonio uttered a giving laugh as he caught his eye, and throwing down the helm swung about and danced off on a freshening wind. Irving called to him to stop his pranks and take him aboard. The Spaniard showed his teeth in a tigorous schnarl, shouted a curse at him, and bade him die as a dog.

Starting point is 00:28:17 Then, turning his back, he let out the sail and cut away. Irving was for a time unable to believe that Antonio was not joking. But as the boat receded in the twilight and the water rose about him, it came upon him that he had been abandoned there to certain death. Antonio then was his enemy. Why? The girl, heaven. Why had he been so blind? The vast and whitening waters now lapped to his knees. The moon was rising. Its light was the last he should ever look upon. He realized the hopelessness of his situation. His last breath he would give to prayer to begging pardon for his sins and blessings on the girl who had smiled happiness into his

Starting point is 00:28:59 heart so short a time before. With the utterance of her name, a new life seemed to enter him. He called Nell, then despite his distress he half smiled at his folly. He was miles beyond her hearing. But what was that, that black thing going by in the moon track? A boat? No. A shark? Possibly. yet it floated too lightly to be alive. It was a floating spar. If only he could reach it, he might be saved. Death was certain if he stayed. He would chance his strength against wind and tide.

Starting point is 00:29:33 Throwing off his shoes and jacket, he plunged into the waves, and after an exhausting struggle he reached the timber, threw himself upon it at full length, and prayed more earnestly than before. How long he drifted he could not tell, it seemed days. as he lay clinging to the piece of wreckage, a far faint hello came to his ears. He replied with a shout.

Starting point is 00:29:56 The call was repeated from time to time, a little louder each repetition, and each time answered. At last a rushing sound was heard, and a boat came flying up. Luff there, Nell, steady, here he is. God's name, lad. How came ye in this fix?

Starting point is 00:30:12 Gia hand, easy now. There ye are. Where's Tonyo? Where's the boat? Nell, you see, you couldn't have heard Mr. Edward call your name, but you were right in guessing he was in danger. Women are mostly, well, I don't mind you're kissing him, considering. Don't cry. He's only chilled a bit. We'll have him before the fire in a half an hour, and this old sail will cover him meantime, but the boat. The old man's rage and astonishment were boundless when he learned of Antonio's treachery,

Starting point is 00:30:43 but he and his household buried their animosity next day. when some neighbors came to report that they had found a body on dead man's ledge. It was Antonio. Drowned. End of Section 6. Section 7 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain.

Starting point is 00:31:12 For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. American Myths and Legends Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. Maine's woodland terrors. It is feared that some of the creatures which infest the woods of Aristuch, Piscataqui, and Penobscottsk counties, especially in the lumbering season, have had their mischievous qualities magnified in local myths for the silencing of fretful children and the stimulation of generosity on the part of greenchoppers. It is the newcomer in a lumber camp who is expected to supply the occasional quart of whiskey that shall pacify razor shins, and to do a little more than his share of the breakfast-getting, errand-running, and so on,

Starting point is 00:32:01 in order to quiet the hostility of the Willamalones. Like the Duppies and rolling calves of the West Indies, these creatures are not seen as often as they were, for they have a fixed hostility to schools, never venturing within ten miles of one. The Willam alone is a quick little animal, like a squirrel, that rolls in its fingers poison lichens into balls and drops them into the ears and on the eyelids of sleeping men in camp, causing them to have strange dreams and headaches, and to see unusual objects in the snow. It is the hardest drinkers in the camp who are said to be most easily and most often affected by the poison. The liquor in prohibition states is always plentiful and bad, and in combination with the pellets of the Willamalones is nearly fatal. More odd than this animal is the side hill winder, a rabbit-like creature so-called because he winds about steep hills in only one direction.

Starting point is 00:32:59 And in order that his back may be kept level, the downhill legs are longer than the uphill pair. He is seldom caught, but the way to kill him is to head him off with dogs when he is corkscrewing up a mountain. As the winder turns, his long legs come on the uphill side and tip him over an easy prey. His fat is a cure for diseases caused by the Willam alone, but to eat his flesh is to die a hard and sudden death. Much to be dreaded is the dingball, a panther whose last tail joint is ball-shaped and bare of flesh. With this weapon, it cracks its victim's skull. There is no record of a survival from the blow of a dingball. In older traditions it sang with a human voice, thus loring the incautious from their cabins to have their sconces broken in the dark.

Starting point is 00:33:49 It is fond of human flesh and will sing all night for a meal of Indians. An unpleasant person is Razor Shins, a deathless red man who works for such as are kind to him, but mutilates that larger number of the ignorant who neglect to pay tribute. Keep Razor Shins supplied with fire water, a jug at every full moon, and he will now and then fell a tree for you with his sharp shin bones if nobody is around or will clear up a bit of road. But fail in this, and you must be prepared to give up your scalp, which he can slice from your head with a single kick, or he will clip off your ears and leave cuts on you that will look like saber strokes. When a green hand arrives in a lumber camp, it is his duty to slake the thirst of razor shins.

Starting point is 00:34:33 He puts a jug of virulent banger whiskey at the door. The best proof that the Indian gets it is shown in the odor of breathed alcohol that pervades the premises all night and the emptiness of the jug in the morning. Where French canucks are employed at chopping, you must look to see them all quit work if a white owl flies from any of the trees they are felling. And they must not look back nor speak to it, for it is a ghost, and will trouble them unless they leave that part of the wood for fully 30 days. But worst of all is the windigo

Starting point is 00:35:06 that ranges from Labrador to Moosehead Lake, preferring the least populous and thickest wooded districts. A Canadian Indian, known as Sol Your Foot, is the only man who ever saw one and lived for merely to look upon the Windigo is doom and to cross his track is deadly peril. There is no need to cross the track, for it is plain enough.

Starting point is 00:35:29 His footprints are 24 inches long, and in the middle of each impress is a red spot showing where his blood has oozed through a hole in his moccasin. For the windigo, dark and huge and shadowy as he seems, has yet a human shape and many human attributes. The belief in this monster is so genuine that lumbermen have secured a monopoly of certain jobs by scaring competitors out of the neighborhood through the simple device of tramping past their camp in fur-covered snow shoes and squeezing a drop of beef blood or paint into each footprint. There was at one time a general flight of Indian choppers from a lumber district in Canada, and nothing could persuade them to return to work, where the track of the windigo had been seen.

Starting point is 00:36:16 It was found that this particular windigo was an Irishman who wanted that territory for himself and his friends, but the Indians would not be convinced. They kept away for the rest of the season. The stealthy stride of the monster makes every lumberman's blood run as cold as the Androscoggin under its ice roof, and its voice is like the moaning of the pines. On the slopes of Mount Katadden lives Pumula, the Indian devil, a being that has the shape of a panther but is larger and wears four tusks that hang out of his mouth or 12 or 14 inches. He will eat animals and Indians, but his animals.

Starting point is 00:36:54 so terrified by white man that no scientist has been able to get within telescoping range of him. Bullets avail nothing against him, and knives are as mosquito stings. Only one thing can kill him, a stroke of lightning. In the old days, Pomula made a yearly levy on the Indians, selecting half a dozen of the most juicy. But since they had doings with sportsmen, the Indians have become so flavored with rum that Pamula can stomach only the maidens. In 1823, the devil killed four members of a hunting party on Joe Mary Lake, three more next day at South Twin Lake, and had nearly overtaken the survivors at Millenickert Rips near Elbow Lake

Starting point is 00:37:35 when a thunderboat fell down a birch tree on which he was sharpening his claws and stretched him dead. The Indians say that he was twice as long as a four-man canoe. The body was floated to Old Town on two boats, and the people of that Soberberg, the capital of the Indian Reservation, celebrated the death with candles and firewater. One of the tusks, blackened by the lightning, is treasured in the family of old chief Soccalexis. Geologists have seen it and say it came out of the head of the saber-tooth tiger

Starting point is 00:38:09 that lived in the Maine woods several millions of years ago. As the scientists did not live in Maine in 1823, how are they to know that the tiger did not hold over until that date. End of Section 7. Section 8 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording.

Starting point is 00:38:35 All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner, The Great Stone Face. After the venerable Pasoaconaway had been translated to heaven on his

Starting point is 00:38:55 fire car, the chieftaincy of the Penicooks fell to his son Juan Alaset. His rule for some years was happy. His people trusted him, and he found a helpful wife in Mineola, daughter of Chakoris. But trouble came in time as it does to all nations and all people. Raman, the sister of Minniola, loved Juan Alaset, secretly, and loved him to sickness. Finding that the chief was content in his family relations and unconscious of her longing, she flung herself from a steep at the west of Amoskiag Falls. The fortune of the tribe began to change. One Alonisat never knew the reason for the suicide.

Starting point is 00:39:36 The Pentecooks had lived in a peace their watchful enemies said was weakness, and their chief became a praying Indian. It was about this time that young Connozodin of the Mohawks, breaking up some ancient and forgotten injuries, roused his people to remember and revenge. Pasacanaway, who had commanded the spirits, was no longer to be feared, and with 500 men to wage war, the Pentecooks might be exterminated. So Conas sat and picked his best and bravest and left his home in the Adirondacks for the loftier Adjochukes. He reached the principal camp of Wanalaniset's people, while only the women and children and aged were there.

Starting point is 00:40:18 The hunters, having departed on an expedition in search and fishing game, and when the hunters returned to what had been their homes, they found only wreck, with the gory corpses of their fathers lying among the ashes. No time was lost in the pursuit of the marauders whose trail was still fresh, for their women and children were to be recovered, other villages were to be warned, and as many as possible of the foe were to be killed. The captives were overtaken and sent back, but the slippery mohaw were taken. hawks fled and were lost among the giant hills, the ghostly and forbidden mountains of Franconia. It is said that in the last hours of their march, they were led by a tall, dark man, a tireless man with legs of oak, who kept so far ahead that they could not be sure it was Conasadden. Yet nobody had seen Conasadon fall out. On through tangled woods they went, heavy with sleep, empty of food, unspeakably weary. Some of them sore with wounds received in the

Starting point is 00:41:18 fight. On over ledges, slippery with moss, on over and under windfalls. Then they came to a lighter growth, then to broken masses of granite, and the domes of the adjia chooks were against the stars before them. Descending into a valley, stumbling with exhaustion, they found water and drank. Then stretched carelessly on the grass. They fell asleep. In the morning they rose wearily, for they must go far ere they could be safe from the axes of the Pentecooks, and looked for their leader. An exclamation of astonishment and awe caused every eye to turn aloft. From the crest of a mighty cliff, smitten with the red light of dawn and wreathed in cloud, looked forth a great and solemn face of stone.

Starting point is 00:42:06 It is the great spirit, cried the Indians, and falling to the earth they buried their faces in their hands. When they looked again the morning glow had faded, and the face was dulled. dark and stern. A blaze of light filled the valley for an instant, and a voice spoke in thunder tones. You have warred needlessly on your brothers. You have invaded the hills which are the home of Manitou. You have neglected your wives and children to shed human blood. I am angered at your cruelty, therefore die. But you shall be a warning in your deaths. You shall be turned to rocks on this mountainside. Then it seemed as if all the forest broke into a dirge, and the mohawks sank to the earth

Starting point is 00:42:54 again and slept. Slept never again to wake, and their bodies drew the slope at the foot of the stone Manitou's throne. End of Section 8. Section 9 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner, the stream spirit's wife. An Indian living in the vast amphitheater of Tuckerman's ravine on the side of Mount Washington had a daughter famed for amiability and beauty. And long before she had reached maturity, the suitors for her hand had included nearly every

Starting point is 00:43:49 young man whose lodge was within sight of the central peak of the angiochukes. Yet considering her charms and goodness, none of these seemed worthy to call her wife. Returning from the hunt one evening, the father found his wigwam empty. This did not surprise him, as he knew that his squaw had gone to the glen to gather raspberries, and he supposed that his daughter was with her. But when the woman returned at nightfall, she came along. No spicy smoke or savor of roasting bare meat or of boiling succotash foretoken the cheer insufficiency of home. The husband and father sat upon a ledge looking stolidly up at the rocky walls of the ravine

Starting point is 00:44:34 deepening in shadow. Seeing that the girl was with neither, both parents began to suffer anxiety on her account. Had she lost her way in the wood? Had she fallen from some of the cliffs? had she slipped into some of the ponds or streams and striking on a rock, been stunned and drowned. They called loudly, but there was no answer save in the faint far echo of their own voices. They sought persistently while light remained, forcing their way through thickets over rocks and fallen trees, but without a veil. Next day they resumed the search and the next, but to no purpose, for the girl did not appear.

Starting point is 00:45:17 Bitter then was their grief, for they now believed that she had fallen from a height or had been dispatched by a bear or panther, and she was given up as lost. Some hunters came in after a time with joyful news. The girl had been seen at the edge of a pool below Glen Ellis Falls, smiling into the stream born from the summer lasting snows, and clasped in the arms of a tall man with a shining face, hair fell to his waist. The two disappeared when they found the eyes of the hunters upon them, even as the spray of the torrent vanished in the wind. But the parents' hearts were eased, for they knew that their daughter had become the wife of a god of the mountain. And though they

Starting point is 00:46:04 never saw her again the manate who blessed them for her sake, these mountain spirits being nearly always kind. The old couple had only to go to the pool and call for a deer, moose, or bear. when the animal would bound from the shrubbery into the water and swim against their spear points. End of Section 9 Section 10 of American Myths and Legends Volume 1 This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org.

Starting point is 00:46:48 American Myths and Legends Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner Stone Woman of Squam Squam Lake in the White Mountains is really Wanah Skawmuk, meaning beautifully surrounded place of water, but with a willingness to avoid work that is characteristic of some of us in this day,

Starting point is 00:47:10 the name has been reduced to a syllable. One of the bays on this lovely sheet has for years been known as Squaw Cove, because of a block of granite, on its shore that resembled a woman. This block, having a history and interest, was destroyed by white men years ago. Here lived Juaniga,

Starting point is 00:47:31 a withered crank who in his age desired a young and pretty wife. Yes, Sunita would do as well as any. He had known her father for more than 70 years. He had two ponies to swap for her. She was a pretty good cook and leather dresser. Therefore, Sunita, it should be. He proposed to her father and was by the latter accepted as a son-in-law. Albeit red, human nature is like other kinds,

Starting point is 00:47:59 and pretty girls do not marry fusty codgers except when money or titles are thrown in. This girl had no love for Oneiga. She had long ago changed hearts with Ananus. But this exchange of affection, not being a needed prelude to marriage in the Indian country, she was told off to wed the rickety groom. There was a great feast on the day that should have been happy, a feast that Ananus failed to grace by his really graceful presence. An old Waniga so gorged himself with corn and deer meat

Starting point is 00:48:32 that he could keep awake only long enough to reach his wigwam where he dropped on his pile of furs and went sound asleep. A squall was rising, so he did not hear the lifting of his tent flap, nor see the dusky face that was peering in. Sunita sat apart. motionless, silent. Anonis entered and bent over her. Come, he whispered. My canoe is waiting. I cannot live without you. If I go from here alone, I shall never see the sun again. My heart has always been yours, she answered. I hate this man to whom they have given me.

Starting point is 00:49:11 But hark the storm. The great spirit is angry. I dare not go. I dare all. Trust me, and I will protect you. Seizing her in his arms, he carried her through the door and down the path. Either the fall of the door flap or a gust of coming tempest awakened the husband, and looking about him in the gathering dusk, he found that he was deserted. With a fear of something amiss, he caught up his bow and arrows and looked out. Two figures were entering a canoe. A lightning flash revealed them, fitting an arrow to the string he shot. Anonis uttered a cry and pitched headlong to the bottom of the lake,

Starting point is 00:49:55 overturning the canoe so that Sunita was fain to scramble for the shore, where she stood dumbly wringing her hands and peering with great eyes into the water. The husband made no step to recover his bride. He looked up and raised his lean arms to the whirling clouds. Great spirit, he prayed. The other I leave to you, but this faithless one, make an example of her to all her sex. Strike her with your fire arrows.

Starting point is 00:50:25 A flash sent him tottering back, and a roar so filled the glens that his heart stood still. Repenting his anger, he staggered toward the lake, calling on Sunita. But she did not answer. He stumbled, and fell heavily on his head. When he awoke, with many pains, the sun shone, and near where he had killed Ananah, stood Squall Rock, a monument. End of Section 10. Section 11 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1.

Starting point is 00:51:02 This is a Libre Vox recording. All Libre Vox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibreVox.org. Read by Julie Burks. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner, Section 11. The Confession of Hansard Nolais It is not generally known that Hawthorne's romance, the Scarlet Letter, had at least an alleged foundation, the charge, namely, against the Reverend Hansard Nolais, M.A., first pastor of a church

Starting point is 00:51:37 in Dover, New Hampshire, a man of learning, a good man, and Cotter Mathers' reckoning. He was a native of Lincolnshire and Old England, where he died in 93, and he came to New England to escape persecution, for he had embraced Puritanism and was obliged to endure the usual consequences. When the law put its grip on him for the holding of mischievous doctrine, he had the rare fortune to fall into the hands of a sympathetic constable who, seeing no more evil in one religion than another, allowed Nolus to escape. Twelve weeks it took him to reach America, and six brass farthings were his only wealth when he went ashore. This man was born for trouble. Hardly was he secure in the stronghold of Puritanism, ere the spirit again moved him, this time to become a Baptist.

Starting point is 00:52:30 So he was as vigorously cast out and as rigorously kept out as if he had been a papist. In those days it was no slight matter to differ with the clergy, and for one to cast contempt on them was to incur a fine of twenty shillings and set in ye stocks not exceeding four hours. But if he go on to transgress in ye same kind, then to be immersed forty shillings, or to be whipped for every such transgression. He may have been neither immersed nor whipped, but he was driven away from Boston. Still, a safe harbor offered in Dover, and there for several years he preached the gospel, according to his lights, and lived in seeming peace. Alack, it befell that his deeper troubles only began with his removal. His look and carriage, at first so full of strength, lost quality.

Starting point is 00:53:26 His aspect grew haggard and furtive. He shrank in body. His eye was clouded, his brow bent or lifted at an angle, as in pain. He walked the street, gazing abstractedly on the earth. The greetings of his people made him start and cry out. His dress was uncare for. His wife kept her home and was often in tears. Rumors of witchcraft were abroad. Surely the pastor was a victim. Would it end in death?

Starting point is 00:53:57 No. It ended in confession and deliverance. That day was long remembered when Mr. Nolais, from his pulpit, humbled himself, and asked forgiveness of his people and his God. never again would he preach from the sacred book. Never again would he stand at that desk their minister. Never again would he meet his fellow citizens as friends.

Starting point is 00:54:22 A figure bowed almost to the floor in the parson's pew, his wife. And now, says Nolice, I leave you. I unworthy, self-despised. He tore apart the sermon he had preached. It fell fluttering to the floor. He closed the great Bible and reverently kissed its cover. I cast myself on the pity of our father, comfort and aid my wife and children,

Starting point is 00:54:49 have mercy on the maids I have dishonored. He looked over the assemblage. Every head was bent. Slowly, with white, drawn face, an uncertain step, he passed down the aisle into the soft white Sabbath sunshine. Next day, two girls, whose cheeks have been fresh, were seen with scarlet letters broidered on their garments, the AD that's spelled to every colonist, adulterous.

Starting point is 00:55:19 End of Section 11. Section 12 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libre Vox recording. All Libre Vox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibreVox.org, read by Julie Burks. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. Section 12, Peabody's Leap. Peabody's Leap, a cliff 30 feet high on the Vermont side of Lake Champlain, perpetuates the fame of Timothy Peabody, who settled thereabout when there were no other white

Starting point is 00:56:04 residents within 50 miles. His family had been killed by the Indians, and it was in order to retaliate on the Red Men that he chose the solitary place for his abode. Whenever he had news of the movement of any company of natives within striking distance, he was waiting somewhere on their line of march, and they had generally left two or three dead behind them before they reached their destination. Several times they tried to burn his hut, but were always interrupted by a succession of shots from some unlikely hollow or tree-top, and in time they came to have a superstitious fear of him and were greatly willing not to meet him. His leap was made in escaping from a party that had passed his neighborhood with three white prisoners. An Indian who had gone aside from the advanced guard

Starting point is 00:56:57 to look for game saw the well-known cap of the hunter, a long cap of fox skin, cautiously projecting itself from behind a tree, whereupon he fired. Peabody, who had hung his cap on the end of his rifle, in order to draw the bullet of the Indian, coolly stepped from his cover and shot his foeman dead. Knowing that two shots in quick succession were likely to bring the band upon him, Peabody rapidly stripped the corpse of hunting-shirt, moccasins, belt, wampum, and knife, which he put upon him. himself, dobed his brow, chin, and cheeks with the warm blood of his victim, in lieu of paint, and so disguised that any stray Indian might not fire at him, he pushed along the trail and reached the camp at nightfall. Without disclosing himself, he contrived decaying possession

Starting point is 00:57:53 of the guns of the party, long enough to withdraw the charges, wriggled to the shore, cut one or two of their canoes adrift, silently entered the war. water, and in a whisper warned the three prisoners who were tied and lying in a boat for safe keeping to make no noise and not to try to sit upright. He then swam back to shore where he had left his rifle, old plumber, he called it, but was seen by a guard, and the whole company made for him. He shot one, gave another a dreadful clump on the head with gun butt, then, leaping from the precipice into deep water, he swam to the prisoner's canoe and with vigorous strokes pushed it into the darkness. He made a small circuit and landed the captives

Starting point is 00:58:39 in safety, while the Indians were shouting in rage over their lost canoes and harmless guns. End of Section 12. Section 13 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Librevox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit visit Libravox.org, read by Docti O. Martin, American Myths and Legends, Volume 1, by Charles M. Skinner, a traveled narrative. There is one narrative, formerly common in school readers, in collections of moral tales for youth, and in the miscellany columns of newspapers, that is thought to have been a favorite with Aristophanes and to have beguiled the pharaohs when they had the blues, supposing blues do have been invented in their time.

Starting point is 00:59:43 Every now and again, it reappears in the periodicals that enjoys a new vogue for a couple of months. Many villages clamor for recognition as the scene of the incident, but as Rutland, Vermont, makes a special appeal, it may as well have happened there as anywhere. So let it be in Rutland that the Crossroads Starkeeper dwelt, who was burdened by the usual loungers that sat about his shop, talked politics, squirted tobacco juice on his stove, and, merely to beguile the time, nibbled at his dried fish, cheese, crackers, maple sugar, and spruce gum, consuming in the course of a year a long hundred weight of these commodities. These pickings were made openly and were not looked upon as thefts any more than are the

Starting point is 01:00:33 little pieces of cloth that are taken home as samples by women who go shopping. Groceries that were not nailed up or down were a sort of bait to gather purchasers. The Starkeeper did not mind these obstructions because he added a penny to a bill now and then and so kept even. What he did object to was the sneaking away of dear commodities like white sugar, drugs, tobacco, ammunition, ribbons, boots, scented soap and catechisms. On a sharp night in December, the usual worthies sat about the stove, telling one another how many different kinds of a great man. Andrew Jackson was, and what was the best way to cure mange and dogs? The air of the shop was close and hot, but those who breathed it believed it

Starting point is 01:01:24 pleasanter than the crisp cold outside. Fresh and wholesome air is never so little prized as where there is most of it. The proprietor who occupied a rickety armchair and was throwing in his wisdom to make the aggregate impressive, kept his eye roving over his stock, and presently he noticed that Iqabod Thompson, a shiftless out at Elbow's fellow,

Starting point is 01:01:50 was nibbling more freely from the cracker barrel than it was genteel to do. He pretended ignorance of this, and in a little time he saw Iqabod slip a pad of butter out of a furkin where each pound lay neatly wrapped in cloth take off his hat in a pretense of wiping his forehead drop the butter into the hat and put it on again ikobod then loitered ostentatiously before the harness and blanket departments made a casual inquiry as to current rates for dr peel garlick's providential peals went to the stove spreading his hands for a moment of warmth then turning up his collar said he guessed he must be going. Oh, don't go yet, said the shopkeeper, kindly.

Starting point is 01:02:36 Sit down a minute while I tell you what happened to Hank Buffam's big sow last week, not wishing to come under suspicion by exhibiting anxiety to reach home, the place to which he never went until all the other places were closed. Iqabod accepted a seat in the circle. The shopkeeper spun his yarn to a tenuous length. He piled wood into the stove, too. until the iron sides of it glared cherry red. The heat became furious.

Starting point is 01:03:06 A glistening yellow streak appeared on the suspect's forehead. He wiped it away with his handkerchief. He did not seem at ease. In a few minutes he yawned, laboriously, remarked that he had been up late the night before and that he must be going home. All right, consented the merchant, but just wait a few minutes till I put up a few ginger snaps for your misses.

Starting point is 01:03:30 some I just got from Boston. Naturally, an offer like that could not be refused. It took an unconscionable time to put up a dozen little cakes, and Iqabod was now sweating butter in good earnest. He accepted the gift, thankfully, yet with a certain preoccupation, and as he bent over to tuck his trousers into his boots, he showed his hair soaking with grease, his collar limp with it, streaks and spatters down his coat and spots appearing in his hat. The starkeeper winked at the members of his Congress, pointed significantly to the buttertub, then to Iqabod's hat, then laid his finger on his lips. The loungers caught the idea, and when their victim was again ready to start, they remembered errands and business for him that kept him for several

Starting point is 01:04:21 minutes longer in their company. The butter was now coming down in drops and reels, and the poor scamp was at one moment red with heat and confusion, then pale with fear, because thieves fared hardly in that town. On one pretext and another he was detained, till the butter was all melted and his clothes, partial ruins before, were wholly spoiled. He arose with decision at last and said he could not stay another minute. Well, said the shopkeeper, we can let you go now. We've had fun enough out of you to pay for the butter you stole. You'll be needing new clothes tomorrow. Give us a call. Good night. End of Section 13. Section 14 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.

Starting point is 01:05:25 org. Read by Virginia Neville. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. Section 14. The escaped none. All trace of it is gone now, the convent that was burned in 1834. The hill it stood upon, the garden, the orchard, the high walls, and it is better so. With its disappearance has vanished the token of an act never to be repeated on American soil. For 50 years, the ruins of an Ursuline nunnery topped the deserted Mount Benedict in Somerville, Massachusetts. A rifle shot away arose the shaft that commemorates our first great battle for political liberty, the monument on Bunker Hill. Strange contrast to the shattered masonry that recorded a seeming attack on religious freedom. It is well to weigh the case before blaming too severely. And because prejudice

Starting point is 01:06:33 has so clouded it that the truth will never be known, this story of the convent has already become a tradition rather than a history. Puritan Boston was disturbed when a Romanist convent was built within her precincts in 1820. The great eruption of Celts and Latins had not then begun. Americans were of English stock and were a people united in belief, the descendants of the cavaliers in the south, forming so small a Catholic population, that it made no show worth mentioning in figures. Popular dislike had something to do with the convent's removal a few years later to an isolated hilltop overlooking the marshes of the mystic, though it could not have been dreamed that such a measure had been compelled by any sense of insecurity. It was strange, and

Starting point is 01:07:22 foreign this house of the black robed. The inmates had all been sent from Europe. Women apt in the teaching of accomplishments which passed for an education in that day. The harp, the piano, singing, drawing, wax flowers, embroidery, etiquette, and French. Women who could read Latin and had gone through Euclid were frowned upon as blue stockings. Yet the benign purposes of the nuns were so misunderstood and misconstrued that a select man of the town told the mother superior that he wanted to tear the place about her ears. Echoes of medieval history sounded in the streets and were alleged to come from the lonely building on the hill. There were tales of horrible punishments, of nuns walled up alive for disobedience, of tunnels and dungeons deep under the earth. And it was common belief that the priests and

Starting point is 01:08:20 nuns were proselyting among the Protestant girls who had been committed to their care. There was no active hostility until Sister Mary John, who had been Miss Elizabeth Harrison of Philadelphia, escaped from the convent and sought shelter in Cambridge. She was greatly agitated and said that one of the priests had made violent love to her and pursued her out of the grounds. Public indignation mounted to fever heat when this was rumored. and it approached the danger point when a second report was broadcast that the nun had been captured and taken back to the convent. Here we come to the parting of the ways, for there were men of position who averred that the evidence against the priest was absolute, and that the subsequent denial by the girl was forced from her by threats,

Starting point is 01:09:11 while Bishop Fenwick and the mother superior declared that the girl had been crazed by overwork in teaching, in addition to certain religious fasts and observances of an exhausting nature. When she was called to testify in a court of justice, the sister said that she had been out of her mind. Then, suddenly averting her face from the gaze of those in the courtroom, she burst into tears. A few nights after this episode, a mob was heard coming down the Medford Road. Torches glimmered through the dusk, and above the threatening shouts could be heard the cry, down with the convent. A panic overcame the pupils, though the nuns preserved an outward calm and drew away with the girls to places of safety. The throng broke down the high fence, assaulted the

Starting point is 01:10:01 gardener who alone attempted to stay its entrance, insulted the sisters in their flight, looted the main building, smashed the windows, split up the pianos, and at last applied the torch. Fire alarms were rung, but the crowd kept the engines from playing on the building. No lives were lost, but the convent was destroyed. Next day, such of Boston as had not lost its senses in that sad and savage foray or had recovered them, took measures to secure the arrest of the offenders, several of whom were as well known as the mayor. But they stood together in a general defense, and the only one to be punished was a scapegrace and scapegoat of a boy who was sent to prison for life. There were mutterings of revenge for long after, but no active

Starting point is 01:10:49 retaliation was attempted. The fences were repaired, a keeper was put in charge, and the blackened walls were preserved, apparently as a reproach. Year after year, unfailingly, a bill was presented by the church to the state for the damage worked by the mob. As regularly it was overlooked, refused, or pigeonholed by the legislature. Hatred. were sown on that night that in some quarters are traditionary still. End of section 14. Section 15 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording.

Starting point is 01:11:33 All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Read by Virginia Neville. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. Section 15, the long sleep. Mount Mayanamo, a rag rock in eastern Massachusetts, was one of the dead monsters that had crawled down from the north with ice and stones on its back to desolate the sun god's land. All of these creatures were checked when they reached the hollows dug by the sun god to stay their march, the hollows that have become the pretty New England lakes. And there the god pelted them to death with heated sea.

Starting point is 01:12:17 spears. At the foot of this hill, three centuries ago, lived many of the Aboriginians, progenitors, it is said, of the Abernitz, that arose on the Isle of Manhattan in after years. Their chief was one Wabanoi, who thought more of himself than all the rest of his people did, who never learned anything, never made a true prophecy, and passed into vulgar local history as head man stick in the mud. This chief had a daughter, heartstealer, and he made it a duty to nag and to thwart her in every wish, as befitted the Indian parent of romance.

Starting point is 01:12:57 Fighting Bear, Chief of the Narragansets, fell in love with the girl, and after a speech of three pages in which he likened himself to the sun, the storm, the ocean, to all the strong animals he could remember, and the girl to the deer, could it have been a deer? the singing bird, the zephyr, the waves, and the flowers, he descended to business and claimed her hand. Every Indian, he said, had heard the prophecy that a great race with sick faces, hair on its teeth, thickly clad in summer,

Starting point is 01:13:30 and speaking in a harsh tongue, was coming to drive the red man from the land of his fathers. By this marriage, the Aboriginians and the Narragansets would be united, and two such families could destroy anybody or anything. The professional pride of stick in the mud was touched. He sprang to his feet and cried, Who has foretold this? I didn't. There is only one profit in this district, and that's me. It isn't for green youngsters, Narragansets at that, to meddle with this second-sight business. Understand? Moreover, my arm is so strong it needs no help to exterminate an enemy. I can beat him with my left hand tied behind me. Had you merely asked for my daughter,

Starting point is 01:14:14 I would have given her up without a struggle. If somebody doesn't take her soon, I shall lose my reason. But you have added insult to oratory, and if you don't go quick, you'll never get there at all. Thus speaking, stick in the mud once more wrapped his furs around him so that only his nose and his pipe were left outside, while Fighting Bear folded his arms, scowled, observed something to the effect that, ha-ha, a time would come, and strode into the forest. One evening, a smoke hungover rag rock and shadowy figures flitted through it. A vague fear possessed the public. Stick in the mud, waking from a mince pie dream in the middle of the night, saw in his door faint against the sky the shape of a woman who beckoned,

Starting point is 01:15:02 and, hoping to uncover some secret that would be more useful to him in his fortune-telling matches than his usual and lamentable guesswork, he arose and followed her. The spirit moved lightly, silently up rag rock, and entered a cavern that the chief had never seen before, a cavern glowing with soft light, embedded with deep moss. He sank upon this cushioned floor at a gesture from the spirit. Then, with her arms waving above him, he fell into a sleep. Next day, and for several days, the citizens scoured the woods, the hills, and every other thing except themselves, in the search for stick in the mud, but they did not find him. Another man who had enjoyed singular misfortune in foretelling the weather was promoted to be seer.

Starting point is 01:15:53 Then, when the news reached Rhode Island, that was what it was going to be, air long. Fighting Bear hurried to the scene of his former interview and again claimed Heartstealer as his bride. Nobody said a word, so he took her to his home. Now came the men of sick and hairy faces, white men, who wanted the earth, and took it, making it no longer a pleasant place to live on. It was plain that they were the people whose coming had been foretold, and when King Philip waged a war against the English, fighting bear and a hundred of his friends joined in the riot. He was beaten soundly, and, being a man of sense, once was enough. He kept the peace after that. When stick in the mud awoke,

Starting point is 01:16:38 the cave was lighted again, and the spirit that had led him there stood watching. As his eyes opened, she spoke. Wabanoi, I caused you to sleep that you might be spared the pain of seeing your people forsake their home for other lands. The men with pale faces and black hearts are here. Had you been with your people, you would have stirred them to fight and all would have been killed. As it is, they have not fought. I now set you free. Go into the Narragansit country and live with your daughter.

Starting point is 01:17:11 You will find her married to fight. fighting bear. Do not disturb their happiness. Come. Then the rock opened and the chief tottered into the sunlight. He was full of rheumatism and fringed with moth-eaten whiskers that presently made the dog's bark. He needed new clothes. He needed a dinner. He needed a smoke. If he had known anything of firewater, he would have been sure that he needed a drink. He looked down at Lake Initu, not a canoe, on the site of his village, not a wigwam. The trees had been cut, log houses stood in the clearings. People with colorless faces were using strange implements in tilled fields. A cock crew. Stick in the mud started. It was a new sound to him. A horse laughed. He winced. A sheep

Starting point is 01:18:01 bleated. He began to sweat. A cow lode. He started for a tree. A jackass warbled. He looked around for the cave, but it had closed. Descending, after he had gained confidence, he shaved himself with a cohog shell, found his wreck of a canoe, guided it for the last time across the lake, and landing at its southern end, crushed it to pieces, not the pond, but the canoe. Then he went to Providence, where his daughter met him and presented a few of her children, who climbed over him, hung on to his hair, and otherwise made him feel at home. He saw that he had, he saw that he had had been outclassed as a prophet, and that if he had taken the advice of his son-in-law, he might have avoided being put to sleep in rag rock. Still, this Indian Rip Van Winkle had been refreshed

Starting point is 01:18:52 by his slumbers, and he lived for a long time after, spending a part of every pleasant day in playing horse with the youngest of his grandchildren, for he had found that horses do not bite hard and proudly watching the replacement of youngest number eight by youngest number nine, then by number 10, and so on to a matter of 18 or 20. In September, on the day nearest to full moon, he still goes back to rag rock and looks off at sunrise. You may see him then, or you may see him half an hour later skimming the surface of Horn Pond in his shadow canoe. Having thus revisited the scenes of his youth, he retires for another. year. End of Section 15. Section 16 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Librevox

Starting point is 01:19:48 recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org, read by Virginia Neville. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. Section 16. Tom Dunn's Dance. on Rag Rock. Rag Rock, in which Wabanoi had his long sleep, was a home of sprites and demons down to the 19th century. Thomas Dunn knew this, and on ordinary nights he would have taken all manner of long cuts around it, for he had no fondness for things not of this world, whether they were ghosts or gospels. But on the night of his dance, having been to a husking bee where he had kept his spirits up by pouring spirits down, and having found so many red ears that he was in a state

Starting point is 01:20:42 of high self-satisfaction, for he had kissed his pretty partner twenty times, he spunked up and chanced it straight across the hill. As he approached, he saw a glow among the trees and heard a fiddle going, going like mad. He buffeted his way through the thicket to see who of his townspeople were holding a picnic in the moonshine and dancing to such sad. sacrilegious music, for there was dancing. He could hear the shuffle of feet. In a minute, he had reached the edge of a glade lighted by torches, and found there a richly dressed and merry company, triping it with such spirit as he had never seen before. He dearly liked to shake a leg in a jig or reel, and a chance like this was not to be withstood. He entered the ring,

Starting point is 01:21:31 bowing, and all a grin, and was welcomed with a shout. On a hummock of moss sat a maid without a partner, a maid whose black eyes snapped with mischief, whose cheeks and lips were rosy, and whose skirt raised a trifle higher than common, showed a pair of marvelous neat ankles. The invitation in her smile and sidelong glance were not to be resisted. Tom caught her by the waist, dragged her to her feet and whirled off with her into the gayest, wildest dance he had ever led. He seemed to soar above the earth. After a time he found that the others had seated themselves and were watching him. This put him on his metal, and the violin put lightning into his heels.

Starting point is 01:22:17 He feeded it superbly and won round on round of applause. He and the girl had separated for a matter of six feet and had set in to dance each other down. As he leaped and whirled and cracked his heels in the air in an ecstasy of motion and existence, Tom noticed with pain that the freshness was leaving his partner's face, that it was becoming longer, the eyes deeper and harder. This pain deepened into dismay when he saw that the eyes had turned green and evil, the teeth had projected, sharp and yellow below the lip. The form had grown lank and withered.

Starting point is 01:22:56 He realized at last that it was, was the demon crew of the hill with which he was in company, and his heart grew so heavy that he could barely leap with it inside of him, yet leap he must, for he was lost unless he could keep up the dance till sunrise, or unless a clergyman should order him to stop, which was not a likely thing to happen. So he flung off his coat, hat, vest, and tie, and settled into a business jog. The moon was setting. In two hours he would be free, and then a cramp caught him in the calf, and with a roar of, God save me, he tumbled on his back. The cry did save him, for a witch cannot endure to hear the name of God. He saw a brief vision of scurrying forms, heard growling, hissing, and cursing in strange

Starting point is 01:23:46 phrases, realized for a second that a hideous shape hung threatening over him, was blinded by a flame that stank of sulfur, then he saw and heard no more till daylight. If he was drunk and imagined all this, how can one explain the two portraits of the witch he danced with? They were etched in fire on the handle of his jackknife, one as she appeared when he met her, the other as she looked when his eyes were closing. A fever followed this adventure. After he had regained his health, Tom took to himself a wife, joined the church, forsook all entertainment, drank tea and became a steady workman. He recovered his peace of mind, died a deacon, and was rewarded by having a cherub with a toothache sculptured on his gravestone.

Starting point is 01:24:37 End of Section 16. Section 17 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. Woburn Ghosts The ancient town of Woburn, Massachusetts, had its complement of sprites and spooks.

Starting point is 01:25:16 Did not John Flagg have to pull water from the Black House well, from midnight till dawn, as fast as he could make the bucket go, to slake the thirst of various imps that crouched on the earth around him, roosted on the well-sweep, leaped on his shoulders, and gambled in the air? True, he had visited the tavern assiduously for a week before, but the only contestants against his claim that he had seen imps and fish with owls' wings and snake's tails were the people who could do no more than swear they had not seen any. And why? Because they had been asleep.

Starting point is 01:25:52 This black house, so-called because it was painted black, was built by one of the cleverest criminal pleaders of his day, so skillful in thwarting justice that people said the old Harry was his partner. A thief having stolen a quantity of trousers from a Woburn tailor, he argued him out of quad and took the trousers in part payment for his services, to the deep regret of the tailor who had constructed them. The thief, considering himself wronged in having to give up all the trousers when half of them would have been enough,

Starting point is 01:26:24 and strengthening his purpose by repeating a well-known adage relating to honor among associates, broke into the lawyer's house to steal them back again, when he was so terrified by the appearance of a ghost on the stairs, a white ghost with black wings, that he leaped through a window, cutting himself sadly, and escaped to another county, leaving his Jimmy, keys, dark lantern, and pistol, an added prize, in possession of his defender. While this burglar did not succeed, somebody else did, for the trousers began to disappear, one pair every night. The serving-maid swore that they were of no use to her. The lawyer had no wife who might be ambitious to wear them. And the strange part of it was that the bells attached

Starting point is 01:27:11 by the lawyer to his windows never rang. The stiff paper strewn over the floors to crackle and make the robber advertise and scare himself was never rumpled. The bolts and he keys were all in the morning as they had been when shot for the night. So the thief was the ghost. Several neighbors had seen this dreadful shape with its white robe and dark wings, seen it as plainly as they could see the house. Being a sound sleeper, the lawyer hired a young farmer to bring his gun and watch for the robber from the covert of a closet, where the now-famous trousers hung in concealing festoons. At two in the morning, the watcher saw the lawyer arise from bed, tie a pair of trousers about his neck like a huge cravat,

Starting point is 01:27:56 softly descend the stair, unfasten his door, cross his yard, bury the garment in his hayrick, return, lock his door and go to bed. He did this in his sleep. Next morning they pulled 11 pairs of trousers out of the hay, and again the tailor sorrowed. Another disappointing ghost lived in a ramshackle loft above the horset of a tavern that occupied the site of the central house. It moaned and groaned and rattled a chain. A traveling showman investigated the place, pulled out a splinter that hummed in the wind

Starting point is 01:28:33 like a reed, hooked up a chain that clanked whenever the building shook, and brought in a pigeon that weezed with pip or asthma. The populace was so convinced that he had laid the ghost, not by courage, but by supernatural acts, that it flocked to his show and enabled him to reach his next town with money enough to live on for a week. A less explainable ghost is that of the Indian squaw who was drowned in Horn Pond by her husband

Starting point is 01:29:02 and who pokes her head out of the water sputtering and screaming, as she did at the time of the tragedy. A gunner, hearing this hubbub and taking it to be the outcry of a loon, was going to fire when he saw the head. and shoulders plainly, and found on the shore a blood-stained moccasin. As to dead Indians, a party of them used to hold dances in a cavern opening on Dunham's pond, now drained,

Starting point is 01:29:28 filled, and built over. An early settler who found his way into the cave never found the way out, and he too may be dancing, with impatience. Most feared of all the ghosts was the sheeted skeleton of Daddy Wright that lived in a hollow oak on the edge of Wright's pond also drained and filled. The old man had hanged himself from a limb of this tree, probably because he could not find the Spanish dollars that a thief had buried among its roots. A man in the neighborhood, who had become suddenly rich, was believed to have been quicker and luckier in his search than the late and previous Mr. Wright. When this ghost came out for an airing, he shone with green and moldy He could burn, too.

Starting point is 01:30:14 A man who passed the tree on his way from the tavern in the small hours was so frightened by the sudden emergence of the skeleton that a lock of his hair turned white. It leaped on his shoulders, scorching his hat as it touched him, and then spounded back into the branches. Once it leaped upon the back of a cow as she drank from the pond in late twilight, and when the startled animal ran from under the tree, the skeleton darted out of sight among the leaves, rising as lightly as a bubble. End of Section 17, read by Robin Lee, Denver, April 20, 2022.

Starting point is 01:30:56 Section number 18 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libra Vax recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibraVox.org. Read by Allegra Little Cole. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. How the Black Horse was beaten. Samha of Woburn was well known in the Bay State in the later years of the 18th century, for he was a lover of swift horses, a fearless rider and a layer of shocking wagers,

Starting point is 01:31:30 and a regular attendant at fairs, races, and other manner of doubtful enterprises. He had one mare that he offered to pick against any piece of horse flesh in the country, and he bragged about her in season and out, making of her his chief topic of conversation and prayers, after the matter of men who drive fast horses. While taking the air on his doorstep on a summer evening, he was visited by a bland and dignified stranger whose closely shaven jowls, sober coat, cocked hat, and white wig

Starting point is 01:31:58 made him look like a person, but whose glittering black eyes did not agree with his makeup. This gentleman had called to brag about his black horse that would beat anything on legs as he wished to prove by racing him against Hart's mare. He offered odds of three to one with his horse into the bargain, and he would give the mare ten rods start. The race was to begin at Central Square,

Starting point is 01:32:20 and the black horse must catch the mare by the tail of his teeth before Woburn Common was reached. Sam accepted this challenge in an instant. The next morning the village emptied itself upon the street to see the fun. The word was given. There was a cry and a snap of the whip, and away went the courses, tearing over the earth like a hurricane. The mare was supple, long-winded and straw,

Starting point is 01:32:41 yet the big black was surely gaining. His breath seemed to actually smoke, so hot was his pace. Sam began to suspect what sort of being was behind him, and instead of ending the run in the way prescribed, he made for the Baptist Church. It was impossible to pull up sharply with such a headway. The chase went three times around the building at a furious gallop before Sam could steer the mare close enough to the church door to be on holy ground.

Starting point is 01:33:06 Fire sprang from the black horse's nostrils. It singed the mare's tail and the horizontally streaming coat-tails of her rider. Then the black horse went down upon his haunches, and Sam, pulling up with difficulty, dismounted. The devil who had been riding, the black, was out of his saddle first, said he, You have cheated one whose business is cheating, and I am a decent enough fellow to own up when I'm beaten. Here's your money. Catch it, for you know I can't cost wholly ground, you rascal, and here's my horse. He'll be tractable enough after I've gone home and as safe as your mare. Good luck to you. A whiff of soft as smoke burst up from the road and made Sam wink and cough.

Starting point is 01:33:46 When he could open his eyes again the devil was gone. He put the black horse into his stable and had him out at all the fares and functions, winning every race he entered. Still, the neighbors doubted the blessing of the devil, for they used to say that the black was still the devil's horse, and that money, one by racing, especially when it was won on a sure thing, would weigh the soul of its owner down to the warm place when he died. end of section number 18 section 19 of american myths and legends volume one this is a livery box recording all livery box recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liverybox dot org

Starting point is 01:34:37 american myths and legends volume one by charles m skinner the breaking of plymouth rock the rock on the beach that enabled the fathers and mothers of the yankee nation to land dry shod figures in popular oratory as the cornerstone of our liberties the rude block of granite sea-stained and weather-worn is now protected from the elements by a stone roof and from the vandals by an iron fence through the weary time of war and toil and hunger and privation when the permanence and safety of the little colony were in constant doubt the place of this cornerstone was remembered a century and a half later the people of plymouth in common with those of all new england were alarmed by the rumours of war that began to fill the country and fearing lest the stone should be forgotten in the years of battle might follow, the organisation known as the Sons of Liberty decided to move it back from the water's edge. Should they be driven from their homes, they might yet fight their way back one day to Plymouth, and the rock of the pilgrims would then become the basement stone of a stronger,

Starting point is 01:36:09 finer nation. In any case, they deemed it well to save it from the wash of the waves and the burial in sand and concealment in weeds and mosses, and to place it as a memorial, where their descendants might always look on it, and so doing might honour the principles that in an accepted symbolism it represented. As it was being lifted from its bed by a derrick, it cracked and fell in two pieces, and there were some who saw this as a forecast of affliction, for it surely boded a rupture between those who now peopleed the land and those from whom they were descended and who still ruled the colonies from beyond the sea. Truly, in four years from that time, the shot heard round the world rang out at Lexington and England's old dominion in America was shorn of strength,

Starting point is 01:37:10 influence and dimension. New pilgrims make holiday at the place, pressed by the feet of the first settlers, and each day's news brings proof that the offspring of that hardy band are extending their power around the globe. End of Section 19, recording by Alan Mapstone. Section 20 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain.

Starting point is 01:37:52 For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org, recording by Rita Butros. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. The Swan of Light There was no island on Hornpond, Massachusetts, in the long ago. When it was Lake Initou, the red men worshipped so many lesser gods that they had no time to praise the one master of life. So it chanced that signs of anger were seen on the earth and in the heavens. Lake Initou, mirror of the spirit, was dark and troubled even in the calmest weather.

Starting point is 01:38:38 Flashes of light and unaccountable sounds were seen and heard on Toanda and Myanmar. Then the game fled away, the fish. grew scarce, the roots and berries suffered from a blight. As Chief Wakima lay in sleep on the lake shore, he saw through his closed lids a growing light, and, opening his eyes, beheld a luminous boat advancing, self-driven across the water, bearing a tall and beautiful form that also shone in white. The chief sprang to his feet in amazement, but sank to his knees again in awe when the boat grounded on the beach and the messenger stood before him looking down with a face of sorrow and rebuke the shining one said you pray to the air to the lake to the trees that your people may not suffer from disease and hunger from the heat of summer and the winter frost you do not appeal to the spirit that rules of

Starting point is 01:39:49 all lesser ones and all the earth. Are your prayers to the manatews of the woods and waters answered? No, you have only sickness, famine, disappointment. Bid your medicine men stop their follies, their shaking of rattles, their chants, their ceremonies, and address their words to him, who bends from the clouds to listen, and is sorry to hear no voice of his. children when your people have prayed properly gather them at the water-side and if you have been true and good the great spirit will give a sign that he loves you wakima raised his head to answer but found himself alone the vision seemed like a dream yet in his heart he knew he had offended he would obey the shining one he told his prophets what had been told to him and ere long the game returned to the hills the fish to the waters the fruits were sweet and plenty and the young grew fast and strong when the moon of flowers had come wakama recalled the promise of the messenger and gathered his people on the lake in their canoes to wait the sign

Starting point is 01:41:15 gradually the boats as of some will of their own drifted into a circle and in the middle of this ring deep down a light began to glow it became brighter and brighter as it neared the surface and presently arose in the air a gigantic swan that shone with a glorious white light as silver would shine in the sun it spread its vast wings till they covered all the tribe as in token of blessing then it settled on the water again and sank the light paling as slowly as it had grown when it had disappeared something dark arose silently from the lake and in the morning an island stood there the island that the red men called the swan End of Section 20. Section 21 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain.

Starting point is 01:42:30 For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Rita Boutros American Myths and Legends Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. The Love of a Praying Indian When an Indian became a praying Indian, that is, a convert to Christianity, he was not always so well trusted by the Massachusetts colonists as he felt he should be, and his pride was often hurt by the slights that white men put upon him after he had forsworn his native fashions.

Starting point is 01:43:12 So it was with young bran of nudge. He had given away his axe and feathers, cropped his hair, taken to washing himself, learned to drink ale and eat pumpkin pie, and, dressed in the cast-offs of a Puritan farmer, was thoroughly moral and uncomfortable. How much of this reformation was due to preaching, and how much to the farmer's pretty daughter, Lydia, it would be unsafe to say, but the neighbors believed that Lydia had at least as large a share in it as the parson, and she, being strange to the ways of town gallants, seeing more of red folks than of white ones, contrasting the usefulness and gentleness of bran with the wildness of his relatives,

Starting point is 01:44:08 and meeting him at the table every day, for he had become. her father's helper, was not wholly averse to the young fellow, whose chief aim in life was to so shape that life as to please her best. The idea of a union between Lydia and the Indian was monstrously distasteful to the girl's parents. She told them rather tartly that they falsified their own precepts and reflected on their own work. when they persisted in treating bran as an inferior and an outcast especially as he could now read right cipher had become a steady worker and was a better hunter than any white man in natick a time of trouble came the war begun by king philip against the whites reached the village and broke forth in fire and blood some of the praying indians forgot their gospeling and joined him bran returned from the fields one evening to find the farmhouse in ashes and no trace of the people save their footprints in the earth

Starting point is 01:45:29 that was enough he kicked off the garb of civilization glad to be free of it put on his beach clout and moccasins stuck a feather in his hair painted himself gaudily, begged, borrowed, or stolen axe to add to his knife and gun, and almost before the trail was cold, he was following the root of the conquerors through the woods and over the hills. From Mount Wachuset, he saw the smoke of their camp rising through the trees, and in another hour he was among them. as he was apparently in arms against the english he was welcomed by the people and a certain white captive of theirs who was no other than lydia did not imagine that it was her lover who was strutting about and urging the savages to fight she poor girl was trust against a tree for burning she had tried to escape and as a warning to the other prisoners it had been resolved to punish this attempt with death

Starting point is 01:46:48 bran delivered an oration of some length and much fervor reciting the wrongs he had suffered from the whites and asking that lydia and her parents be given into his hands for torture and killing he pleaded his cause so well following his address with a present of three or four silver pieces and a swig from a bottle of rum for each of the leading warriors that he had his wish that night he volunteered to guard the camp at its eastern edge for the pursuit of the puritans was feared and he gave the rest of the rum to the guards who were nearest to him him, rum in which he had steeped the leaves of a drowsy plant. Then in whispers he disclosed himself to his captives, bad them arm, and when the night was half spent, he led them out of camp and away to safety. They lodged next night in the ruin of a house but lately burned,

Starting point is 01:48:00 and if there was any chase, it did not overtake them, for they reached Natick, tired with the haste of their journey, but otherwise none the worse. When they had rebuilt their house, the old folks resolved to take life easier, and they looked with a kind eye on their rescuer. They could no longer refuse to become the parents-in-law, of one who had showed himself so courageous, so ready in resource, and so true in love. love, and the marriage was a happy one.

Starting point is 01:48:40 End of Section 21. Section 22 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Rita Boutros. American Myths and Legend Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner

Starting point is 01:49:14 The Gander's Message In the 18th century, there stood a gambrelled house at Somerset, Massachusetts, where widow Le Doisle lived with her daughter and five stout sons. Beale, the youngest, suffered a fate common to the smallest member of a family, in that he was teased and badgered by his brothers, so that he often begged his mother's permission to go away and earn his living elsewhere. Above all things, he would be a sailor. He was a confirmed roamer, and he wanted more room.

Starting point is 01:49:56 In one of his lonely rambles, he caught a wild goose that he domesticated and prized until somebody shot her. He suspected his brothers, but one of her eggs was hatched, under a hen, and the cute little gosling that emerged became a special charge of beale. A time came at last when the widow yielded to the boy's pleadings and consented that he should go to sea. As a pet, a reminder of home, and possibly as a thanksgiving dinner in some distant port, the gander kept him company in the ship Louveteur, bound for,

Starting point is 01:50:40 the western indies three years the ship was gone for she was to change cargoes and trade in the interests of her owners so that letters were infrequent beale might be in uruguay china or denmark or he might be on any of the seas on the third thanksgiving day when the horn was blown for the great dinner of the year at the old home a queer call came back, the honk of a goose. Widow L'Dwatt's eyes filled. She recalled her son's pet gander. Another blast and another call from the meadow. The daughter shuddered a little. Is the meadow haunted, she asked, or is something about to happen? Why do you speak of such things, Annie? Because there is only one wild goose in the world that knows our horn. and will answer it. Blow once more, Mother.

Starting point is 01:51:44 A third blast rang from the horn, and echoed against the low hills. A form arose from the grass and the laurel patches in the pasture, and flew low toward the house. It alighted before the two women, honked loudly, then flew off again.

Starting point is 01:52:04 Annie hid her face on her mother's shoulder. Beale is dead, she cried. The elder woman soothed the younger and tried to laugh at her fears, but the laughter had no ring in it. The two went in presently to receive their guests. All seemed dull and oppressed, until another call of the wild goose sent a little shudder through the company. It seemed like an omen. It is there again, exclaimed the widow. I will call it.

Starting point is 01:52:40 and stepping to the door she sounded a stronger note than ever on the horn in a few moments the wild fowl as the others thought it alighted in the yard and pattered up the walk toward the door annie sprang upon it and carried it to the table where it stood stretching its wings and pluming itself not in the least disturbed by the presence of the company until with a sudden rouse as if it had heard something at a distance that it meant to answer it stretched forth its neck and uttered a honk that made the roof ring a step sounded on the door-stone a brown-faced sturdy figure dashed in caught the widow about the waist with one arm annie with the other and smacked them heartily then gave to each of the brothers such a resounding whack upon his back that he quailed it was beale after a minute of tears laughter and hand-shakings the gander paddled to the edge of the table and cocked up and inquiring, I, Well, if it isn't our gander, cried the sailor. He cut away from the ship two days ago,

Starting point is 01:54:03 and I supposed he was a long way ahead of us. Aha, I see, you thought we were wrecked, not a bit of it, gold in our pockets and appetites for two. Am I in time for the Thanksgiving dinner? End of Section 22. Section 23 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain.

Starting point is 01:54:40 For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Rita Butros Case of the Brothers Brown Toward the end of the Revolution, Captain Ira Brown, having endured his share of the dangers and privations of war, retired to the home of his elder brother, Hezekia, near Fairhaven, Massachusetts, to rest for a few weeks and forget,

Starting point is 01:55:12 so well as he might, the shedding of blood. Hezekia was a lawyer of no great brilliancy, who lived by egging the farmer and fisher-folk, of the vicarage into quarrels and suits, that he might be employed as their attorney. At that time, the lawyer was paying court to the daughter of a well-to-do merchant, who obviously felt little warmth of interest in him, however, the favored suitor being a young fellow of good family named Seymour.

Starting point is 01:55:48 The rivalry for this damsel's hand had established a bitterness between Seymour and the lawyer. On an evil day, the captain, who was in no wise concerned in this love affair, was taking his daily walk near the shore of Buzzard's Bay, when a startled, half-smothered exclamation, caused him to look about. A figure dodged out of his sight behind a sand-dune. What did that mean? Was somebody preparing to play a joke on him? He climbed the dune, and from him, from him its top commanded a view of a damp hollow, half filled with bushes. Among these bushes lay the body of Seymour. Crouching at a little distance, with bloody fingers held weakly before his face, was Hezekia. "'What is this?' cried the captain, hurrying to his brother. You have blood on you. Are you hurt?' "'No, no, I—we met here. He called. He called. He called. "'You have blood on you. Are you hurt?' no no i we met here he called me a name you understand i thought he would fight when i struck him i struck him again and and hezekia you have committed murder no no not that i didn't mean to hurt him i thought he would attack me it was self-defense self-defense this is dreadful hezekia to kill to kill him to kill him to kill him-heed his

Starting point is 01:57:18 This is dreadful, Hizekia, to kill an unarmed man. I know it. I didn't mean to do it. Save me. Pull yourself together. Take my handkerchief and wipe your hands. Don't shake so. You must get out of this somehow. You won't tell. You can't. You're my brother. For our mother's sake, you won't give me up. No. Swear it. Swear that whatever happens you'll not tell. I swear. Let me get away, stay and watch for a minute, and call if you see anyone coming,

Starting point is 01:57:57 or, if anyone does come, decoy him away from here. And with a face as white as that still face in the shrubbery, he peered over the dunes' edge, looked about in every direction, and with soft yet rapid, eager step, he went out of sight. Some minutes' later the captain took the homeward path. He walked with a firm stride, but his face too was pale. His expression was that of astonishment and pain. His fingers locked and shifted behind his back. Two neighbors whom he met presently, and to whom he hardly gave greeting, had never before seen that mood upon him. That night the captain was arrested, and he was arrested, and he had never before seen, taken to New Bedford jail on a charge of murder. Seymour's body had been found. The captain's

Starting point is 01:58:56 bloody handkerchief had been picked up near it. The captain himself had been seen leaving the spot in pallor and agitation. He was a man of arms, quick in quarrel. His motive might appear at the trial. When the case came before judge and jury, as it did quick, for it was not the way in those days to delay trials on quibbles month after month and year after year. Hezekia was his brother's defender. Everybody commented on the coolness of the prisoner, on his almost disdainful regard for the lawyer, and everybody noted how his advocate trembled, started, and perspired at various passages in the evidence. The prisoner declined to testify in his own defense, merely pleading innocence.

Starting point is 01:59:55 If he were a murderer, the people said, he must have struck his victim for some reason, and probably in a dispute. Of the two brothers, the lawyer was in the worst case. One might have fancied him to be the accused. The evidence on both sides was quickly taken. The state's attorney made a case. against the prisoner, circumstantial, without motive, yet plausible, and the jury found him guilty. Have you anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed on you? asked the judge.

Starting point is 02:00:35 For several seconds the captain looked into his brother's eye. The lawyer quailed. His brow was wet. He could barely stand. It was pitiful to see him. I can say nothing, answered the accused. I regret the need of condemning one to the gallows, who has fought ably for his country, one whose name has borne no stain till now. But I am only the agent of the law, and you are held guilty of the abhorrent crime of murder. You have faced death in other forms. You must now prepare to face it,

Starting point is 02:01:18 in its most shameful, terrible shape. I sentence you, too. There was a shriek. It was the lawyer, who, throwing up his hands, fell heavily to the floor. It was too much for him. How he feels for his brother was whispered in the throng. A glass of water revived him.

Starting point is 02:01:41 His eyes were wild. I saw him there at the door. It was his ghost. he exclaimed in hoarse tense tones. There, look, it is he, Seymour, my God, it was I who killed him. My brother is innocent. I am the assassin.

Starting point is 02:02:03 The judge had risen and was looking down in amazement. Is this true, he asked, so soon as he could find words? He has confessed, replied the captain. A pallid man, with a bandage on his head, had been trying for some moments to get through the throng. He raised his hand and caught the eye of the judge. This man has not told the truth, he said, though he told what he believed. I am Seymour, hurt, but not a ghost.

Starting point is 02:02:38 Let these men go free. End of Section 23. Section 24 of American Myths and Legends and Legends. Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Rita Boutros. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. A recovered pocketbook In the days when Brighton, Massachusetts was the greatest cattle market in the eastern states, a certain farmer went there to sell his cows and realized a good price for them.

Starting point is 02:03:36 A pickpocket and miscellaneous Scalowag, disguised as a trader, had seen with longing the wad of bills that the farmer had stowed away in his garments, and after the manner of such knights of fortune, had found an excuse to introduce himself and treat the happy agriculturist to three or four glasses of whiskey and a drugged cigar. This combination took effect presently, while the farmer was resting under the shade of a tree,

Starting point is 02:04:11 and he gradually collapsed on the grass and addressed himself to sleep. his rest had not been of many minutes duration when an acquaintance shook him and asked him if he would change a bill he felt in his pocket for the money but it was gone and so was his friend of an hour he was awake now Far down the road he saw the fellow running, and although a Percy man himself, he gave so lively a chase and bald, stop thief so loudly, that the rogue made toward a woman who sat beside the way, enveloped in a cloak, and rocking a child on her knee, tossed something at her, and was off, over a fence and out of sight behind some sheds. Arrmer arrived panting. Aha, he cried to the woman, You are that scoundrel's confederate, are you? Give me that pocketbook.

Starting point is 02:05:17 And with a dash at his treasure, he rested it from her hand. Then, plucking aside the cloak, he looked into the face of his own wife. It chanced that the farmer's wife had started to town to do some shopping several hours after her husband had left home, and that near the market her sympathy had been awakened

Starting point is 02:05:42 by a forlorn woman in a faded dress, who held a child and swayed back and forth, moaning as in pain, and muttering sentences from which the spectator surmised that she awaited, yet dreaded, the arrival of a husband who was engaged in some wrongdoing. she begged the farmer's wife to hold her baby while she explored the cattle-yards and inns that she might find her husband and persuade him to go home before he fell into trouble this the farmer's wife undertook willingly enough for she was a motherly soul and to protect herself and the infant from dust she slipped the thin black cloak over her head in the same thing

Starting point is 02:06:34 same fashion in which its owner had worn it. In a few minutes, along comes the thief at a run, and not realizing that his wife's place had been taken by a stranger, being intent only on saving his bacon, he emptied his pockets into her lap, saying, look out for these, and continued his flight. If her surprise at this action was great, it increased when she recognized, when she recognized, recognized her husband's pocket-book, stuffed as never before, and it was at its height when her lord confronted her and claimed his money. Great was the astonishment of the man to find in his partner the apparent consort of a thief. But matters were explained directly, and the couple were put about on finding that, in addition to their own wealth, they had

Starting point is 02:07:34 become custodians of one other well-filled pocket-book, a purse of silver, a gold watch and chain, and half a dozen silver spoons. The Pickpocket's wife returned presently to claim her babe, and sat by the wayside again to wait for her scamp of a husband. The thief was caught in a few days, and you may be sure that the farmer's wife did not allow the wallet to leave her sight, till she had obtained from it the price of the most resplendent bonnet that ever was shown in the village church, and she wore it with great pride on the next Sunday. End of Section 24 Section number 25 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1.

Starting point is 02:08:36 This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner, The Walking Corpse of Malden. In the old graveyard of Maldon, Massachusetts, is the burial place of a citizen who disturbed the town for years, because he would not rest after he was dead.

Starting point is 02:09:12 He had been moody and misunderstood in his life, and had given his knights to the study of strange things. Odors of abhorrent chemicals had issued from his house, and choked people in the street. Unaccountable noises had been heard in his laboratory. shadows had flitted athwart his curtains, so goblinesque and frightening, that two people who saw them lay down on the spot and had fits. When his death hour came, the man called an attendant,

Starting point is 02:09:44 who had beraved the terrors of the mansion, and with mouth at his ear he gasped. In my life I have differed from other men. It will continue different after my flesh is not gubern, it will never rock. Nor did it. His body was put into one of the old-fashioned tombs, five feet below the ground, and reached by an iron door in a granite gable. Some years afterward this tomb was opened, and the corpse was almost as it had been in life,

Starting point is 02:10:24 save that it had grown brown and hard and dreadful. A medical student, who was greatly exercised by this discovery and had doubts if it were really a man's body that had been not. coffined there, visited the cemetery alone on a squally night, entered the tomb, lighted a lantern, and with some composure, sawed the head from the body, and put it into a bag, intending to remove it to his home, where he could examine it at leisure. No sooner had he finished this gruesome business than there came to his ears whispers from the other coffins in the sepulchre. Soft treading, in the wet grass outside.

Starting point is 02:11:09 Moans and wails, stifled gibbering cries, and shadows passed. He saw them on the green and slimy wall of the tomb. His heart was shaken. With a yell for mercy, he flung the head upon the floor, leaped out of the pit, and ran at a frenzied speed toward home, hurting himself grievously by falls and stumbles over graves and stones. Some months elapsed before anyone else took courage to visit the desecrated place. But curiosity would not be stayed, and after a time, adventurous boys would go into the tomb and exhibit the head at the door to scare their smaller friends, especially the girls.

Starting point is 02:11:53 This was always in the daytime, with a bright sun shining, for nobody would enter the yard at night, lest they should see the fearful thing that happened when the clock struck twelve. On the last stroke of the bell, the tomb door opened, the brown trunk. and its mildewed garments crawled out of its coffin, pulled itself up by the door ledge, and went stalking about the cemetery as if in search of its head. At the first crowing of the cock, it went back to its rest. Seventy-five years ago, a man bathing in the river just before sunrise

Starting point is 02:12:33 saw a white-robed figure scramble out of the tomb, and, too horrified to realize what he was doing, he fled through the Malden streets, unclad as he was, waking the public with his yells. It was found that the figure was no corpse, but a poor, insane creature that had crawled into the house of death to sleep. The man was so frightened that he would not believe this. He insisted that he had been summoned by a ghost,

Starting point is 02:13:01 and from that very day he began to change, becoming silent and self-absorbed, and his death occurred soon after. Then the authorities banked earth against the tomb until its door was buried, and the corpse was never afterwards seen abroad. End of Section 25. Section number 26 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is Libervox Recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain.

Starting point is 02:13:45 For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Myths and Legends, Volume 1, by Charles M. Skinner, A Rollicking Ghost. It was none of your crying, moaning ghosts, damp and afflictive, that visited Old Buxton Inn in Massachusetts on a winter night. On the contrary, he was just such a white as any good to topper and easy gamester would wish to pass an evening withal. It was harsh weather out of doors, snow and wind and cold, and the travelers, stormbound in the tavern, had gathered in the cozy taproom, where they were beguiling the time with cards, flip, pipes, and the telling of stories. All were joined in a chorus, none too steady or tuneful, but hearty and mirthful.

Starting point is 02:14:41 When the knocker gave a lively rat-tat, and, as the landlord was rheumatic and fumbled at the bolt, The first summons was followed by a couple of sounding kicks. Let him in out of the weather, heaven's name, urged one. Tis one more to our party, and the more the merrier, declared another. The door finally opening, there entered a dashing, handsome blade, whose gold-laced garments, something out of style, to say the truth, yet well-preserved, were covered with snow. He shook off the white bird into the floor with a stamp, a laugh, and an oath,

Starting point is 02:15:23 and there seemed a prodigious steal of it. "'Gad neighbor!' exclaimed one of the roosters. "'You must have been buried!' The young fellow told the landlord that his horses had been stabled, and his servant had found lodgings in the loft. He had supped, but he wanted tobacco and drink. if I have a price for them he added slapping his pocket with a roguish smile if not i'll throw the dice with any or all in the company the others were willing enough when the wine is in the wit and the wealth are out and after some hours every penny in the pockets of the company had transferred itself to the purse of this unknown lack grace who sat tilted in his chair, sipping the last of his drink, and viewing and chafing his victims with easy

Starting point is 02:16:20 insolence. Presently, the old serving woman came in to begin her day's work, to put out the candles, sweep the hearth, and take the glasses to the kitchen, for the storm was over, and the dawn was in the east. She stared long at the young fashionable, who, with pipe and mouth, and looking perhaps a trifle faded in the gray light, stared as fixedly at her. Master, you do be the very cut of Sir Charles off our signboard, she cried. Is it so? asked the guest. Then let's see what I look like. The yokels, startled at the

Starting point is 02:17:03 old woman's discovery, followed her to the window. Surely Captain Charles Buxton in the paint was very like this ruffler in the flesh. Indeed, one straining his eye out of the smoky room into the morning twilight might have indulged the fancy that Sir Charles out there in the snow had put on a mocking hitch in his lip overnight, and that the lid of the right eye drooped knowingly, just a trifle. And one of the fellows said, in a voice thickened with the night's potations, It's the image.

Starting point is 02:17:37 Don't if he isn't looking down out. us. I'll turn to compare the picture with the person, but he had gone, gone, and no door or window opened, no footprint in the snow, gone back upon the signboard. End of Section No. 26, read by Brianna Childs on April 25, 2022. Section 27 of American Mist and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. Crystal Spring Midfield, Massachusetts has its Crystal Spring, with good deacon Smith dipped water on a memorable day in 1617.

Starting point is 02:18:44 The Indians have been growing uneasy and have been threatening vaguely. A council of Wampanogs and Arragansets had been held on noon hill, and the light of their fire had been seen afar. Philip and Canachay had upbraided their followers for allowing the white men to overrun their territory, and the voice of both tribes had been for war. Deacon Smith did not know that when he arose in the war. the frosty dawn and went to the spring for water for his cattle. On the way, however, he caught a glimpse of an Indian, crouched in the shadow of a tree. In a moment he saw another, lying flat in a thicket.

Starting point is 02:19:30 Truly, methinks the savors of dissembling, thought the deacon, and thereupon he began to disassemble himself. If he were to shout with surprise or fear, or if he were to run to recover, The Indians would spring up with the cry, We are discovered, let us slay him before he carries a warning to the others. Sir Dickensmith sang, not a merry ballad, because he was a Puritan, and he knew no such trifles, but a solemn hymn of wrath and vengeance against the enemies of the Lord. He filled his bucket and stalked severely home with it,

Starting point is 02:20:11 singing all the way. but directly that he had gained the shelter of his house. He kissed his wife and his two children and hurried them to the back door. Quick, he whispered, don't lose a minute. The Indians are here. Through the woods to the garrison house. Tell them there is danger. God keep you.

Starting point is 02:20:33 We will go with you, answered his wife with composure. No, unless they see me back at work, they will know that we are trying to run away. I will be with you soon, and he added, as the door closed on them, if not here, in the better world. To keep the attention of the lurking foe and give time to his family to escape, he went to the water again, singing as before. And he was yet again on his way between the spring and the house when the clang of a bell in the distance gave note that the settlement had been alarmed and its people were gathering for defense. Almost at the first stroke upon the metal, the song died from the deacon's lips, and he fell to the earth with an arrow in his thigh. The Indians dragged him to his house, intending to shut him in it and burn it over his head.

Starting point is 02:21:30 For their rage was great when they found his wife and children gone. And Cianichet, realizing that he had been tricked, ordered him to be kept for the torture. At that moment King Philip rode by, and seeing the deacon wounded on the earth, he asked, What is the white man doing here, alive, and wearing his scalp? Cannon-chaise, scowling blackly, told how the captive had gone about his work, singing the worship songs, to throw the Indians off their guard. How his wife had reached the settlement and aroused its people, so that the raid was certain to fail,

Starting point is 02:22:12 and how this offender was to be kept for signal punishment. Philip paused. Take out the arrow, he commanded. Bind the wound. Now let him go. Philip loves a brave man, whatever his nation. If he cannot walk, leave him at the spring. Now on with all, and kill the others of this lying, stealing race.

Starting point is 02:22:37 The fight was. hot that day. Men on one side were battling for their lands and on the other for their homes. Clouds of smoke from burning houses hid the combatants from time to time, but the torches, knives, and arrows of the red man were a small avail against the murdering pieces of the white. A-long, the Indians were in retreat, and as the men of Medfield swept on in pursuit, they heard from the hollow by Crystal Spring, the voice of Deacon Smith, a little shaky with weakness, yet full of him,

Starting point is 02:23:14 singing one of Cromwell's battle hymns. Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered. End of Section 27. Section 28 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libre Vox recording. All Libre Vox recordings are in the public domain, For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org

Starting point is 02:23:50 Read by Henry K. Noble American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner, Section 28. The Cheapening of the Lucy Jackson. Considering that the fishing sconer Lucy Jackson was so good about, it was hard for the Gloucester people to understand why she used. changed owners so often. Somebody would buy her, fit her for a run to the grand banks, then suddenly sell her for less than she had cost him. When she had been sold four times in about as many weeks, public interest in the matter demanded that the reason should be made known.

Starting point is 02:24:41 And so at last it was learned that it was not leaks. No, the loose. No, the loose. Lucy Jackson was seaworthy. She had a ghost. The owners were quiet about this, because ghosts are apt to injure the value of property, and they tried to sell before damaging rumors had gone abroad too widely. Everybody heard of it, however, by the time she had been transferred for the fifth their sixth time, and more than that, several people had seen it, a white figure that moved about the deck, that entered the cabin, that lost itself among the smells and shadows of the hold. This was no dream, no invention of nervous persons. It had been seen by fishermen, not more than commonly affected towards sea superstitions.

Starting point is 02:25:41 The last purchaser was Jake Davenport. What do I care for ghosts? he asked. Ain't I sailed with him often enough? Dams, I'd rather have him aboard any vessel of mine than rats. They say the Lucy lost some of her men on banks. Drown, you know. Well, if it's any comfort to the poor devils to keep their berths with us, I guess we can let him,

Starting point is 02:26:07 so long as they keep middling quiet and don't hurt our luck. these were brave words but they may have been no more than throat deep for old jack davenport knew as well as anybody that he would have had the tormentedest kind of a time shipping a crew aboard of any craft that had spectres in her hold he went down to the wharf to see his prize for she was a prize considering how much he had not paid for her And to estimate what it would take to put her into the best condition, he botched around till night fell and the harbour front was deserted. A melancholy fog came in, dulling the few lamps to be seen ashore. So he lighted a lantern and continued his explorations.

Starting point is 02:27:05 She was a lonesome tub. He had to admit that. And the mice and rats, and roaches emphasized the loneliness rather than otherwise. The forecastle, pervaded by the customary smell of stale pipe smoke and moldy boots, was in a dreadful state of dirt, and he began to pile up some old boxes and rusty panachins and torn oil skins, intending to pitch them ashore or slip them overboard when he was interrupted by a groan. He said, stood, shock still, and listened.

Starting point is 02:27:45 Pshaw! It was the sconer rubbing against the timbers of the wharf. Maybe the wind was coming up. He would just gather the rubbish and come around in the morning and finish, because his lantern might go out, and there it was again. He felt a sudden chill. For a moment, his legs were paralyzed. But he kept a hold on himself.

Starting point is 02:28:15 It would not do to give way to panic. The noise this time seemed to come from the deck. He ascended the narrow, greasy stare, held the lantern above his head, and looked about. All dark, a faint roll in the water and choppy gurgles under the wharf, under the bearded,

Starting point is 02:28:41 piles, nobody stirring. He went aft toward the cabin, for he had left his pea-jacket there. He would put it on and go home. Hardly had he passed the hatch when an awful groan ascended, and something white came toiling up the ladder. Captain Jake felt his scalp slide back, and his eyes pop and his mouth pull into a grin of terror. In a sort of frenzy, he clutched a swordfish lance that jutted over the deckhouse, and recovering his speech in that action, suffered his feelings to explode in vigorous marine language. The spectre was on the deck, groaning and reaching toward him. He yelled and flung the spear full at the dread visitant.

Starting point is 02:29:39 The ghost threw up its head. hands and went down with a shriek and a slam. This seemed human and substantial, and therefore, comforting. Jake ventured nearer and put his lantern close to the mystery. It wore boots, number tens. It was also bleeding, for the spear had grazed and cut its neck. It was also sparing. Captain Jake gave a tug at the white rapid. and they came off, considerably blood-stained. Then he stood erect, with his arms akimbo, and browsed darkling, and said, "'Abdimmick, you darned old fool, what are you doing in them duds? This is pretty business for a

Starting point is 02:30:29 grown man to be in, ain't it? And you, the skipper of this very boat once. I'm surprised, I am, and I'm good and ashamed on ye. Say, you do look most sick enough for a ghost. Guess I must have scratched you, eh? Well, I've got my flask of Medford rum. Take a pole and I'll tie up your neck. You can say a prayer while I'm doing it. If you've a mind to, along of not being killed outright.

Starting point is 02:31:02 So ex-skipper Dimick, being patched and strengthened, was taken home, and there he confessed that he had been playing ghost so as to bring a bad name on the sconeer that she might be cheapened down to $3,000, for he had saved that much and wanted to buy her. He got well, sailed into Lucy Jackson his mate, and was drowned off the cape soon after. Since becoming a real ghost,

Starting point is 02:31:34 he has not been seen on board at all. of Section 28. in his devices for the upset of good morals. There were the four lads in a Connecticut village, for instance, who knew well enough that card-playing was a sin, but intended to make it merely a little sin by playing for only a few minutes. A stump of a candle was on the table when they began and they lighted it saying, we will stop as soon as the candle goes out. They played and played, and looking up after a time, discovered it was daybreak, and they had been at the cards all Saturday night. Of course the devil

Starting point is 02:32:47 had kept the candle burning, and it is dreadful to think what happened in consequence. This instance and others like it were doubtless known to good, keen, parson Hooker, and he profited by his meditations on them, as this narrative will show. Traveling on horseback and on church

Starting point is 02:33:05 business, at one time he was benighted in the village of Springfield, Massachusetts, and put up at the inn. There were so many people in the house that the best the landlord could do for his reverend guest, was to bestow him in a room his town's folk would avoid, for it had the reputation of being haunted. It proved to be a comfortable, well-furnished apartment, and, after reading a chapter or two in his Bible, the minister addressed himself to sleep. At midnight, he was roused. The witches were coming. It seemed as if all the hags of Salem and every other pestered settlement

Starting point is 02:33:42 were crowding in. They arrived by the chimney. They came in at the open window. They squeezed through the crack under the door. Presently they had set a noble feast with gold and silver dishes, and discovering the parson whose eyes bulged like dark lanterns over a rim of bedclothes, they clambered with delight and bade him draw up and eat with them. Now the parson had supped but lightly, and he was tempted, yet it was known that if one ate with witches he would become a witch himself. After a brief cogitation he made a resolve, arose, slipped on his breeches, and sat with the rabble of uncouth creatures at the table. All grasped knives and dishes. It is my habit, quoth the parson, to ask a blessing on my meals. At the first words of the prayer, the creatures fled, gibbering and whining, leaving everything to the clergyman,

Starting point is 02:34:38 who ate a good meal and put the gold. and silver plate into his saddlebags. As he rode away in the morning, a crow squalled from a tree overhead. You're hooker by name, hooker by nature, and you've hooked it all. End of Section 29. Read by Robin Lee, Denver, Colorado, April 20, 2022. Section 30 of American Miss and Legends, Volume 1. This is the Livervox recording. All Libervox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit libravox.org. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner, the evil-doing of Hobelmock. In Hobelmock Pond, the Star Mirror at Pembroke, Massachusetts, was a stump that always stood at the same

Starting point is 02:35:41 height out of water. Whether the pond were low, in an August drought or high with melting snow in April. Believing it to be an evil thing, the Indians avoided it. But one reckless company of fellows, while out in a canoe, struck it with their paddles. Immediately the water was stirred as by a wind. The water lilies closed. The stump rocked harder and harder, finally tipping completely over and, as it turned, giving such a clump to the boat that it capsized, and the young man had to swim to shore. It was by this token that the stump was known for Hobamock himself, the evil one. There are Indians, and some folks not Indians, who seldom take the trouble to pray to the good gods, arguing that because they are good,

Starting point is 02:36:37 they can have no wish to do an injury. They pray to the malignant gods instead, that the latter may be considered in respect of punishments. And that was the way with these Maticisids. They offered corn and meat and wampum to Hopamock, so that whenever he saw red and was moved to hurt somebody, he would go over and worried the tunks in the next valley. But though Hobamock said little, he balked about the pond, waiting to avenge the injury he had suffered in his dignity.

Starting point is 02:37:13 He struck Chief Buck first, with a sly but consuming illness. When that word he felt that his end was near, he asked his wife, sunny eye, to dress him in full regalia, draw him to his wigwam door, where the people might look at him, then, so soon as his breast should be gone, to wash his sins off in the pond, and bury his weapons with him in a quiet grave under the pines. So in a few days it was Sunny Eye who ruled the Madagetheesots, and now Hobamock had a new chance.

Starting point is 02:37:49 His wiles, his temptings, his pictures shown to the late chief in dreams, had been vain as lures from the broad straight path of virtue. He had put it into the hearts of the white settlers to take away the Indians' lands, but against what they had made no head. On his death, they renewed negotiations with the Queen and made some offers of beads and penknives for fields and woods that they knew were worth gold watchers and iron foundries. Still, the Indians were slow to move. As a last resort, the settlers sent a scar-faced peddlers to the natives, with blankets which he sold for so little

Starting point is 02:38:33 that he left his whole stock in their hands. In a few days, the poison of spruce, smallpox began to work, but the blankets were infected. Now the curse of Hobamock was complete. The fever raged among the people. Many died and remained for days unburied because there was an unstrung enough to dig the graves. Some lost their sight. Some lost their minds. The cooking fires went out before their wigwams. The tunks, with whom they had smoked a whole boken of peace, but a little time before, kept away in dread. When the stronger had recovered, they could no longer endure the memory of a place that had been so bitterly cursed. They destroyed their plague-infested goods

Starting point is 02:39:22 and moved away. Sunny Eye, who refused to follow the tribe, went to furnace pond, where she lived to a great age and was known to the English settlers as Queen Patience. Her people took their farewell of her with a solemn dance and left her with ample gifts of spurs, corn, and venison. As the last one disappeared among the trees, having turned his back on his old home forever, the stump arose high in the water and a low hoarse laugh was heard. The curse of Hobanok had worked to its end. End of Section 30. Section 31 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1.

Starting point is 02:40:14 This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Rita Boutros. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. The Terrible Munak Tuggy Bannock a gaunt old negress and ex-slave

Starting point is 02:40:40 lived in Narragansett, Rhode Island, near the Gilbert Stuart Mill. Everybody believed her to be a witch, unless it might be the Indian woman, Mum Amy, whom Tuggy accused of witch-riding her at night, when she had awakened in fatigue, and found the mark of the bit at the corners of her mouth,

Starting point is 02:41:02 and whom she could not counter-charm, because the squaw herself, had interrupted the boiling of a project or pot of witch broth in tuggy's kitchen yet the negress seemed to get little good of her voodoo powers she was the most superstitious of the superstitious it was she who was thrown into frantic terror by chancing on old benny nickel's sick sheep dressed in red trousers and a blue jacket believing it to be the devil when she found how she had been deceived she took it out on nickels by dancing on his roof blowing soot and smoke down his chimney and spoiling the cookery tuggy would never use a chair and was alleged to have a habit of sitting on her kitchen wainscot or clinging to it with her heels she had two rows of double teeth without incisors and her grin filled the beholder with alarm. Her home, the L, of a tumble-down house, was seldom visited except in the daytime, and then by neighbors who wanted to hire her to help in their housework, so she could devote her

Starting point is 02:42:20 nights to mischief with little fear of interruption. On a winter evening she was busy with her hell broth, for she had a conjure to work against a bungling tinker who had spoiled her cattle. she would not kill him but she would fill him with rheumatism make his body all stomach-ache as a connuck habitant put it the pot with its project including a rabbit's foot a handful of graveyard earth a piece of red flannel the tail of a herring some rusty nails and sprigs of a plant stolen from the tinker's yard was bubbling merrily and she was humming and muttering the charms that brought the help of the Munak, or devil's deputy, waving her arms and tapping the floor the while, when a rushing sound was heard that made her wool straighten itself on her scalp. Whatever the creature was, it came straight on with the speed of a tempest, gave one knock at her rickety door, a tremendous knock, bursted open, rushed over the floor, dealt her an awful blow

Starting point is 02:43:35 on the legs and threw her down. For a moment all was still. With face in her hands, she dared not look, she begged the fiend to go away, promising to do no more evil, to give up the ways of witches, and she lamely repeated such Bible verses and prayers as she could remember. Then she trembled and groaned anew, for she could hear soft steps and breathing in the room, and a grip of at her ankle made her yell with fright. A dragging noise succeeded. It vanished into the distance, and roused by the winter wind that was blowing through her door. She at last summoned courage to rise, empty the burning project from the pot, close the door, and creep into bed. Perhaps she never knew that her munach was a heavy bobslet that four boys had been unable,

Starting point is 02:44:35 to control in its flight down an ice-covered hill. The youngsters had tumbled off as it approached the house, had watched its violent entrance to her kitchen. Peeping in had seen her abject fear, and had rescued their property from the place of dread, one of them giving a yank at her foot as he passed. End of Section 31. Section 32 of American Miss

Starting point is 02:45:12 and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Liveravox recording. All Liveravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit livervox.org. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1, by Charles M. Skinner. Pompirog's Love and Burial. Pompurag, Connecticut, is named for a young chief, one of 50 members in his tribe. that survived King Phillips' war.

Starting point is 02:45:45 He knew little cause to love the white race, yet he was not one to nurse a hate. When the conquerors of his people entered his valley, under the lead of the Reverend Noah Benison, he welcomed them and promised that they should always be free of injury from the Indians. After the settlers had helped themselves to as much of his land as they cared for,

Starting point is 02:46:08 and had built houses on it, he called on Mr. Benison. intended to offer some adjacent territory for money, as he had learned with astonishment that some Europeans were honest. This promised to be an amical and business-like visit, and probably would have been, so had not the Parsons' daughter slipped into the room to speak to her father. Palm Paragg saw her for no more than a couple of minutes at that time,

Starting point is 02:46:38 but they ended his peace. Mary Benison was 17 years old, black-haired, rosy-cheeked, quiet, graceful, soft-voiced, end of striking beauty. She seemed unconscious of her visitor's admiration, but he went back to his cabin under the cliff, Pomparag's castle, they called it. With his dignity shaken, his pulse quickened, his thoughts busied about other matters than the hunt. He mended his weapons. He set his laws, in order, he prepared skins for tanning. It was useless. He could not fix his mind on any task. His work was a bungle, and when night came, he could not sleep. The Puritan girl wholly occupied his thought. For several days, he wandered through the wilderness, hunting and fishing with utmost

Starting point is 02:47:32 energy and trying to forget. For was not the sclaw for Chief's Lodge, a red girl, a free woman, rather than a house-dwelling pale face with the skimped waste, who shivered in an autumn wind and could not live on bear made in a bad season. It may have been so, but he could not argue longer with himself. He returned to the minister's house and went to the point at once. I love my woods as the eagle loves the air, as fishes love the sea. Yet I will give my land to you, if you will give me the bird in your nest. The clergyman was angry. It is the panther that asked for the bird. Keep to your own people,

Starting point is 02:48:18 knave, and never name my child again. Striking his staff on the floor, Mr. Benison turned away and walked over to his desk, as I noticed that the interview had ended. Without another word, Pompurag went back to his castle, but it was with widened nostril and blazing eye. That evening, a messenger arrived in the village. Pomparag did not deign to go himself, with orders that the English vacate the land at once. Not an inch of it would be sold. Not an inch be given away. The headman of the settlement undertook to argue with the young chief, to plead, to make offers of guns, beads, and blankets.

Starting point is 02:49:01 He would not listen. He would not, in fact, receive them. where the Anglo-Saxon plants himself, he stays. A few nights later, the settlers put themselves in battle order, intending to kill the owners of the soil. But they were ambushed on the way to the place of muster. The pastor fell at the first fire. Several were hurt, and only two Indians were shot.

Starting point is 02:49:29 Within a year, however, all the red men had been killed had driven from their homes, with never a thought that one of them might be. have remained, or that he would have the heart to return. Mary Benison had gone to her father's grave at Bethel Rock, as her custom was, to meditate and pray. On this particular evening, a slight noise alarmed her, and thinking to reach home by a shortcut, she scaled the rock. At the top, a form sprang to meet her, with a smiling face and extended hands, palm baroque. With the shriek, she stepped backward, slipped, and vanished over the edge of the cliff. The chief hurried below, but he could do nothing. There was no life in the face that had haunted his dreams in all these months.

Starting point is 02:50:17 He buried her with his own hands where she had fallen, a northern Choctus, and his Etala, and her beauty became a memory. Pomparaug joined a little remnant of his tribe in the Hussetonic Valley, 50 years afterward, some Indians stole back to this region bearing a heavy burden, which they buried beside the grave of Mary, and in the morning they were gone again. No white man saw the burial, nor for many years knew that the fresher grave contained all that was mortal of Chief Pomparag. End of Section 32 Section 33 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain.

Starting point is 02:51:13 For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles Skinner. Bloody Heart, Rhododendrons It is called Mast Swamp in eastern Connecticut, because in other days, good timber for ships' masts used to be cut there, and in spring it is often known as Ledyard's flower garden. for then it is ablaze with rhododendrons of strong crimson centers. Bloody hearts they have been named.

Starting point is 02:51:44 Before the white man came, the Pequots called it Pohomowok, Place of the Owls, and Kupakamawak, hiding place, the last name being given because of its darkness and tangle. For the Indians often found shelter there, Kupa Kamawak was indeed the commonest of its names. In this jungle, just as the rhododendrons were in their glory, the Pequots, who had survived the defeat at their fort on the Mystic in 1637, took refuge from the English entering by paths unknown to their pursuers. Their case was desperate. Captain Stoughton was watching the swamp at every outlet day and night,

Starting point is 02:52:23 with 120 soldiers, and he had told the Indians that whether they fought or surrendered, it was all one. He meant to have their lives. They held out for a long time. their wives and children gradually sinking from starvation, until at last they were obliged to sue for mercy. Over a hundred of them feeble with hunger and illness were taken prisoners. 80 women and children became bond slaves of the whites,

Starting point is 02:52:49 and 30 men were carried bound on Captain Gallup's sloop to New London Harbor, where they were flung overboard and drowned. Stoughton had spared their chief, Putacroquois, Ponk, in the hopes that he would reveal the hiding place of others, country he had invaded. But although he had seemed hesitant, the Indian refused to do this when he learned of how the English had murdered his brothers. Hence they bound him with withes, flung him upon the earth beneath a gorgeous rhododendron, and putting their muskets against the heart of their helpless victim shot him dead. Finding that he was to die in this manner, the chief cursed

Starting point is 02:53:28 Kupakamawok, because it had starved his people into surrender, and cursed the English for their craving for human blood. He prophesied that the flowers which nodded in the breeze above him would show golden hearts no longer, but hearts of blood instead, as a reproach to the white people, which they might read whenever the anniversary of the massacre came around. And since then, the rhododendrons have been read, as with the gore of the Pequots, who have passed to the happy hunting grounds. When transplanted, the flowers are said to show yellow centers again, but in the swamp where Paracual Pank's life was so cruelly taken. They bloom, as he had said.

Starting point is 02:54:10 End of Section 33. Section 34 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Librevox recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Charlotte Temple There are certain types, not a wit, different. from their congeners and associates that keep their hold on public interest when other representatives

Starting point is 02:54:46 are forgotten. Charlotte Temples is a case in point. In the shadow of Trinity, in that grateful oasis, which its churchyard makes in New York's desert of brick and granite, is a free stone slab bearing the name Charlotte Temple. Pilgrims go there with wreaths, bouquets, and potted plants and place them on the grave, and the crowd of moneymakers who venture millions every day in the exchanges, a stones-tossed distant, possibly wonder at the survival of sentiment in this day and in such a city. As a place for strangers to cry over, it is almost as popular as the tomb of Abilard and Heloise. There really was a Charlotte Temple, though this may not be the right one. She whose dust lies here was the granddaughter of an Earl of Stanley, according to one report, and of an Earl of Derby in another tradition.

Starting point is 02:55:33 The oblong hollow in the gravestone was once filled by a plate, put there by Lucy Blackney, daughter of the deceased. ceased in 1800, and said to have been engraved with the Derby Arms and the words, sacred to the memory of Charlotte Temple aged 19 years. This plate being of silver was promptly stolen, and although the thieves dropped it in the grass, being frightened away by the sexton, it was never replaced. What is popularly supposed to be the story of Miss Temple's life was told by Mrs. Ralson in the early years of the century in a book called Charlotte Temple a tale of truth. It is an interesting relic of an affected literary period.

Starting point is 02:56:11 It exudes sentiment on every page. It is tilted, rhetorical, and preachy. It's people pine and weep and declare their griefs with alas and prayers. And when Charlotte is won from an English boarding school by the handsome dashing Captain Montreville and brought by him to New York, she expresses sorrow at his continued neglect of the marriage ceremony by sitting in an arbor and playing on a harp, accompanying it with her plaintive harmonious voice. She had run away from poor but aristocratic and affectionate parents, and had come to America on a troop ship with the man who should have wedded her. Captain Montreville seems to have found her too damp and miserable, and it was not many weeks after he had joined the British garrison in New York, a circumstance that interferes with a date and age on the tombstone, before he fell in love with a Yankee girl, an elegant creature of a lively spirit and an income.

Starting point is 02:57:03 yet he was kind to Charlotte until one Belcour, a designing brother officer, made him believe her false, when he cast her off and married the American. Left without resources, the poor girl sought charity and found it only with a servant, in whose humble her child was born, and she received such kindness as wretchedly poor people could show. Her death followed in a few days, but her last moments were cheered by the outcries of the servants and the lamentations of her father, who had followed to New York to forgive and rescue her. Captain Montreville entered the churchyard by chance during the interment, and on learning whose body had been committed to the earth, he offered his life to Mr. Temple,

Starting point is 02:57:44 who declined it, as of no advantage to him. He preferred that he should live and suffer from remorse. Captain Montreville then hunted up Belcour, ran him through with his sword, and himself fell into a dangerous illness. To the end of his life, he was afflicted with melancholy, and until the British forces were compelled to evacuate New York, he would often repair to the grave of his victim and repine because of his wrongdoing. End of Section 34, read by Debbie Talley, San Antonio, Texas, May 6th, 2022.

Starting point is 02:58:26 Section 35 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org American Myths and Legends Volume 1 By Charles M. Skinner Yon Sol and the Monster In the solemn days of the Dutch occupation of New York,

Starting point is 02:58:52 when people went bear hunting in Harlem, picked violets in ladies' alley, now made in Lane, or gags in their mouths and had their elbows trust for speaking evil of dignitaries, there was a ruffling little man of the town garrison Jan Sol, square-built, flat-faced, pop-eyed, who, by his own confession, was the doughtiest soldier on the Isle of Manhattanos. As corporal of the town guard, his duty was to keep the Indians out and wasstrels in, to see that no unwanted entries were made into the houses of burgers or the windows of ladies,

Starting point is 02:59:26 and that people living taverns in an unaccountable state were piloted to their homes if they were persons of consequence, and to the lockup otherwise. On a bright spring evening, he mounted guard as usual before the gate in the defense that has left its name to Wall Street. If Dutchman ever had nerves, he must have had them that night, or he could not sleep, and he kept thinking, and thinking was an employment that always left him used up for a day afterwards. Never had the hours seemed so long, never had the trees whispered and snickered and beckoned so. Never were so many shadows floating over the earth. Witches had just reached the new world.

Starting point is 03:00:08 Queer forms had been met in ladies' alley. A copious growth of toadstools had been reported on windmill meadow. The windmill, park, its creaking sounded like words, tale of a swine. Why must his mind run on these things? He lugged out a leathern pottle that hung at his belt and took a long, long pool. Yet his warm courage went to zero. for as the flask went up at an angle of 45 degrees,

Starting point is 03:00:34 he espied over the shoulder of that comforter, a monster with glowing eyes, long teeth, and threshing wings, and up went the hair of Yon's soul so high that it nearly lifted off his helmet. He had enough presence of mine left to fire his blunderbuss, which being heavily loaded knocked him flat, and the relief coming up, almost at a run in its excitement, took him limp and helpless before the governor,

Starting point is 03:01:00 to whom he chattered his story. The governor gravely warned him against the overuse of schnapps and as a punishment directed that he spent four hours of the next day riding the wooden horse in the sight of the populace. Punishment echoed the soldier.

Starting point is 03:01:16 Punishment for what? But the governor waved him majestically from the presence. The council, however, gave hearing to Jan Sol after he had come from straddling the beam and kicked the circulation back into his legs. and for four hours thereafter, it discussed what ought to be done with the monster. At the end of that time, it adjourned in astonished silence,

Starting point is 03:01:37 or attack a turn member had opened his head for the first time in a month to ask, respecting this bugaboo, is there one? On the next Saturday night, seven picked men went on guard, loaded with all the iron weights that they could borrow from the shopkeepers, that the creature might not fly off with them. Midnight, having struck without anything happening to break the peace, it was agreed to take turns on guard, and greatly to his sorrow the first turn fell to Jan Sol. His companions forthwith rolled into the lee of the wooden wall and fell to snoring doutily. Now the moon sunk and darkness overspread the earth. The windmill began to creak and chirp.

Starting point is 03:02:19 There were strange rustlings in the patter of feet, and the heart of the guard began to bump in his oaken ribs once more. He was frozen with horror when just as he turned to walk back along his beat, he saw the awful creature of his fears rising again above the timber fort. It flew down, glided swiftly toward the governor's house, where it seemed to leap the wall, covered though it was, with its defense of broken bottles, and then Yon Sol found his voice in Stentorian roars. The guard roused, and so soon as it could make out what you,

Starting point is 03:02:56 Jan had on his mind, an affair of a quarter of an hour or so, it ran to the governor's mansion and roused the household which turned out in nightcaps with pistols and pokers in hand. While the convention was discussing the affair of the night, a sound of a key, softly fitted to a lock caught the ear of two of the guard. They therefore flattened themselves against the wall, one on either side of the gate, and held a rope across it. The gate opened quietly, then a figure rushed forth, caught its foot in the rope, and fell heavily to the earth. The entire company, accepting the governor's daughter, a pretty minx of 18, who was in a state of tearful agitation,

Starting point is 03:03:39 fell upon the monster, for there is courage in numbers, and pulled him within doors. After he had been despoiled of his long cloak and sugarloaf hat, the creature proved to be a presentable fellow in his 20s. He admitted that he had leaped the wall At about the time the mill sails had begun to move on a freshening wind A circumstance that had scared Yon's soul Into a belief that the stranger had wings Indeed, through the rest of a long life

Starting point is 03:04:06 Yon held out for wings And scornfully repudiated the idea That this fresh-faced gallant Was the being that had leaped the wall. The stranger said he was from Pavonia But when they asked him Why he had come into New Amsterdam By away and at an hour

Starting point is 03:04:22 that laid him liable to the death penalty, he set his jaw and would not speak, so they sentenced him to die by the rope. Some time before the day set for the execution, the governor's daughter flung herself at her father's feet, made confession, and implored the young man's release. He was her husband. She had met him at a pleasure excursion across the river where he had won her respect and love by kicking a drunken Indian who had been impertinent to her. Before the governor had recovered from the shock of this disclosure, he was waited upon by a dignified gentleman in a cocked hat, the governor of the rival colony of Pavonia, who had come to plead for the pardon of his son. The disobedience of his daughter and his dislike of all Pavonians well-nigh confirmed

Starting point is 03:05:07 the ruler of New Amsterdam in his intention to let the law have its course. But when the other governor began to talk of giving up his right to the riverfront and to the shad fisheries, and when he looked into the tearful countenance of his family and saw that his daughter was like to die of grief, the old man gave in and signed a pardon for the prisoner. The young fellow and his wife retired to a house in Broad Street, which, after a few years, they had peopled with chubby yonkers, every one of whom refuted Yon Sol's story that their father had wings.

Starting point is 03:05:40 End of Section 35. Section 36 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libre of Box recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org, read by Greg Giordano, American Myths and Legends, Volume 1, by Charles M. Skinner. A Gift from St. Nicholas Among the people leaving Old Amsterdam for a home in New Amsterdam, before the latter town was much more, then come to its majority was klaus slushen sniglinger who practiced the profession of cobbler in a little house at the head of new street and had money enough to entitle him to wear eight pairs of breeches at once

Starting point is 03:06:41 and therefore to cut a wide figure in the society of the new metropolis he had a pond behind his house where he kept geese that multiplied to his profit and he was calmly content with his lot in fact, with his house and lot, till he fell in love. Nobody is calm or contented after that happens to him. His love would have been a successful enterprise, had not the coquettish anachee, on whom his heart was set, been desired by the burgo master, Rolofson. There were other young women in the colony who might have endured that person's temper, his homeliness, his stinginess, for the sake of the comfortable,

Starting point is 03:07:25 widowhood promised by his advancing years, because he was the richest man in the town. But Anachie was none of such. She was too good an American already to sell herself for money or position. So she accepted Klaus to the infinite joy of that aspiring artisan. Among his other mean qualities, Rolofsen now developed a revengeful disposition. For, by the time Klaus and Anachi or comfortably and, as they fancied, securely settled, and were occupied in the rearing of an annually increasing family. The burgomaster began a series of expensive and disconcerning improvements, extending streets through pastures, filling hollows, lowering mounds, bridging rills and draining puddles. Klaus's pond had to go. The money for his geese tidied him over until the next

Starting point is 03:08:23 improvement. But the assessment for cutting trees and guttering the street and laying a walk past Klaus' house to a marsh took all the silver he had stored in the old pewter teapot. Worst of all, there arrived from Holland about this time. To complete his ruin, a blacksmith who filled the soles and heels of New Amsterdam with hobnails, which enabled the wares to preserve a pair of boots for years, and announced their goings and comings on the plank walks and brick pavements and tavern floors, with a clatter like a revolution. So it fell out on Christmas Eve of a certain year, with Klaus, his wife, his six children, and his cat sat before a meager fire, and heard the wind howl and the snow dash against the panes. They digested their supper of bread and cheese and beer,

Starting point is 03:09:20 with deplorable facility, and bleakly wondered what there would be for breakfast. Klaus sighed forth his sorrow that he had ever left Holland. What could he do to carry him through another week? He might sell the silver clasp on the Bible. Fie, it had been his mother's, and beside, to deface the good book? Well, then what? He sprang up with a laugh, for it had just come to him, that on the morning of his departure for America,

Starting point is 03:09:52 he had found in his best stockings a mere shound pipe, so beautifully died by some faithful smoker, that no mere cobbler was fit to use it. Without a question, it had been a gift from St. Nicholas, his name's saint. A pipe of such a rich mahogany color was worth the price of a Christmas dinner, and pork and tea for several days beside. He went to the old chest, and unburied it from a quantity of gear that had come from the old country with him,

Starting point is 03:10:24 took it to the window, and rubbed it carefully on his sleeve. A gust of wind filled the room. Klaus cried, Now, which of you children will do such a thing as not to keep the house shut in weather's like these? And started to close the door, when he bumped into a little portly stranger, who had entered and stood regarding Klaus with twinkling eyes. "'Eh? Did somebody call me?' asked the unknown.

Starting point is 03:10:54 "'Well, seeing that I am in, and I've been out there in the cold for hours, I will make free to warm myself at your fire.' The family having made room for him before the excuse for a blaze, the visitor rubbed his glowing cheeks and shining nose and spread his fingers over the ashes. "'I must say,' my Herr Schlaas Slaes. Singshlinger, said he, that you are not very hospitable. You might at least put another couple of logs on the hearth. In need, one learns to know one's friends. There are more Faderland proverbs than that also, and one is, it is hard combing, but there is no hair. Poo-poo! Never talk

Starting point is 03:11:43 to me of that? Let me remind you of another. Who gives you? Who gives? lives from what he has deserves to live. Ah, mine heir, answered Klaus with a rueful countenance. No man has ever been turned from my hearth, but I have nothing left to burn, unless it is my house. Aha, is it so? Been wasting your substance, I see. Well then, who burns himself behind must sit on the blisters. There, never mind, I was jesting.

Starting point is 03:12:22 A good understanding needs only half a word. And before Klaus could prevent it, the stranger had cracked a fine rosewood cane over his knee and tossed it on the embers. Instantly it blazed up merrily, giving as much heat as an armful of hickory logs, so that the cat roused in astonishment at the singeing of her tail, and was feigned to crawl to a cool corner,

Starting point is 03:12:50 and the cane burned for ever so long without going out, making the place seem cheery and home-like once more. Presently, the guest began to rub his punch and looked wistfully at the cupboards, glancing aside at the cobbler and his wife, as if wondering how long they would be and taking a hint. Finally, he blurted, I've had no dinner, and I had hoped I might be asked to share a bite and sup.

Starting point is 03:13:21 This, you know, is Christmas Eve. Klaus winced, You should be welcome with gladness if we had some things to eat that we could offer to you. Never tell me that you've had your supper. I can eat anything. Hunger makes raw beans sweet. It is hard, what I have to tell. It is that we have no beans.

Starting point is 03:13:47 Look here, Klaus, I don't think you intend to be mean. Never trouble about the beans. A cut from that fowl will do, for it is a fowl I see on that shelf, isn't it? And there is no mistaking that big bread loaf. And are my eyes dim with the heat? Or are those cookies and oilycocks and mince pies? and never tell me it is what should you keep in that bottle.

Starting point is 03:14:15 Klaus eyed his friend wearily, yet warily, for he doubted, but the little man was daft. Well, on it she went to the cupboard to show the visitor how well he was mistaken, that his eyes had turned flickering shadows and reflections into things that were not there, but she threw up her hands and cried aloud, then ran to Klaus with a roast goose on a poor, platter, whereon Klaus cried louder, and the offspring cried loudest. Better a half-egg than an empty shell, as we say in Amsterdam, remarked the ready man with a sarcastic wink,

Starting point is 03:14:57 and his finger at his nose. Candles were lighted, and in a minute a brave array of good things smoked on the table, for the wonder of it was that except the wine and schnapps, which were cold, and fragrant. They seem to have come, but then, from the oven. Now then, to the stranger beaming. One may not give away his shirt, if not sure, of his skirt, as we used to say in Holland, but I think you can spare me a plate of that goose. So they fell, too, and feasted themselves in the merriest humor, and the shavers flocked to the knee of the man with the twinkling eyes, who was full of quips and story, and they pledged one another in glasses of Rhenish.

Starting point is 03:15:45 Klaus dimly wondering, for he had bought those handsome glasses, and in the end the stranger gave, for how on a chi a tremendous smack, which only made her blush, and Klaus to grin, for those greetings were duties and compliments, in the simple days. Then Klaus showed the pipe he intended to sell,

Starting point is 03:16:08 oron the stranger cried, That pipe! I know it. John Calvin used to smoke it. It is a lucky pipe. You must keep it all your days, and leave it to your children. Whoop, what's all that? For at this moment, the boys of the neighborhood,

Starting point is 03:16:26 who were allowed on this one night to sit up later than nine o'clock, or had been called by their indulgent parents, greeted their holiday by firing their little cannon. Midnight! "'Wait!' exclaimed the twinkling little man. "'I must be off. "'Mary Christmas, and happy new year to you all. "'Good night!'

Starting point is 03:16:48 "'And with that the stranger arose and bowed himself into the chimney. "'Now, whether he stamped among the ashes "'and sends up such a cloud as to blind them all, "'for it is certain their eyes were watery, "'and they fell a sneezing, "'or whether the little gentleman was so very lively "'that he got away to, through the door before they could say, Jack Robinson, which they never did say. There being no such

Starting point is 03:17:15 man in the colony, Klaus and his wife and children could never agree. Anachi and the girls insisting that he went up the chimney as if he had been blown away in the draft. In the morning, when the wife swept the hearth before starting a new fire, she heard the chink of silver, and there in the ashes, she found a fat purse bearing the words, a gift from St. Nicholas. While she and her husband were marveling properly upon this, an increasing gable of voices was heard outside. And behold, there was half the town populace staring up at their windows and expressing great astonishment. And with reason, but the house was no longer of wood, but of brick. There was talk of arresting Klaus and his family as wizards, and dangerous to the well-being of the state.

Starting point is 03:18:11 But he told so straight a story, and showed such substantial evidences of his new prosperity, that they made him alderman instead. The Dutch house, as they called it, was for many years a landmark. When it was torn down by an alien of British origin, the workmen were slapped about the sconce by unscans. seen hands, and had laths and slats vehemently applied to their sitting parts, so that the neighbors, said St. Nicholas, was protecting his own. End of Section 36. Read by Greg Giordano, Newport Ritchie, Florida. Section 37 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1.

Starting point is 03:19:06 This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. Read by Patrick Randall American Myths and Legends, Volume 1, by Charles M. Skinner. Staten Island Dueling Ground Although a borough of New York City, Staten Island keeps a hold on the past, not generally retained

Starting point is 03:19:39 in districts where people come and go so fast that the meaning of home is unknown, where relics and trophies are eagerly swept aside to make room for money-making institutions, and where immigrants, to whom our history is unmeaning and unknown, swarm in. Here are the Old Moravian Church, the home of Garibaldi, the Italian Liberator, the quaint black horse inn, the fort thrown up by Lord Howe back of old Richmond town, the billup, tailor, and fountain houses built when the chapel, castle, and tea house were erected on the New Jersey side of the Kilvon-Cole in the belief that Perth Amboy was to be the American metropolis. In a hollow, southwest of Black Horse,

Starting point is 03:20:36 Inn, Newdorp, many gallants and rufflers of the 18th century fought their duels with sword or pistol, as the challenged might elect. General Robertson of the British Army killed a French naval officer, Volon, who had resigned his commission and followed him to America for the express purpose of fighting him. General Skinner of the British Army went out of the British Army, went out. to exchange shots with a Hessian officer, but on General Howe's peremptory order, he had to defer the duel and met his death in battle. Two other of Howe's officers, Colonel's Illig and Pentman, fought here on horseback for an hour, slashing at one another like savages, and stopping only when they were weak with loss of blood.

Starting point is 03:21:35 Major Andre was Illig's second. Two officers of a Scottish regiment, who sleep side by side in the cemetery of St. Andrews, Richmond, in forced or seeming friendliness, fell on this ground, each by the hand of the other. They loved a girl, who had been making havoc among the officers of the post, for she must have been a desperate flirt,

Starting point is 03:22:04 and as her father was a Tory and a volunteer officer on Howe's staff she was often seen about headquarters. Whether she showed a preference for either of these hot-headed Highlanders to the rage of the slighted one, or whether they fought in sheer exasperation because she would notice neither, was and is unknown. Friends tried to reconcile them, but without avail. Two brother officers paced off the ground, put the pistols into their hands, and the word to fire was given. Both fell mortally hurt at the first shot. Was the girl smitten with remorse? A slender figure was often seen at twilight in the graveyard where they rest beneath unmarked mounds,

Starting point is 03:23:00 and while she lived, those little heapers, of earth were kept green and fair. End of Section 37. Section 38 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Read by Debbie Talley.

Starting point is 03:23:35 A Transferred Love Uptown on the west side of Manhattan is an unforementioned. occupied brick house standing back from the street and thereby attracting notice, since it differs from the average of residences in that quarter, which are built so close to the pavement that to see the cars go by would seem to be the most precious privilege of the people who rent them. This was the home of a young physician who, with his wife, had been drawn to New York in the hope of acquiring such a practice as his gifts would appear to warrant, for he was a man of good presence, well-bred, skilled in his vocation, and needing only a chance to make fame and fortune.

Starting point is 03:24:17 But the chance did not come. The little he had saved was soon absorbed by rent and house expenses, and the two found themselves confronted by actual penury. When affairs were at their worst, and evil providence put wealth in their reach. It came as an orphan who had nearly lost her sight in a convent school. Though friendless, She was heir to a large sum that would become hers on the attainment of her majority, and that would be properly administered until that time only a year away. Her case required frequent treatment and good nursing, and when it was found that liberal payments could be made for these services,

Starting point is 03:24:57 the doctor who had been called at a hazard persuaded her to go home with him, that he might study her case more closely and give kindly nursing. She was thankful that she had found a protector at last, Her health promised an early demise. And then? The physician and his wife had consulted long before taking this step. They loved one another, even though poverty had entered the home and made life bitter for them. But a mutual sacrifice would ensure for their future such a provision as they had never dared to hope.

Starting point is 03:25:32 It was a bold thing they resolved to do. It was conspiracy. It was violation of the law. yet it was so easy and it promised so well. The wife was to represent herself as the physician's sister. She was to help her husband to commit bigamy in marrying him to this half-blind and dying girl and she was to keep house for them until death relieve them of the incubus

Starting point is 03:25:58 and put the fortune into their hands. The plan worked with surprising ease. Whatever the wife may have felt when she heard her husband promised to love and cherish this frail rival and saw him slip her ring on the finger of the bride, she held her peace in company. In order to impress the trustee of the girl's estate with the integrity of his efforts on her behalf, the physician took her on a wedding trip to the West Indies, believing, as he said, that it would restore her health.

Starting point is 03:26:28 Before sailing, he bought this house in New York with her money and installed wife number one there to wait their return. The trip lasted longer than any had expected, and the woman alone in the old brick house often paced up and down the rooms in agitation of mine. The baggage was taking a good while a dying, she thought. It would have been better had she been kept at the north and killed with another of our raw winters. But word came at last that the happy pair would be at home on a certain date, and the house was put in order for their reception. The sister had freely spent all of the bride's money she could. gain, and the house had become inviting. They reached the home, that husband and wife, and the

Starting point is 03:27:11 sister's face grew gray, and her heart-beaten pain, for she saw that the new wife was better loved than ever the first one had been, and that the voyage and the care had completely restored her health. Instead of a pallid, weak, dim-sided girl, her rival was now a pretty, smiling, graceful, altogether attractive creature, clear of eye, Mary in her laughter, and supremely happy. Well, the comedy must be played to its end. She received the couple with every token of solicitude and affection, and a delightful little dinner was served in a cozy dining room. The husband was alternately gay and moody, and he drank more wine than was quite meat. charging three glasses he bade the women drink with him to health and long life.

Starting point is 03:28:00 The watchful sister had seen the quick motion by which something had been dropped into the glass he passed to her, but without ceasing to smile she drank half of it. Then, under pretense of removing a dish, she managed unknown to him to exchange glasses with her brother, for his own glass now held the same amount as hers. You do not drink, she declared. You neglect your wife. To the bride! The physician tossed down the half glass of poisoned liquor. Then the wife, rising with an uncertain motion, her face drawn, her lips blue and shaking, her eyes staring caught him about the neck.

Starting point is 03:28:37 At last, she cried, you are mine again. Mine, mine, and deaths. The servant hurried for a clergyman, but it was too late. Husband and wife were buried together. Shocked out of her sanity, the bride had to gain health anew in a retreat. The house was rented to several tenants, but none of them would stay, for they reported disturbances in the night, and one man said he had heard a failing cry as in some remote room of mine, mine, and deaths.

Starting point is 03:29:12 End of Section 38, read by Debbie Talley, San Antonio, Texas, April 21, 2022. Section 39 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Ghosts of Dosaurus. Dosaurus Island, off the north shore of Long Island, is said to have taken its name from Dos Uxorus,

Starting point is 03:29:51 a wife's gift, the property having passed to a former owner on his marriage. It was sold to one Robert Williams in 1668 by Aguilon, Araming, Gohan, Nothan, Yamalamak, and Gogamon, Chiefs of the Matinecock Indians. If so small a tribe could afford half a dozen chiefs, the distinction associated with the title, was about equal to that enjoyed by orderly sergeants in a regiment. And speaking of soldiers, General Nathaniel Coles, then owner of this land, was caught by the British during the revolution, and hanged here. in his own doorway. They left him for dead after ten minutes,

Starting point is 03:30:30 and when they had gone, he untied his imp and cravat and walked away in a fine frenzy to do battle with them on some field where they had no facilities for hanging prisoners. The secret of his escape was in his great height,

Starting point is 03:30:42 for while his enemy supposed that he was strangling to death, he was merely standing tiptoe on his dorsal. According to the people who lived on Dosaurus in the last century, its woods and its beautiful lane were a common resort of elves and goblins, and people who ventured out at night, except in company and with lanterns, were apt to scuttle

Starting point is 03:30:59 homeworn again at the first cry of a cricket or call of a dreaming bird, for the lane alone had three vexatious spooks. One of Derek Wilkinson, a hard-riding jockey who had broken his neck in a race, and who would weigh-lay belated revellers from Glencove, not merely to a fright, but to larit them with a strangely ponderous cudgel. One of Billy Cowles and asthmatic who hurried about in search of his breath, and who could be identified by his weezing, his open collar and a cravat which he never wore except in his hand, and one of a bibulous miller, who was often seen flying up the lane like a belated member of the wild hunt, astride a monster demi-john that he lashed and spurred until it had carried him to the foot of the drinking

Starting point is 03:31:38 tree, where he would disappear, for he ended his life under that very tree by filling his skin so full of alcohol that nature could not endure it. And if you don't believe it, the tree stands there to this day, in proof. End of Section 39. Read by Debbie Talley, San Antonio, Texas, May 6th, 2022. Section 40 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain.

Starting point is 03:32:14 For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. The Rock of Battle The early settlers at Massachusetts Bay did not go far from home. There were no roads, and there were savages and wild beasts to forbid long wanderings. Still, the Anglo-Saxons are a conquering and an easy race. There were incitements to exploration and adventure that they could not forgo, and we have an unfair authority that stout and stubby Miles Standish,

Starting point is 03:32:43 who was most of the military force at Plymouth, brought up on one occasion as far away from that town as Manhasset, on the north shore of Long Island, nearly a couple of hundred miles distant. Possibly his rejection by the lady of his choice may have made the company of the woods agreeable to him, and possibly he may have been casting about for worlds to conquer. His companion on this journey was one Davis, an English lad of gentle birth, strong, tall, and handsome. Their stay among the Indians of this region was long and friendly enough to allow Davis to get into a love scrape, for he conceived a violent attachment for one

Starting point is 03:33:20 of the Manhasset girls, and his affection was returned. Had she not been promised to one of her own people, the affair would have had a successful issue, but Davis had a rival, and neither would yield in favor of the other. The girl encouraged her white admirer and held stolen meetings with him. Contrary to the way of many of the English, who wooed and won the native women only to abandon them, Davis was in earnest, and he wished to make the Fern his wife. He planned an elopement. Standish appears to have gone home, or at least he was not with his lieutenant when the affair became portentious, so that our Romeo had to venture all alone. Cautiously, though he had planned, the Indian lover kept his watch,

Starting point is 03:34:04 and he was quickly on the heels of the runaways with a dozen or twenty Indians in his train. There is in Manhasset a great boulder that is a favorite tristing place, with swains and damsels of the vicinage. This stone marks the end of the flight, for here Davis and the bride expectant were overtaken. Setting his back to the rock, like Roderick do, he loaded his cumbers, gun and gave battle. Some of his enemies he laid low, yet he could be no match against their ambush and their quick darts. It was a despairing and useless fight. Numbers conquered. Davis fell with an arrow in his heart. The dusky Juliet, plucking this shaft smoking with his live blood

Starting point is 03:34:45 from his body, drove it forcibly into her own breast, and lying beside him with folded arms breathed out her existence. The names of the two were cut in the stone, it may still be read, though moss and lichen have partly overgrown them. End of Section 40, read by Debbie Talley, San Antonio, Texas, May 6th, 2022. Section 41 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Librevox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. The non-arrival of Fitzwilliam They do say that Matilda Roxanna-Sammis was a good deal of a flirt

Starting point is 03:35:33 But people who reasoned things out never took much stock In the success of her attempt to play hero To the lander of Henry Fitzwilliam For Matilda lived on the bluff's north of Glenhead, Long Island And would sit on the shore reading poetry books at sunset The Connecticut shore where Fitzwilliam lived is about six miles away across the sound. So if, as they say, she displayed a candle in her window after her father had sent her to bed with a lecture

Starting point is 03:36:02 tingling in her ears and the possible mark of her mother's slipper tingling elsewhere, she was a wicked girl to expect her Henry to swim that stretch of water and a foolish one if she thought he could see her candle six miles away. The chances are that Henry was less of a sentimentalist and a chump than she fondly imagined him, and that he crossed the sound in a sensible Yankee fashion in a boat. True, he may have spills himself overboard just before he reached Glenhead if he found that it made her happier to believe he was risking cramp, pneumonia, rheumatism, and sharks for her dear sake,

Starting point is 03:36:39 and a reason for thinking that he did this can be found in the lessening number of his visits. He was engaged, it is true, but wasn't Leander too? Yes, he swam the hellespont to-exam. call on his lady, and one night he didn't even get across alive. Ah ha! One night, Fitzwilliam, didn't get across either, and a corpse was found on the shore next week. They said it was his. Now, it may be true that Miss Sammas paled and peaked and pined and perished, or that her father moved to Iowa where she found a mate who did not know how to swim, and became a shrill, fussy matron with eight children to look after. Both versions of her fate are extant. 20 years,

Starting point is 03:37:22 after the loss of Mr. Fitzwilliam, a hearty mariner, somewhat bulbous of outline, somewhat bald, somewhat gay as to his nose, appeared in Glenhead, married a buxom farmer lass of Hempstead, bought the old Sammas place, and settled down. He pretended that his name was McCurkle, but some of his neighbors winked solemnly and said they knew whether it was or not. End of Section 41. Read by Debbie Talley, San Antonio, Texas, April 21st, 2022. Section 42 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording.

Starting point is 03:38:06 All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Read by Greg Giardano, American Myths and Legends, Volume 1, by Charles M. Skinner. Tragedy of the Secret Room. On Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, between Clarkson and Winthrop Street, stands a part of Melrose Hall, that in 1740 was a noble old place, the twenty acres of lawn and garden about it, facing down a long drive, edged and shadowed with pines. It was furnished with a luxury unusual in that day, and in such a place, for although the prosaic

Starting point is 03:38:54 trolley car now carries one from the mansion to New York City Hall in half an hour. It was no such matter in those days of sailing fairies and bad roads. It had a vogue of its own in the high society of the region, and its dinners, dances, and jollities were famous. Colonel William Axtell, second son of an English nobleman, was the builder, and it was designed with reference to a peculiar domestic contingency. of the large oak-panelled rooms were well-lighted, save one, that extended over the ballroom, and was commonly thought to be a useless garret. This had only two small windows, with diamond-shaped

Starting point is 03:39:37 panes, and no obvious entrance. And Colonel Achtel's father died, and he was left in the usual penniless condition of a younger son. An opportunity came to him of uniting with a rich family. It was the younger daughter Alva, whom he would have chosen. and she fell deep in love with him at sight. But the family would have it that he must wed Agatha, the elder. Indeed, that arrangement was affected before any of those in interest had thought over the matter sufficiently, for the colonel had resolved to emigrate to America, where he believed new fortunes could be made,

Starting point is 03:40:15 and where the promise of an office assured him of the social position he enjoyed. The next ship that sailed for New York, after the marriage took the marriage, Colonel and Agatha as passengers. On the ship that followed was Alva, a runaway. Arriving on this side of the water, the girl took a place as a servant. But having seen her sister and the colonel driving in a handsome carriage, with slaves mounted as equiaries, she felt prey to love and jealousy, and found a way to gain her lover's presence after a time,

Starting point is 03:40:48 without exciting the suspicions of the wife. She was installed in the long chamber above the ballroom. It was fitted with more comforts than was any other part of the house. There were silken hangings, eastern rugs, lion skins, pictures, books, ornate furniture, and such cheery knick-knacks as women like to have about them. Fresh flowers were furnished for the table, and one old negress who could be trusted was a servant for the charming prisoner. This black woman was the only person, except the colonel, who knew that the entrance to the room was behind a full-length portrait that swung on hinges in the study wall.

Starting point is 03:41:29 If Alva went abroad, it was only at night. For three years, the sisters lived in this fashion, under the same roof, and while the mistress could hear all the merriment in the apartments below, she could share no social pleasures with the wife. Trouble with the Indians, the beginnings of that war which was to result presently in the destruction of Saratoga, compelled Colonel Axtell to live. leave his home for about six weeks. On his return, he found that the old slave who had been Alva's servant had died a few days after his departure. Filled with foreboding, he rushed to the study,

Starting point is 03:42:07 and would have swung the portrait on its hinges, but found it caught in some way. He applied his whole strength against the frame. It yielded suddenly, and he stumbled into the room. A withering corpse lay on the floor. Alva had died alone. The spring that opened the door had broken, to call from the windows, a wrap on the floor, would have exposed the situation, ruined her sister's peace, and injured her lover's prospects. She had starved to death, starved in the midst of plenty, and none in that house had heard a moan. In the small hours, Colonel Axtell took the light and ghastly thing that had been his mistress, and buried it in his grounds.

Starting point is 03:42:53 Three days later, he, too, was dead, and his wife had learned the truth. Mrs. Axel sold the property and went with her children home to England. End of Section 42, read by Greg Gierdano, Newport Ritchie, Florida. Section 43 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Librovox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Read by Winifred Aspen.

Starting point is 03:43:38 American Myths and Legends Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. Who was John Wallace? John Wallace has prototypes in other lands and ages. Who was he? A stranger with a Scotch accent, who in 1840 arrived in East Hampton Long Island. island, a village celebrated, if for no other reason, as the abode of John Howard Payne, author of Home Sweet Home. It is just possible that there was a suggestion in the song that lured him to the spot. He was a pleasant, courtly man of fifty, who at first kept a servant

Starting point is 03:44:19 and lived in the respect and curiosity of the whole township. For, being rich, the Paul Priss and sewing circle spinsters were almost perishing to know. know how rich and where he got his money. He was an easy writer, spoke often of literary associates in the old world, taught Latin as a sort of recreation, was lay reader in the Episcopal Church, which was founded by his help, was free in his charities and gentle in his counsels. He lived here in comparative seclusion till the age of 81 when he died, as quietly and bafflingly as he had entered East Hampton. In over 30 years,

Starting point is 03:45:02 he had never left the village except for rides of a few miles. As John Wallace, he lived and died, and that is the name on his gravestone. Of his history, none, even in the family he lived with, had an inkling. The Gossips said he was a bishop

Starting point is 03:45:18 who had erred and come to the new world to hide himself, that his sin might be forgotten. Several times a year, he received a letter with an English postmark, and would observe, smilingly, this is from my lady friend. It was thought that some woman sent money to him. The mystery about the man has never been made clear, but thus much has been learned since his death, that he was no Wallace, that he was a bachelor, though a lover of his kind, a founder of Sunday

Starting point is 03:45:49 schools, and so much a creditor of the state that he enjoyed a pension or something of the sort. In 1840, he was high sheriff of a county in Scotland and had made fame as a jurist and a scholar. In that year, a charge was made against him, a charge of some strange crime of which he had not been guilty. He was a victim of plot or misunderstanding, but he was sensitive, modest, and proud. And to be thrown into jail like a thief, to be a show in the courts, to be the butt of I Told You So's, was being used. his endurance. The Lord Advocate knew this and was not disposed to be cruel. He told a friend to let the High Sheriff know that a warrant would issue for his arrest next day. That day, he died across the border, and Scotland never saw him after. End of Section 43.

Starting point is 03:47:00 Vibrovox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit nebrovox.org. Read by Greg Giordano, American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. The Hudson Spirits At various times, in the mouths of various tribes, and in various miles of its length between its source and the sea,

Starting point is 03:47:28 the Hudson has borne many names, rising as it did in the tear of the clouds, in the shadow of Mount Marcy, the Indians of its upper reaches, knew it as Kahohatanaia, the river from the mountains, and other names it bore were Schenectade, the river from the pines, Shatamu, Mohekitanatuk, Shatat, Manhattan, manhatos nassau de grout nord north maritius river of the mountains great river and hudson its valley was once the home of the bohikans sons of the great spirit who had travelled eastward across the snow peaks and the vast dry plains for they had heard under the rising sun was a paradise where salmon beaver bear and deer were plenty where berries grew on the hills and great woods abounded hundreds fell by the way slain by fever and fatigue privation cold and summer heat but the survivors gained the green lands extended their dominion and multiplied At the debouch of the creek, at Stockport, they had great storehouses of grain and meat,

Starting point is 03:48:52 and on the fields thereabouts they raised corn. The last of their race, killed in an ambush set for them by the fighters of the five nations, by buried on Rogers Island, a little above Catskill. The chief of the Mohicans, during the great emigration, was Evening Star, and Morning Star was his wife. Their child was Osco, son of the evening star. Father and son were destroyed by the great bear, and a pity for her sorrow, the Pocawananagini, the little men of the woods, who appear as night comes on, raised the bereaved morning star to the sky, where her son and husband had found refuge from the troubles of the world.

Starting point is 03:49:37 Her mother-in-law, Miniwawa, fearing that others of the tribe might also be waylaid and eaten, lighted the dark places for them, and to that end gave to the fireflies the little lamps they bear even at this day. And she climbed the cat's skills and helped to light the heavens at night. She could reach it, for are they not, Antayora, the peaks of the sky. And there she hung the moons, cutting them into pieces for stars when they grow old. So Manitou, looking down and ordering her care for the human race, took away her mortals. mortality and made her a spirit like himself, with the mountains for her home, gave to her the treasury of light and storm.

Starting point is 03:50:23 When the hunting time was over, she warned her people by tipping up the lower horn of the moon so that a bow could be seen hung upon it, in token, and the weapon need be used no more till spring. If the people grumbled or did evil, her voice thundered and rebuke, and she threw lightnings at them. But when they were good, she would shake showers and dews from her mantle and spin clouds and blow them into the valley. In some of the legends, she is not a goddess, but a witch, with many powers for mischief. They were wicked beings among the hills. A manitou, or Manitou, lent his name to Manhattos, or Manhattan, which is therefore a godly place,

Starting point is 03:51:08 built the highlands and palisades as a wall to prevent their descent. into the world of men, as well as to deter those mortals who might be tempted to intrude into paradise. The Hudson, bursting through the mountain dam behind which spread the vast inland sea of Ontario, made an exit from the region of lakes, and in the foam and mist, the upheaving and downbreaking of the cataclysm, the wicked ones escaped, and now dwell among mankind. End of Section 44. Read by Greg Giordano, Newport Ritchie, Florida. Section 45 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1.

Starting point is 03:51:59 This is a Libra Box recording. All Libra Box recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibraBox.org. Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. Ute Siantha Mount Ute Siantha of the Catskills is a frequented viewpoint near Stamford, its dome rising a couple of thousand feet above that pleasant town. Few of the borders in that neighborhood are aware that its name is that of an Indian girl,

Starting point is 03:52:41 of whom her father was overpond, as few Indians are, most of them regarding women as a hindrance, or at least a superfluity. This parent could find none of his own race whom he deemed to be worthy of her, and in desperation, for her charms were beginning to fade, she took advantage of leap year to throw herself on the mercy of a white hunter. the eloping pair disappeared from view for a couple of years and when a longing to see her old home came upon the woman her welcome from the irreconcilable was startling the father met them at the threshold killed the white man off-hand then tore the infant for there was an infant from its mother's arms and cast it into a lake having done this duty and therein maintained certain traditions of tribal conduct the old gentleman conceived that all of his daughter's affection would be once more centered upon himself he was disappointed she felt a sudden and violent aversion to this summery old person and being helpless to express it in any other way she paddled out upon the lake

Starting point is 03:54:08 where her infant had been drowned and threw herself into the water the old man mourned bitterly when her body floated ashore and chose for it the proudest tomb that ambition could have named for he buried her at the very top of this mountain and her name it will keep till some company of real estate exploiters succeeds in persuading the legislature to change it to jones's mountain or smith's peak End of Section 45. Read by Carrie Adams, your book voice at Mesa, Arizona on the 26th of March 2020. Section 46 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Librevox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librebox.org. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. Uncle Sam

Starting point is 03:55:27 In illustrated journals, especially of the humorous sort, Our Republic is personified by Uncle Sam, a tall, gaunt Yankee with a tuft of beard on his chin, long hair falling from under a furry beaver, trousers that are striped like a flag and a blue coat. He generally wears a confident air, and in days of peace he whittles a stick, while in time of war he is often pictured as spanking his opponent.

Starting point is 03:56:03 The original of this figure has been variously accounted for. It has been said that the first of these pictures was an actual portrait of a Yankee, then living in Maine. In his attributes, he is the clock peddler, Sam Slick, who was invented by Judge Halliburton of Nova Scotia for purposes of sarcasm and amusement, but who is accepted by a nation that is not ashamed of its shrewdness? Brother Jonathan is an older name than Uncle Sam,

Starting point is 03:56:40 and is thought to have been first bestowed on Colonel Jonathan Trumbull, one of Washington's AIDS, and a painter to whom the father of his country gave sittings for portraits. How the country's genius came to be called Uncle Sam is not surely known, but it is guessed that the christening occurred in Albany during the war with England in 1812. A sloop had gone up the Hudson with munitions for troops, and the powder boxes were marked U.S. Some fellow who did not spell straight enough to know that these initials stood for United States, asked a bystander if he knew what merchant was receiving this uncommonly large cargo. It chanced that the dockmaster was an elderly man who,

Starting point is 03:57:38 his first name being Samuel, was known to the neighborhood as Uncle Sam. So the person addressed replied that the boxes appeared from the U.S. painted on them to belong to Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam's ammunition was fired at John Bull's troops and sailors, and Uncle Sam's name presently extended across the country and has likewise crossed the waters. End of Section 46, read by Carrie Adams, your book voice, at Mesa, Arizona, on the 26th of March 2022. Section 47 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording.

Starting point is 03:58:35 All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volume, volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner, the Golden Tooth. Guadavraulte Stokepens sat alone in her little back parlor in a little back street of the little town of Albany, dreaming over the pictures in a migger fire and taking comfort in the monotonous tapping of rain on the window. Her knitting lay in her lap, and she was debating within herself whether she would have more pleasure in quaffing a gill of Hollands as a sleeping draught or foregoing

Starting point is 03:59:14 and having so much the more spirits in stock. A drink avoided was two pence saved and the savings of two pence was a thing to be seriously debated. She finally promised herself an extra allowance at Christmas and an extra pinch of snuff at once as a reward for abstaining, so with a sigh of resignation she arose to prepare for bed. An operation that in the case of a Dutch vrow involved not merely the mysterious marching and counter-marching, the opening and closing of doors, the moving of furniture, the overhauling of bureaus, and the displacing of dry goods and closets

Starting point is 03:59:49 that is common in the ceremonies which precede retirement in Western households, but the removal of a matter of half a dozen petticoats, some of them quilted and lined with silk from China, and therefore as greatly prized as family silver. Not more than four or five of these garments had been unpinned when there came a quick low, knock at the door. Who is there? She asked. Does the wife of Diedrich Stugpens the sailor live

Starting point is 04:00:14 here? Was asked in harsh weather-crack tones outside? Yes. Then please let me in. I do not know your voice. Who are you that comes around at this hour? Here are the hanging clock struck eight. Do you hear that? Be off with you. I am a friend. I bring news of your husband. My husband? It's near two years since I've heard from him. The name The name went eagerly to the door, just as she was, with barely four petticoats on and drew the bolt. A burly seafaring sort of person, with a wide head and thick neck, entered the room, stamped his feet on the sanded floor to shake the water from his baggy trousers, and gave his wilted hat a flip that scattered raindrops to the ceiling. A long cue dangled between his shoulders, and as he stepped into the light of her candle,

Starting point is 04:01:02 the good of Rao discovered that her visitor's face was ringed with bedraggled red whiskers that had been the sport of the winds for nobody could tell how long. He lounged into Madam Stugpen's easy chair and put his wet boots into the ashes, causing them to steam and hiss like a barbecue. Then he pulled forth a short, rank pipe and lighting it with a coal that he picked up in his thick brown fingers, began to utter smoke through his whiskers as a woodwill issues vapor after rain. and if you have a noggin of liquor-handy ma'am he remarked i could persuade myself to taste it being that i am chilled with long travel in the wind and rain poor dorci she wished now she had yielded to the craving of her thirst but there was the gin bottle in plain sight and how could she refuse never mind a cup said the stranger i'm used to taking it from the glass whereupon he tilted the nectar into his beard and when he offered the bottle again to his hostess a miracle had been wrought for lo it was empty ha that's better said the salt-looking person sinking deeper into the chair resting his head on its back and straddling his legs farther apart

Starting point is 04:02:11 So you are the wid, the wife of my old friend Dirk's dogpins, eh? A mad fellow, madam, a mad fellow. Not at all, sir, the steadiest, most saving tut-tut. Oh, you mean at home, I dare say, but at sea or in a far in port, the deepest drinker, the loudest singer, the hardest swearer, the quickest fighter, the longest at the cards, and the quickest to see a pretty hmm, eh, hmm, and the stranger cleared his throat.

Starting point is 04:02:37 You are wrong, I'm sure. Most likely it is some other stog-pins. Now there's a branch of our family in Wehawk. No, for he gave me your address before he left their ship to overhaul a rich-looking stranger on the grand banks. Overhaul, aye, to board her, to capture, to loot, you understand. To capture, but there is no war. Ha, ha, ha, and you didn't know Dirk's dogpins was a privateer? Or what people call a pirate, a sea robber?

Starting point is 04:03:05 Oh, Dirk, Dirk, how you have deceived me. But wait till you come home. He will never come home. Prepare yourself, madam, for evil news. He was killed in the attack on the brig. Ah, we all lamented him. Yes, you may weep, yet consider how much wiser it was of him to meet his end, battling stoutly, than to come to it at the end of a halter, as I am likely to do unless you shelter me. For your husband's sake, I ask you to hide me for a few days. I am Captain Kidd. Though the widow had been drowned in tears a moment before, at the mention of that dread name, she nearly dropped from fright.

Starting point is 04:03:39 Spare me, spare me, she cried, going on her knees and lifting her hands in appeal. Why, ma'am, replied, Kid, in a real surprise, I am not going to hurt anybody. Do you think so ill of me as that? Well, I have been a hard man, no doubt, but I am not for pirating in freshwater towns like Albany. Dirk has been dead these 18 months, so it's no use mourning for him now, and see, here's a purse of his earnings in our company. Don't refuse it, ma'am, for there's solid yellow comfort in it. The widow's dogpens was sooner consoled than one might have thought, and though she took the relic

Starting point is 04:04:13 with lamentations, she took it nevertheless, and after a dutiful parley and protests, consented to keep the captain in her spare room in the garret till the search that was a making for him should be over. He kept close for several days, receiving his meals from the widow, and carefully chewing them on the right side of his mouth, where on the left was the hollow, rather tender, in which he wore the golden tooth the devil have given him when he burned his Bible. A golden tooth inquired the relic in one of the long conversations whereby he tried to modify the dreariness of his seclusion. Yes, it gives me the power to turn anything to gold that I bite upon.

Starting point is 04:04:53 I don't know how long the gift will last, so I've been nibbling a quantity of copper money and tin cups, and my men buried them the other night over on connemans on Barren Island at the place they've already named the Kidden-Hucton near the mouth of Norman's kill. So now, if you have any such matter as a couple Androns or a few dishes you'd like me to change for you, in the way of pay for my lodging, bring them in. And he was as good as his word. Confounded with the possession of so much wealth,

Starting point is 04:05:23 the widow turned several of her plates into crowns, and squandered them royally on new petticoats, shoes, buckles, combs, fans, girdles, and lace. to the joyous astonishment of the shopkeepers and mystification of her neighbors. Such a change from the prudence of her ways could not fail to arouse comment, and Captain Kidd began presently to be alarmed at the frequency of calls in the rooms below, and to suffer greatly at having to contain all the profanity that at other times had free vent. The devil's gift was removable, and as Kidd was in the habit of smoking a short pipe, the tooth would become unendurably hot after a dozen pools.

Starting point is 04:06:01 so that he was fain to yank it out and put it on a chest of drawers to cool. Leaving it there one evening, he sauntered down to the sitting room for a glass of Hollins and a toast of his shins at the fire, when there came a lively wrapping at the door and a scuffle of feet on the walk. Suspecting that he had been traced to the house and was wanted, kid flung up the back window and leaped out upon the turf and was gone from Albany forever. How the widow explained matters, if it really was a search party, for it may have been a church committee to protest against Dame Stogpen's extravagance,

Starting point is 04:06:37 kid never knew. At least he never inquired, and the next that was heard of him was that he was hanged. On the morning after his abrupt disappearance, Guad of Rouse Stogpenz awoke with an odd feeling in her mouth, and grinning seriously at herself in the glass, she discovered the devil's tooth stoutly lodged in a hollow of her jaw. she bounced out of bed in a thrice picked up her battered pewter snuff-box and bit upon it she cried aloud for joy for the snuff-box was of gold For several minutes she employed herself when gnawing and gnashing at various small belongings

Starting point is 04:07:12 and was in a way to become the rival and riches of the renazlers and Dukniks and other patroons down the river before breakfast. But a thought came to her that made her leave biting of her tableware and caused her to plump into her chair so venomantly that the breath was shocked out of her for several seconds. The tooth was not movable. It was lodged fast. How then was she to eat? She bit on a crust and it became as stone. It was gold. By cautiously stowing her food well over to the right side of her mouth, she managed to get enough to stay cravings of her appetite and fortified likewise with a draught of holland,

Starting point is 04:07:52 which the tooth had no power to solidify. She went straight to Petraus Hussman's, the blacksmith, who, for a consideration, would extract an aching tooth and give his patient's full money's worth in time and pains, and he hauled out the offending member. There is no doubt that the devil put that tooth into Varow Stogpen's jaw in pure kindness of spirit, with which we know him to be occasionally overcome, and as pay for the goodwill she had shown to Captain Kidd, his pet, and pupil.

Starting point is 04:08:21 But never accept the devil's gifts. They always bring bad luck. True, they may be forced upon you as they were on Verow Stogpen's, and in such case a priest and a surgeon may be needed to help you free. The widow neglected the parson. Result? The blacksmith gossiped about her new tooth, a tooth that dented under his turnkey like metal, and was yellow like gold, that left yellow streaks on the instrument and other gossips, taking up the story enlarged and adorned it until they had made out the unhappy woman to be a witch,

Starting point is 04:08:53 and vowed they had seen her riding above the roofs on a broomstick on nights when the weather was thick. Some affected that she had bought the tooth to replace one she had lost by walking into her bed-pourable, after putting out the candle and one or two discoursed of a new way of filling hollow teeth with metal, but these affected the prevailing belief not a wit, and watched, worried, and maligned Veral Stogpen allowed herself to take a cold, in spite of her eight petticoats, later increased to ten, and so perished. As for the tooth, it is believed that she cast it into the fire, and that as it melted, it gave off blue flames that danced in the chimney in the shape of little imps.

Starting point is 04:09:35 End of Section 47. Section 48 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner, the White Lady of Dobbs Ferry. Some time before the Revolution,

Starting point is 04:10:11 a branch of the family that gave its unromantic name to Dobbs' Ferry on the Hudson, was allured by the original Dobbs across the sea and built a home on a sightly hill above that hamlet. For a time, the mansion was accounted palatial, and the occupants spent money with a lavish hand to increase its beauty. Those who mowed the lawns and trained the flowers about it were hired from the little farming settlements nearby, and when they went down to the tavern for a mug and a pipe, or went home on Saturday night to get a clean shirt and read the Bible, they were assailed with no end of questions by their eagerly curious relatives and neighbors.

Starting point is 04:10:50 To live to yourself in the country is to rouse the protest of everybody within five miles of you. In the city one may have a certain privacy, because there are plenty of other people to get acquainted with, and to help in making a noise. The villages, on the contrary, have so few social advantages that every resident is expected to do something for the general entertainment if it is only to run over to the next hamlet and collect gossip. The occupants of the Dobbs Mansion were a comfortable, law-abiding people. Not ascetics by any means, but they did not invite the neighbors and did not

Starting point is 04:11:26 visit. They had books in music, dabbled in science, enjoyed gardening, and appeared to be happy. Who then was the white lady? What was her power to destroy their home? did she do it by destroying life or had she a craft like that of the pied piper to compel whom she would to follow she arrived in broad day dressed from hat to shoes in white and on some ground persuaded the whole family to go with her to a house nearby they never went back none had seen the woman or the others pass by any road or go up or down or over the river in a boat the fine house filled with dust and cover the lawns and gardens went to weeds. Twice the glint of a shaded light was seen in the upper windows, but nothing was removed and no footprints could be found on the rain-softened earth outside. Who then, and what, was the white lady? End of Section 48, read by Robin Lee, Denver, Colorado, April 21st, 2022. Section 49 of American Myths and Legends, Volume

Starting point is 04:12:44 1. This is the Libravox recording. All LibraVox recordings are in a public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Read by S.E. Dell. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner, the Underground Station. So near New York that its lights whitened their night sky, yet separated by so many marshes, woods, and rocks, that they are farther than by miles removed from the metropolis. The dwellers among Ramapo Hills have the character that isolation and rustic living fixed upon the people. Here, the last men of the Muncie tribe, came to their end. Here, after the revolution, came broken soldiers, camp followers, and men with a dread of constables, from whom have sprung the lonely gypsy-like farmers and hunters of today.

Starting point is 04:13:57 Here, just before the Civil War, were stations in the Underground Railroad that led from the slave states into Canada, and the hill folk were always ready to hide. clothe and feed the runaway negroes and send them rejoicing on their northward way. Some of these stragglers did not reach the British provinces. Secure and a guard of friendly whites, they took up homes in caves and cabins and in bosky hollows, seldom appearing among men and living apart like troglodytes. In two these watched and silent hills there came on an autumn day, a tall and swarthy man with a black mustache and imperial sharp eyes that look from under a gray slouch hat.

Starting point is 04:14:50 A southerner, as you could see, who chewed his cigar nervously, yet with a determined set of the teeth. An official-looking document peeped from an inner pocket of his long coat, and the right skirt of that garment bulged above the pistol pocket. A local worthy who had accompanied him on the gate of a valley and who carried a rifle, as if he expected a stir-up game, showed such signs of fatigue as they neared the hills that the southerner dismissed him contemptuously and smiled as he saw, with what, briskness? The tired constable waited through the herbage homeward. The stranger took a hearty pool at a flask. examined a rude chart on a scrap of wrapping paper,

Starting point is 04:15:45 then dropped a little aside from the path, though keeping it in sight and struck westward into the wilderness. In an hour, he had reached the edge of a clearing where stood a cabin of slabs and seated on a stump in the concealment of a thicket, he resigned himself patiently to watch. A breeze sprang up as the sun went low, and the sounds in the wood increased. The cracking of twigs and whisking of leaves, often causing him to start and peer cautiously about him.

Starting point is 04:16:26 Time dragged. Nobody entered a hut. Nobody left it. He arose and stretched himself yawning. As he did so, his arms were grasped from behind and brought together with a wrench that nearly loosened them from the shoulders. He was flung forward on his face, and in an instant his pistol was plucked from his pocket. He raised his hand. A blow with the pistol butt broke two of his fingers. Kneel, or I'll shoot, commanded a voice behind him. I know you're tom, dogged, and I know you're errand. Give me that paper. That paper I say, your pound hound. Did you think the law of Alabama was worth the ink

Starting point is 04:17:15 took to write it in New York? So you turned sheriff and you've taken a chase and runaway niggers, eh? I'm just going to give your Alabama judge a proof you've met me and tried to do your duty. When you were overseer eight years ago, you flogged me. Remember that? I'm seven-eighths white. And I don't take beatings, but I had to wear scars for you all these eight years. Been lower and don't turn or I'll kill you. The whistle of a big whip sounded and ended in a crack. Ten blows fell on a sheriff's back, fierce blows that tore like knives. Go back now and tell you people that a nigger thrashed you, added the voice.

Starting point is 04:18:08 and going back soon, for you're not safe here. It's no use to look for me. The last train by the Underground Road leaves this yard place tonight. Of section 49. Section 50 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libra Box recording. All Libra Box recordings are in the public domain.

Starting point is 04:18:46 For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner The Indian Princess Apple An old orchard on the Peter Turner Homestead, Monroe, New York, has a gnarly old apple tree whose fruit is different from that of any other in the country. in that it is flashed with red from its golden skin to its core and is known as the indian princess wild fruit grew plentifully in the romapo valley a couple of centuries ago when indians abode thereabout and among the red residence was that invariable unfortunate without whom no indian settlement was complete a lover whose sweetheart's father had refused to become a father-in-law to him. The old chief, this mistaken mortal, was always an old chief, told his child to discourage

Starting point is 04:20:01 the attentions of the lover, and threatened both of the young folks with the most substantial kind of opposition if they attempted any flirting in his neighborhood. The result was natural and usual. The young folks cared twice as much for one another as before, and lost no opportunity to be together. People became frugal of walking about in the dark, for fear of falling over them, or bumping into them as they sat or stood in the shade, clasping hands and sighing over the parents sternness, and the match was secretly and naturally helped along by all the gossips in the village. But the day of discovery and reckoning arrived. The old chief came upon them as they were walking hand in hand through the wood, and ordered the girl to return to her wigwam. The lover folded

Starting point is 04:21:03 his arms and awaited her decision. She looked from one to the other for a moment, then ran to her lover's arms the father said never a word but bent his bow and sent an arrow quivering into his daughter's side she sank quietly to the earth never more breathing and the father strode away something ought to have happened to him afterwards but if it did the legends of his people do not record it just where the girl was put to death a wild apple tree was springing, and its roots drank up her blood. At fruiting time, the blood drops show in the juicy globes. End of Section 50. Read by Kerry Adams, your book voice, at Mesa, Arizona, on the 26th of March 2022. Section 51 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1.

Starting point is 04:22:16 is a LibraVox recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibraVox.org. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. The Blue Scenietlis Flood legends are worldwide and those retained by our northern Indians are in no wise evidence of their early relation to the lost tribes of Israel. That relation has a better or more plausible grounding in the observance among the Iroquois of the right of circumcision in the offering of deer meat and first fruits to the deity, as in the green corn dance, and in the likeness of the Indian names for God to the Hebrew titles,

Starting point is 04:23:10 as witness, Yah, Abba, and Yehoa. Their sages and medicine men often recall the biblical patriarchs, for like them they had moments of supernatural power. They tell, for instance, of medicine men who could bring down men or brutes by pointing at them, or by commanding in a loud, imperious voice, that they fall dead. tales of an ark of a bird returning to it after a search for land of a destruction of wicked towns by fire are analogous to incidents described in the old testament in the indian stories of flood subsidence however local traditions are often at variance but several of them tell of the splitting of the hills that pent waters might flow away and seek the same sea. The six nations believed that the great spirit, the invisible hand,

Starting point is 04:24:17 drained the Genesee country of its water, only the narrow, finger-shaped cluster of lakes remaining. Scaniatly's lake is deep blue, and they said that when the heavens used to be nearer to the earth than they are now, the sky spirits leaned out of their home to admire themselves in this mirror. The lake spirit fell in love with them and absorbed the color of their robes into the water, so that it is of a fine, deep blue to this day. End of Section 51, read by Carrie Adams, your book voice at Mesa, Arizona on the 30th of March 2022. Section 52 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1.

Starting point is 04:25:17 This is a Libravox recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. The Onondaga Ferrys The Onondagas are a dull, peaceful farming people who occupy a reservation of 6,000 fertile acres in central New York. Their pristine wildness has disappeared.

Starting point is 04:25:55 They are noted for honesty and do not beat their children. While missionaries have striven with them and induced a nominal acceptance of Christianity, they continue some of their pagan dances and ceremonies, and little is done to make them better workmen. Hyawatha or Hoawentha, greatest of Indians, they claim as their tribesmen, and say that he was born near the end of the 16th century. Among the old faiths that have survived the chapel and the school is a belief in fairies. little people who abounded near Palatine Bridge and were known as stone-throwers in spite of their kindly disposition.

Starting point is 04:26:45 Men now living seriously declare that they have seen them and that they could appear and vanish at pleasure. A hunter who lived in the 17th century enjoyed the goodwill of these elves and for no reason save that his ill luck aroused their compassion. He had been absent on the chase for some days, but nothing had fallen beneath his hand. Tired and discouraged, he sank down in the wood to rest, but becoming aware of a presence he looked up and saw a very small woman standing beside him. She made him be cheered, for he should find gold and silver, such as the white traitors. light, and should kill as many animals as he pleased, that he had but to call them, and they would offer themselves to his knife. He seems to have neglected the gold and silver, but he always

Starting point is 04:27:48 had his dinner when he wanted it, after that meeting. In later times a feeble old woman, while walking with her grandchild, met one of the fairies who commiserated with her upon her rheumatism and her bent back, and told her to order the child to walk on, that he might not see the gift she would confer upon her. After the boy had passed some rods along the road, the fairy handed a comb to the beldom and bade her use it. The old woman did so, and noticed at each passage of the implement through her grizzled locks, that the hair was growing darker and darker. She felt of her face, and broke into a joyous laugh, for the wrinkles were leaving her brow, and her skin was becoming softer and smoother. She was growing young.

Starting point is 04:28:46 Had she kept silence the transformation would, in a few minutes, have been complete, for it appears needful that supernatural gifts shall not be questioned nor to, closely noticed. But at the sound of her laugh, the child who was running among the trees in advance stopped and looked back. This broke the spell. With a wailing cry, Dear child, you have destroyed me! The woman fell dead. End of Section 52. Read by Carrie Adams, your book voice, at Mesa, Arizona on the 3 31st of March 2022. Section 53 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1.

Starting point is 04:29:42 This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org. Recording by Alan Lawley. American Myths and Legends. Volume 1. by Charles M. Skinner

Starting point is 04:30:04 Grey Court's Little History Daniel Cromline, the first settler in Grey Court, New York, a man of distinction because his long cabin had doors and floors of plane boards was in New York on the day when a ship came in from the other side of the sea

Starting point is 04:30:27 he wanted to buy a labourer. In those days, In those days, men and women were sold for debt and were slaves to the man who furnished the amount they owed, until they had repaid the sum by work. William Bull, a young Irishman, was one of the passengers, and he was in hot dispute with the captain of the ship, and thened an overcharge for passage money. The skipper had told him on sailing that five guineas, all he had,

Starting point is 04:31:01 would cover the cost of the trip. But on arriving in America, he informed Bull that this was not enough and that he would be set at work for someone who would make up the deficiency. Bull answered that he would pay never another penny. He had no more and demanded to be taken back on the same ship

Starting point is 04:31:26 saying, I'll be a slave in Ireland, if I must, be a slave at all. Cromley's saw, and liked the lad, paid over charge to the rapacious captain, and took Ball home with him. The young fellow became, in time, a landed proprietor near Duck's Cedar, which is now by the elect called Tuxedo.

Starting point is 04:31:52 There was no other white resident in that part of the Shawangunk Hills at the time, except Sarah Wells. who had been sold to a Long Island farmer and had removed here after working out her freedom. The Indians, pitting her lonely state, had built a cabin for her, telling her that she needs seek no further for home site. Moreover, they supplied Mays and Benson whenever her supplies ran short, and she was in a fair way to become an Indian herself. when Bull arrived on the scene.

Starting point is 04:32:35 Both being of the white race they naturally made a mutual offer of friendly services, and that they should eventually fall in love with one another is no great wonder either. That is what happened. Bull proposed marriage, but explained that as he was of the Episcopal faith, it would be necessary to publish the bans before the knot could be tied, a condition that gave rise to anxieties until the magistrate who was to perform the ceremony complied with it, to the satisfaction of both concerned, by going to the door and bawling into the wilderness. If anyone objects to the marriage of William Bull and Sarah Wells, let him speak or hold his peace,

Starting point is 04:33:30 forever after. He went back, shut the door, waited a minute, and repeated the call. The third summons bought no answer. So in due time the twain were united.

Starting point is 04:33:48 There was a wedding feast with much deer meat, corn, wild fruits and fermented honey. And hunters and bordermen from the country round were guests. in their rough, fringe dress and unfringed manners, and the fiddler, who had come all the way from Jersey,

Starting point is 04:34:09 played with irresistible dash, and all jigged it riotously, and thus was begun the long and prosperous career of the family of Ball. The Lock House, where the ceremony occurred, still stands. Negotion. The Cromline House, being on the road to New Jersey, became an inn and had for its sign a wooden oval, with a picture of a goose on one side and King George III on the other. Stout, brandy, smoking flip and beguiling punch were served across its bar,

Starting point is 04:34:54 alike to Whigs, Tories, Neutrals, Indians, and every other sort during the dark days of war that followed. Presently, but when the success of the American arms appeared to be certain, everything English had to go, even the crownstone that had been brought from the old country for Goshen Jail, and which an enthusiastic patriot destroyed with the hammer. The portrait of the Royal George was sedulously neglected. The once brilliant coat and continents faded in the summer suns and winter storms, until the figure was ridiculed

Starting point is 04:35:40 by the country folk as old grey coat. So in time the tavern itself came to be known as the Greycoat Inn. Presently came in people from the towns who represented the virtues, especially that of the mode, and they saw that it would never do to have their friends addressed letters to grey coat. So they solemnly changed the name to grey court, which sounds correct, though of course there is no court of grey or any other colour within miles. of Section 53. Section 54 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1.

Starting point is 04:36:36 This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Read by J. Thurgood. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1, by Charles M. Skinner. The Good Bird Spirit In the country called Gaia de Rosara, in and about Saratoga, New York, are many battlegrounds where tribes of old contended for supremacy. The fields about the healing waters that in our time are every summer resorted to by thousands were held by the Mohawks,

Starting point is 04:37:17 and they were under the protection of many manitues, none of whom were more kind than the good bird spirit. Though usually wearing the form of a white dove, the manitou would take the shape of an enemy and suffer itself to be killed, when it would rise again in its bird shape, guide the straggler back to his camp, and even restore the dead to life. A hunter who had missed the trail and was wandering through the forest saw a gray owl on a branch that overhung him and heard its hoot. It is a common belief that in the rare accident of an Indians losing his way some evil influence is working against him, that he is doomed to wander in a circle till he is exhausted, the circles growing smaller as he nears the place of the demon. To his excited fancy this bird was a fiend and was mocking

Starting point is 04:38:10 his distress. He slipped an arrow on his bowstring and shot the creature through. It fell, fluttering to the earth, where he would have dispatched it with his axe. had not a dove sprung from the body and soared above his head. The brooding clouds broke away. The hunter's moon struck its light through the branches, making the new snow to sparkle, and the despair in the man's heart gave way to thankfulness, for he realized that he had been rescued by the spirit of the wood.

Starting point is 04:38:43 And following his guide in its slow flight, he presently emerged on the shore of Saratoga Lake, at the point where he had left his canoe three days before. Among most Indian tribes, physical courage is the highest virtue, and young men must endure injuries and disfigurements to prove their bravery. If they fail, they suffer the contempt of men and women alike. In the old days, girls as well as young men had to prove their strength and ability to suffer uncomplainingly that it might be known if they were fit to become the wives of fighters,

Starting point is 04:39:19 and mothers of heroes. Saratoga Lake was a frequent scene of these tests, for it was customary to force the maidens in their 13th year to swim from the mouth of Gallagoraseras River to the hill of storms, now called Snake Hill. The Mohawks were never as stronger people than when they gathered at this water

Starting point is 04:39:42 to see the daughter of their chief, his only child, cross it or drown in the attempt, has one not worthy to be a princess. In the moon of green corn the day had been set. The father led the girl to the canoe that was to take her to the other shore and bade her be of good heart. She paddled across,

Starting point is 04:40:03 disembarked, tossed off her clothing, and plunged boldly, lightly into the lake, the old man watching for her anxiously. It was a long way. The wind had veered so as to baffle the swimmer and waves were rising. Her progress grew slower and slower. She turned on her back and floated for a little to regain breath and strength,

Starting point is 04:40:26 thus drifting away again. It was plain that she was exhausted. Febly moving forward once more she began her death song. Her father's face was a picture of woe. Suddenly, a shout of astonishment from the people, a great eagle darting from the clouds, struck his talons into her hair and tried to live. her. She caught him by the legs, then both disappeared beneath the surface. A moan came from the company,

Starting point is 04:40:55 then a cry of gladness. Out of the dark water a dove had flown, and rising to her feet in a shallow, the girl had reappeared. While waiting to the shore where a score of arms were held toward her, the dove circled, then alighted on her head and remained there until she had reached firm ground. The sudden rack of pain and joy was too much for her father. With a look of gratitude at the sky, into which the dove was now ascending, he ceased to breathe. So the girl was queen of the Mohawks, and for long after it was the daughter not the son who succeeded to the chieftaincy. The dove became the tribal totem. Once, in the moon of roses, 500 Mohawks marching northward met a party of Algonquins,

Starting point is 04:41:44 coming from Canada. The Mohawks, who were of that great family of Iroquois, the Romans of the West, were on ill terms with their neighbors of the cold lands, calling them Adirondacks, tree eaters, because when game was scarce in the biting winters, they stripped the trees of buds, gum, and inner bark for food. It was near the sight of Ballston that they met this time, and a fight began at once. While it raced, An eagle sniffing blood, and hoping to find prey among creatures so wasteful of life hovered above the field, now trampled and soddened with gore. Yet only an hour ago a flowery meadow, sweet smelling and peaceful in the sun. Weary with its flight, it settled on a pine as the day was

Starting point is 04:42:34 ending, and still watched the exhausted savages as they struck and parried and shot and slew and scalped. Its screams had given heart to both. armies, but now they began to believe that it was an evil creature who had lured them to this slaughter. As by common consent, the bowmen on both sides shot a flight of arrows at the bird, so many that arrows followed one another through the same wound. Directly that it had fallen into the deep grass a shining dove arose from the spot and perched on the branch from which the eagle had fallen. The good bird spirit.

Starting point is 04:43:12 the dove of peace. Arrows that were being fitted to the bows dropped to the ground. The men seemed as if waking from an ugly dream. The chiefs moved toward each other, their heads hung in sorrow, as they looked on the corpses of their brothers, slain in useless rage

Starting point is 04:43:32 for a feud of forgotten origin. There was a long talk, then both sides gathered around a fire and smoked the pipe of French. Because of the killing on that day, the stream whose waters ran red is still the morning kill. End of Section 54. Section 55 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Librivox recording.

Starting point is 04:44:06 All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. read by Jennifer Painter American Myths and Legends Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner The Lovers United In the summer, the high ground of Yaddo, Saratoga, was occupied by Mohicans,

Starting point is 04:44:33 who went to drink the medicine waters and break the heads of the Mohawks. The latter claimed ownership of the region, not that they wanted it, or used it, or needed it, but it served as well as anything else to fight about. One summer, the Mohawks were absent, pounding the lives out of some distant relatives, and the Mohicans, finding themselves pleasantly neglected,

Starting point is 04:44:57 made their camp near a beaver dam on the little Tasawasa. The time was auspicious for a June wedding, therefore Wehquagan, who was a chief, like every other Indian whose name had been saved to us, was married to Awanunsk, like every other indian girl whose name has appeared in the papers another chief's daughter directly after the ceremony the bride crossed the beaver pond with several of her friends to gather strawberries for the wedding feast in those simple times brides did not expect to be waited on much nor did they take long bridal tours while the women were gathering the fruit a shrill yell was heard followed by the screams of awonunsk and her friends as they ran to regain their canoes.

Starting point is 04:45:45 The Mohawks had returned. All of the women on the farther bank were slain or captured, except the bride, who reached her boat, and all the Mohicans within sound of the hubbub ran to the pond. They were in time to see the girls sent her birch out on the water

Starting point is 04:46:02 with a vigorous push and ply her paddle, closely pursued in another canoe by a big mohawk. This fellow was clever enough to keep himself in line with his intended victim, so that her friends should not shoot for fear of harming her. They might as well have done so, for he soon caught up with her,

Starting point is 04:46:22 and at a range of only a few yards sent an arrow through her body. Looking into her husband's eyes, with an agony of appeal in her face, she held her arms toward him, toppled into the lake, and disappeared. A vengement was swift, for in another second the same, twang of fifty bow-string sounded and the murderer pitched into the water dead the bereaved husband stood for a long time on the bank while reddened waves lapped at his feet and a black mist came lowering a blight seemed suddenly to have fallen on the place next day it was the same and the next trees withered and the clouds hung down the game fled to the hills and the hills fled to the hills and the moment Hawks, having begun the war in a usual and infernal fashion, kept at it until they had driven the Mohicans back across the Hudson, and the pond was deserted. Yet, every summer in the moon of strawberries, where Quagin secretly returned to look at the spot which his saddest and happiest

Starting point is 04:47:33 hours had sanctified to him. Years passed. He became an old man. The last time he returned to beaver pond his hair was white his face was wrinkled he was as one waiting for death he stood on the shore a few followers at his side and peered into the mist that still hung upon the water presently a brightness began to disperse the dark and the mist lifting showed a wanunsk in the bloom of youth and shining like the moon all pain had vanished from her face and with a smile of love she seemed as if advancing to meet her husband. He with a cry of joy staggered two steps toward her and fell dead on the sand. Now the dark mist was torn by a bar of sunlight and the watchers heard music falling from the sky. A form, in lightness of their chief, but young and strong, arose through the waves beside her Wannansk and the two were entwined in each other's arms. They ascended softly as vapors drift from pools at dawn and melted into sunlight, and the shadows never rested on that spot again. End of Section 55. Section 56 of American Myths and Legends, Volume

Starting point is 04:49:07 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Read by Jeff Pierpont, American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. Pocomoneshine One of our few satisfying mountain names is Pocomonshine, or Pekamonshine, in the Adirondacks, the rule having been to burden our hills with a nomenclature either foolish or commonplace. In this lonely height is a cave with a crack in the roof, through which, in certain phases, of the moon, a ray of light will enter, and this peak, or peep, or poke of moonshine,

Starting point is 04:49:58 has given a name to the mountain itself. In 1757, a young Huguenot noble, Francois Dubois, came to America to join his regiment in Canada. He came the more willingly because he knew that his sweetheart, Clements Lamoiselle, would presently follow him, for her father had incurred the dislike of certain political enemies and had been virtually banished from the kingdom. And true enough, it was not long ere Emil, La Moil, and his daughter left their home forever. From New Rochelle, where they lived for a little time, they went northward with an Indian guide, and eventually settled in a lovely valley east of Lake Champlain on the bank of that river now called La Moil.

Starting point is 04:50:47 Clements found a way to let her lover know their whereabouts. He ascended the lake at that time with Montcams force, which some days later attacked the English near Lake George, and no doubt he cast a longing eye at the peaceful hills that walled Champlain on its eastern side, for somewhere among them his lady awaited him. Possibly he did not then imagine that in a few days he should be seeking her, a disgraced and heart-sick soldier, but so it fell out. Truth is he had little stomach for his business. He was less in love with war than with Clements.

Starting point is 04:51:22 Being Protestant, he could not sympathize heartily with the scheme of a Catholic government against a Protestant people. And especially he loathed the brutalities that the Indians committed under permission of his fellow officers. The horrible massacre that followed the French victory on Lake George ended his endurance. He stole away from camp at night, found a canoe, and in a few days he had reached the Lamoil cabin, weak, discouraged, and. but with no jot of his love abated. He did not dare to meet the father. Exile, though he was,

Starting point is 04:51:56 the old man still revered his France, and loved his old profession of arms. When he learned that this proposed son-in-law was a deserter, he would spurn him indignantly from his presence. But with the girl it was otherwise. Du Bois gained audience with her, and with pity for his mental and bodily suffering mingled with her love, she sheltered him. The French army would soon be returning toward the St. Lawrence, and he might be seen, chased, captured, and imprisoned, if not shot. Clements lived almost as free a life as an Indian, and she was a willful girl withal. It was an easy matter to absent herself for a day or two from home.

Starting point is 04:52:39 In a night journey across the lake, the young couple reached a trail leading into the fastnesses of the Adirondacks, and there Clements left Francois, after directing him how he should reach Pocam moonshine, and promising to join him so soon as she could replenish their ammunition and recover some of her belongings. A few days later, she kissed her father and said she was going upon the lake. She never returned. Her dog reached home that evening with a letter in his collar, but rain or dew had made it illegible. Years afterward, old Lamoil, while hunting in the mountains, took shelter from a storm in the grotto of Pocomoneshine. The tempest lasted so long that he gave up the thought of leaving it that night.

Starting point is 04:53:29 So he made himself comfortable and went to sleep. In the small hours he awoke to see a slender ray of moonlight falling through a chink in the rock. It rested on a scrap of gold lace from a military coat, and on a necklace, his daughters. Was he dreamt? He reached out and took the pearls into his hand. They were real. Had the cave become the tomb of the young pair?

Starting point is 04:53:57 Had they fallen victim to bears or panthers? It will never be known. But the cross that stood at the cave door for years after has banned all shadows, and the figures that glide over Lake Onahuasca by moonlight are said to be Francois and Clements. of Section 56. Section 57 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1.

Starting point is 04:54:32 This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1, by Charles M. Skinner. The Niagara Thunder God An Indian girl who lived on the shore of Niagara, a little way above the cataract, had been promised in marriage in the good old Indian fashion, shared sometimes by the European aristocracy, to a man she hated. The wedding day had dawn, and though no church bells were ringing, the people were gathering for the festival. The bridegroom, ill-favored, selfish, and surly, but for that hour all smiles, replied, with jest to the broad raillery of his acquaintances. From the shade of her wigwam, the unhappy maid looked out upon the group. She noted the air of easy triumph in the man who would presently command her,

Starting point is 04:55:35 whom she would be forced to serve for the rest of her life, for whom she must cook and drudge, whose clothing she must make, whose bed or fur she must prepare, whose lodge she must strike and raise again, whose weapons she must decorate, whose dogs she must decorate, whose dogs she must must feed. A strong shudder went through her. She could not, would not be his wife. Stealing softly from the wigwam, she reached the river edge and looked back. The face of her lord to be was lower, more imbruted than ever. He smiled meaningly on the people who congratulated him. Yes, death was better than life with him. Death it should be. She stepped into her canoe, pushed it from the shore, threw away the paddle, and resigned herself to the current.

Starting point is 04:56:26 Some moments passed, the little boat, drifting idly at first, began to move with ever-increasing rapidity, from a distance behind her. She heard a cry of dismay. She had been seen by her people. In answer she began her death song. Those behind it heard more and more faintly, faintly, than silence. She was fairly in the power of. of the river. The shores were hurrying by. Had she any thought of trying to make the shore, it was now too late. A vast yet distant roaring could be heard, growing louder every moment. The rapids were near, the long hurry of water leading to the plunge of the green flood into the abyss. The sky lay on the top step of the rapids as she looked downstream. Anon, the billows pulsed beneath her and

Starting point is 04:57:17 heaved the canoe and dropped it with sickening force and quickness. The slope deepened. The turmoil of waters was deafening, yet the growl of the cataract sounded through it. Over that fearful brink she must pass to liberty. Those clouds, boiling upward from the pit, would hide the last scene in the tragedy. No eye of a chance hunter would see her mangled form when it was hurled against the rocks. The boat leaped forward. It was the last. It was the last. The last. The prow hung above the chasm, the vast slide of water curled at the edge of the cliff. She leaped to her feet with a cry and shot into the void. But not to death. Hano, the thunderer, rising in the mist, had seen her. He held forth his arms, and into them the girl fell,

Starting point is 04:58:09 safely and softly. Stepping through the water curtain, protecting her from its rush and weight, he seated her on a bench of rock. She was in a great cavern behind the fall, and the deluge tempered the day to a drowsy twilight. This place was her home thence forward. Hano cared for her as for a daughter, and at times she married one of his strong sons, to whom she bore a beautiful child that became an associate thunderer with Haino. For her sake the God was kind to her people. When pestilence appeared, he lifted her to the shore that she might tell them to leave their villages and go to a higher country. It was the great serpent, she told them, who had poisoned the water they drank, and would slay them if they stayed. Hardly they left Niagara before the snake appeared, all green and white, and trailing his body through miles of country, like a river.

Starting point is 04:59:07 He had slept after poisoning the water, but was hungry now, and would feed on their bodies. On finding the camp deserted, he hissed with wrath, and the hissing was like the rush of the rapids. He would have followed the tribe, but Haino, looking from the miss, saw the creature, and with a thunderbolt, struck him dead. The huge mass floated down the stream and lodged above the cataract, a fold and its body deflected the larger volume of water to the horseshoe fall. which was made curving and deep on that day. Hanno's home was destroyed by the flood,

Starting point is 04:59:43 thus centered at that point, in assembling all of his children and the Indian girl, he arose with him to the heavens, where he thunders in the cloud mists as he once did in the vapors from the fall. Yet though he lives in the skies, an echo of his voice is always sounding at Niagara. End of Section 57. Section 58 of

Starting point is 05:00:14 American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a LibraVox recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibraVox.org, read by Greg Cherdano. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. The Death on the Palisades Manitou reared the palisades of the Hudson, that they might hide his dwelling on the top from the eyes of men who hunted and fished and pried along the river.

Starting point is 05:00:50 The Algonquin, or Leni Lenepe, first men, having already come from the west to plant their villages by the sea. The Iroquois had promised that they might pass through the Mississippi country to reach this eastern land of fabled wealth without offering war. Yet, like all eastward migrations in history, this was a failure. For the Iroquois, seeing the large numbers of the moving tribe, feared that the prairies would be taken from them, and suddenly revoking the permission, it fell upon and destroyed the Lenai Lenapean in thousands. Many of the latter reached the sea, however, and spread over the mountain belt, but they

Starting point is 05:01:30 were ever afterward the enemies of the Iroquois. Hence, and after years, it argued a high courage in the young chief from Niagara to penetrate to the heart of his foeman's land. But love gives that courage, and he had seen in a dream a girl so fair that he could not abide in peace one hour till he had found her. His dream had told him where she was, gathering his arms and paint, he said farewell to his people and began his long walk toward the rising sun. Seven days and almost seven nights he walked and ran and swam, and then he climbed the easy, a shoreward descent of Manitou's wall, and came out at the brink of the cliff, five hundred feet above the Great River, near the spot where Hudson afterward repelled a hundred Manhattan's, with a cannon shot, and opposite the hill, or the yonk, here built the manor that was

Starting point is 05:02:28 a grove into the city of Yonkers. He resolved to emblaze in his arms or towed to his arms, or totem on the rock, and had already sketched the outline when a deer bounded by of the Lanai Lenopean pursuit. In an instant, the painter had lifted himself back to the edge of the cliff, and in a few seconds was fiercely wrestling with the hunter. Neither gaining much advantage, the hunter proposed a truce till he could gather his people, that they might see how both of them could die like fighters. The Iroquois consented, and employed the time of his foam in absence, in finishing his totem in the brightest pigments. Then he flung his axe and spear into the river, and waded, his many-coloured belt bound

Starting point is 05:03:13 tight upon him. With a rush of many footsteps came the lanai lenopi, bursting through the bushes, bounding over the rocks, and glaring in hatred on the intruder. He arose, face them defiantly, began vaunting death-song, mingled with sneers and curses for his enemies. Another rushing sound, this time of arrows, with a twang of a hundred low cords, and the young chief stood before them, studded with darts. He swayed, but almost as he was in the act of falling, a new life seemed to enter him, and he sprang erect with eyes fixed in admiration on a face at the edge of the scowling multitude, a face that had longing and pity in it, the face of his dreams.

Starting point is 05:04:01 he could speak, the young man whom he had engaged ran forward to him. I am here, cried the hunter, and picking the Iroquois up in his arms, as he would have raised an infant. He sprang into space and kept his promise. End of Section 58. Read by Greg Giordano, Newport Ritchie, Florida. Section number 59 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libra Vox recording. LeBravax recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Read by Allegor Little Cole. American Myths and Legend, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner, Panther Chief of the Seneca's. White Thunder, leader of the Seneca's when they occupied their

Starting point is 05:04:54 lands in what is now Western New York, was a chief of strength and wisdom, who was always against war. Not that he was timid, but because he was old and wise, and knew what war meant in suffering waste and carnage. Yet his people did not always reason, but were swayed by their passions, and after years of inactivity they longed for battle. Even the wife of White Thunder felt angered and disgraced by her husband's peaceful preaching,

Starting point is 05:05:19 and once, in the silence of the woods, she begged that the great spirit would give her people a chief who would be as fierce and bloody as a panther. A storm was rising as she left the forest. The pines were swaying and moaning, and it seemed as though through the nethered, noise she could hear the growl and snarled of beasts. Fallen leaves whirled into spirals and the clearings and the dancing masses suggested the forms of animals of prey. The lake, which she reached

Starting point is 05:05:45 presently, was lapping and hissing against the rock, and the sounds were like the drinking and spitting of a link. Great eyes seemed to roll and glare in the openings of the clouds that deepened and hurried overhead. A curious possession of fear, alien to her savage nature, came upon the woman, and drawing her robe about her head, she ran towards her lodge. Before she could reach the village, however, the rands began to pour, and a bolt of fire hurled from the sky, rived the tallest pine in the wood. For shelter, she climbed a bank to the protection of a ledge, and there, reclined on a couch of moss, and feeling that storm would last for hours, she fell asleep. In a dream, she fancied that she had penetrated the wood to a greater deep than

Starting point is 05:06:29 she had ever seen before, and had there discovered a giant panther, crouched and watchful, his eyes gleaming, his lips drawn black, his tail twitching, and his hams quivering with impulse for a spring. And the meaning of her prayer came to her, that our people might have a chief who should be as a panther in his thirst for blood and lack of any gentleness. The autumn passed, and in the winter the woman bore a child, and the look of that child was a look of a ferocious beast. The white thunder scowled as he saw his offspring and said,

Starting point is 05:07:02 You have your wish, this child should be named the little panther. He shall lead my people to their death. And it was so. As the boy grew, he became even more a brute in looks, and his ways were the ways of the panther too, secret, slinking, bloody, and full of greed. He lived only for war. He was unceasing in his strife.

Starting point is 05:07:28 of his fellows he led to death that he might give death to his enemies. He prowled the woods alone when he could command no following, and burned and harried and slew, sparing neither the age nor the sick nor the babes nor the women. And the name of Seneca was hated in the land. His people were ashamed of Little Panther, and when they saw his green eyes peering at them from the shadow, they feared him too. But his days were to be short, for meeting a panther among the hills and trying to kill it, he lost his own life. And his people gave thanks to the great spirit. End of section number 59.

Starting point is 05:08:15 Section 60 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibraVox.org, read by Greg Gerdano. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. The Spooks of Schoolies Mountain It is not so very long ago that you could find ghosts in New Jersey. There may be a few left today.

Starting point is 05:08:53 Some of them must have gone there to enjoy one another's society and escape those doubters of New York, Philadelphia, and other godless places who were forever running their hard heads against graveyard facts, known to every bedlam and every schoolboy elsewhere in the land. What? Had these infidels never heard of the spooks that guard the buried treasure of the beaches? Would they deny that the mark of a spirit hand was left on the chest of a reveller in Andover, and that he reformed his ways in a knight. Could they affirm that Blackbeard

Starting point is 05:09:36 had not stowed a fortune and coin and jewels under the Pirates tree in Burlington, were that witches did not dance about the big willow in the same village on squally knights? Because a deacon of the Presbyterian church, a sober, solvent man, had seen the witches, and as the black beard, well, a couple of adventurous fellows one night started to dig for his gold.

Starting point is 05:10:05 They had turned up three or four feet of soil about the roots of the ancient walnut when a well-like opening was uncovered. And looking down, they could see in a cavern lighted by a throbbing, ruddy glow, the old villain himself, with his beard and curl papers, sprawling on his jars of, of money and glaring up at the intruders with blue fire in his eyes. Yelling with terror, the countrymen leaped out of the pit and flew to their home, staying neither for fences, rocks, nor bushes, in their determination to get there by the straightest way, arrived among their people. They told their fearsome tale with chattering jaws.

Starting point is 05:10:57 Though their parchment jowls and goggling eyes told it better. Look, they cried, at the hell flame rising. And for an instant, a shaft of dull light was seen hanging in the murky air between sky and earth. Then it faded, and in the morning there was no mark of pick or spade about the pirate's tree. Ah, yes, you say these things don't happen now. that the indian chiefs long since attenuated to blue vapor never more stand on the bluffs of weehawkin and meditate on their departed greatness in the tunnels of the bonaparte house in bordentown the only American village had ever had a king for a citizen. May shelter rats, but the people who whisper that shadows of the Corsicans have been seen there

Starting point is 05:11:56 are people of indifferent morals and low degree. This is doubtless true, for ghosts cannot abide factories, locomotives, breweries, and trolley cars, and houses with steam heat and exposed plumbing do not. interest them, but it was different a hundred years ago. We had not then set ourselves with such energy to make it impossible for the departed to visit us when they took a notion by scaring them into smoke wreaths with our blazing arc lights, shattering them apart with our earth-shaking railroad trains, and frightening them back to their tombs by the worse than spectral horrors of sensational newspapers, and it was because they had specters in New Jersey that Ransford Rogers

Starting point is 05:12:49 tramped away from Connecticut to lay them and relieve the anxieties of the citizens. Rogers was afflicted with youth, something of the ligness quality of the nutmegs they manufactured in his state, pertained to his countenance, especially to that part of it which in these days of low language would be named his cheek, yet he had been a schoolmaster in his own state, and in common estimation had learned many things the gaping public might never hope to master. Rumor said he had studied chemistry, and in his native village, had been known to work far into the night. Fearful thing in itself, where righteous people were abed by nine, and doubly fearful, when the work was associated with blue lights,

Starting point is 05:13:44 seen through chinks in the blind, evil smells, and uncanny noises. He did not deny the rumor. He was complacent under its imputations, when it followed him to Morristown, and it cannot be doubted that it raised him in the regard of many burghers in that village when he chose it as his place of abode in 1788.

Starting point is 05:14:10 for the jar of the late war had hardly driven out of mind the evil doings of mother meacham the witch and should her successor appear why here was safety in a man who could exercise in college latin and could draw the true figure of solomon's seal on the earth before a stable when the cows were possessed with devils mother meacham having a compact with the powers of iniquity Why, it had lived like a queen, but there be tokens of vulgar nature of witches, did they ask nothing in return for their souls, but the knack of keeping butter from coming in the churn, of breaking sheep's legs as they lie in the fold, of spreading sickness among cattle, and of making pigs to look in at house windows, and whisper words of an unknown language. The Yankee pedagogue and the new parson ought to be a matter, for all the witches in the country, if not for the ghosts, the neighbors said.

Starting point is 05:15:16 Rogers had learned of the attempt to resurrect Blackbeard's hoard, and he proposed to renew the enterprise, promising to use his strongest Latin, and even some phrases in Chaldee on the specter and curl papers. But the previous experience had been too terrifying, and he could not win a volunteer. There was another mine of guineas and doubloons, however, on schoolers, now called Schooleys, Mountain. And if only, there are various ways of gaining treasure upon earth, and it takes more than one ghost to get the better of a Connecticut Yankee. Our pedagogue encouraged the citizens of Morristown to tell the fiend and phantom tales of their vicinage, until they had so frightened themselves that they dared not go home alone

Starting point is 05:16:13 after their evening sessions in the grocery. And he embroidered upon their narratives strange happenings in his own experience that deepened their chills and apprehensions. When he had reduced them almost to gibbering humility, he would cast out large rumors of the possibilities of Schoolers Mountain. They had found a part of kids' treasure,

Starting point is 05:16:38 on Shelter Island. Did it not behoove them as men of mark and metal to recover from the feeble sprites on the hills, the larger wealth that pirates had hidden there, and, by so doing, likewise to drive the spectres forever

Starting point is 05:16:57 from the region, for himself. He did not care. He rather enjoyed the company of the dead. A coast? What was it, after all? the mere shadow of a pirate slain to guard the gold. A shadow, who, he knew words and ceremonies. He would say nothing now, but the time would come,

Starting point is 05:17:22 when they might wish they had been his partners. Did he say partners? He might have used the word. And, if it came to that, why not partners? Why not a company? Why not a mutual trust? in the exploitation of this treasure. If they really insisted, Mr. Rogers would do all that he could for such a company,

Starting point is 05:17:47 but it would be expensive. Forty residents of Morristown agreed to endure the expense, and having been sworn to secrecy, were invited to meet Mr. Rogers, Master of the Spirits, in the woods on the mountain at midnight, to learn from the lips of the spectre. themselves, what would be a fair assessment. Mr. Rogers went about town, presently, with his cocked hat a trifle on one side,

Starting point is 05:18:18 and silver buckles on his Sunday shoes, which he now wore every day. He several times paid cash at the grocery, when the proprietor was strenuous, and he no longer soothed the tavern keeper with promises. Any unworthy suspicions that may have been. been indulged by these gentlemen were therefore swallowed in silence. History is a little shy as to what occurred for a while after the formation of the schooler's mountain spook-laying and treasure-lifting company, limited, for its meetings were conducted with great secrecy, and Mr. Rogers requested as a favor that the small

Starting point is 05:19:04 preliminary loans that the other members advanced to him might be treated as personal and confidential affairs, not to be mentioned to the other members. At the meeting in the wood, he was as impressive as a promontory. He called a loud in Latin, and a creature from nowhere leaped into the lighted circle and pranked about, moaning and muttering in a strange voice. Another imp from Connecticut in a tablecloth, has a witness ventured some weeks afterward to remark. Simultaneously, with the appearance of this object, flames bursts from the ground with a slight report and evil smell. And the uncharitable afterward wondered if these upheavals might not have been managed by gunpowder and slow matches. The sheeted visitant calmed after a little and told the cringing audience, which cringed the more of the dreadful news, that each man of it was paid to the honest Rogers $60 in gold, and to return to the mountain at a certain date.

Starting point is 05:20:19 Some of the investors in pirate wealth had to mortgage their houses and sell their cattle to raise the required sums, and had to do so privately, of course, course, for they had wives. Yet, at the second session, the spirit declared that one of the forty had blabbed a secret, and to punish that one, all must prove their integrity, by returning home and keeping silent four weeks longer. During these four weeks, Mr. Rogers, who, it is feared, had found the paths of opportunity so broad and flowery that he could no longer endure, to be confined in the narrow and humdrum ways of rectitude, organized another company under an oath of secrecy, and obtained another fund.

Starting point is 05:21:11 Neither company knew of the other. The latter guild was provided with little packets of powder made from the bones of the dead that guarded the treasure. In the middle of the night, fateful night for Rogers, a wife, inspecting the pockets of her sleeping, Lord for possible letters and likelyer coin, came upon one of these parcels of dust. In the language of the commoner, the jig was up.

Starting point is 05:21:40 The woman's curiosity would be satisfied with nothing less than a full explanation. At this very juncture, the evil genius of Ransford Rogers, having followed him once or twice too often to the village bar, persuaded him to undertake the teasing or terror. of certain promising residents into a third company of gold hunters. On that night, a sheeted inspector walked the streets of Morristown itself. The constable saw it, and was girding his loins for flight, when the ghost stumbled and distinctly hiccoughed. The constable stole nearer.

Starting point is 05:22:21 There was a fragrance of old Medford in the atmosphere. This mere odor gave to the officer of the law, a courage as high as if he had swallowed the liquor that made it. He laid a heavy hand on the arm of the apparition, pulled off the sheet in which it was wrapped, and behold, Rogers, tipsy, wearing a piece of tin, over his mouth, to change his voice. It was a sheepish company of citizens that assembled in the grocery next evening.

Starting point is 05:22:55 Ransford Rogers had confessed, had made public the names of his dupes, and with an agility that made them wonder, if there were not something uncanny about him after all, had slipped through the fingers of the constable, taking most of his money with him, that is, of their money. And so ends this sadly voracious item of town history. Spooks no longer walk on Schoolie's Mountain, but bless you, they break out in other,

Starting point is 05:23:27 places every year or two. End of Section 60, read by Greg Giordano, Newport Ritchie, Florida. Section 61 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. American Myths and Legends Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. The House of Misfortune

Starting point is 05:24:06 Cranberry, New Jersey, does not exactly boast of its pre-revolutionary house, though it is complacent over its association with the names of Washington, Lafayette, Jefferson, and Hamilton. Had these been the only guests at the mansion, the blight would never have come upon it, the gossips say. It stands at the corner of the New Brunswick Pike and King George's Highway, the old coach road from New York to Philadelphia, and it was a fine old, place already when it was bought by Commodore Truxton of the United States Navy. To this stout old sailor's misfortune, he knew Aaron Burr, the brilliant, persuasive, handsome, ambitious, unprincipled schemer. Burr was an athlete and a dead shot, as well as a man

Starting point is 05:24:52 of reading, a skilled debater, and a clever politician. His power over women was remarkable, and scores of them suffered dishonor from their confidence in his promises. In 1804, he picked a quarrel with Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury, a fellow student at Princeton, to whom he charged defeat in his struggle for re-election to the vice-presidency of the nation. Hamilton did not believe in dueling, but being incessantly nagged by his enemy

Starting point is 05:25:21 and fearing to be posted as a coward and used in a scurl fashion if he refused, he accepted the challenge and went calmly to his death on the Weehawk and Palisades. He fired into the air, while Burr deliberately shot him. The disgraced survivor of this affair fled to Cranberry and was reluctantly allowed by Truxton to occupy a room on the top floor

Starting point is 05:25:45 reached by a secret stair behind the fireplace, which had been constructed when the scene of revolutionary activities shifted to New Jersey. He came out only by night and took the air in the heavy shade of trees. At an early opportunity he fled the country, and after engaging in schemes for the foundation of a rival republic in the West and the liberation of Mexico from the Spaniard and standing trial for treason, he died in poverty and neglect. The gloomy, vehement, wicked spirit of the man had no other home,

Starting point is 05:26:20 so it apparently encamped itself in the place where it had been received in partial friendship, and ill luck fell on nearly all who had to do with the place. Truxton engaged in speculations, lost his money, and moved away. He was succeeded by a judge whose severities won general dread and hate, and who felt the pressure of public opinion through his hard nature to such a degree that the place was no longer tenable by him. Residents in the house seemed to coarsen and brutalize him. He imposed the law to the letter and once sentenced a man to death for stealing a piece of cloth.

Starting point is 05:26:56 An elderly Quaker, who next bought the house, was married to a young wife who presently became a slave to opium. He shut her up in Burr's room, but to passing schoolchildren she lowered a basket containing money, and they bought the drug for her. A servant, detected in smuggling pills to her chamber, was beaten senseless and locked in the cellar on a bread and water diet for a month. Shortly afterward, the woman killed herself. The Quaker had another trouble, in the form of a son who had inherited no Quaker instincts of peace or propriety, but had become a wild, brawling, drunken, and unruly member. He had ridden a pair of horses through the streets,

Starting point is 05:27:38 standing on their backs like a circus performer, and lighting cigars with ten-dollar bills. He had ridden them into a pond and drowned them, and soon after he tumbled over the banister on the third story and was killed, his blood leaving a stain on the floor that is still to be seen. The Quaker lost his fortune and disappeared. Next came a slave owner from the south, with some of his Negroes. The servants burned his barns and ran away or died on his hands, one of them falling dead before the fire while fiddling for a dance. This owner too lost money and moved.

Starting point is 05:28:15 A retired army officer who followed him was forced into bankruptcy within a year. The next occupant of the House of Misfortune was a physician, who thereafter lost heavily from incendiaries of barns and poisoners of cattle, though his wife had placed crosses and horseshoes above all the doors and windows. Then followed a financier who lost his fortune and political prestige, and his wife, her reason, and her life. Last in the line was a distiller, who came to his end by a hemorrhage, his wife dying in the same manner. Now and then were whispers of footfalls in the passage leading to Burr's chamber and of shadows on the walls, cast by no living being, but the evil genius of the house worked more commonly in silence and in secret.

Starting point is 05:29:06 End of Section 61, read by Robin Lee, Denver, Colorado, April 21, 2022. Section 62 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Librevox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. The Lone Town Mystery Certain jokes, kept alive by Negro minstrels and the makers of patent medicine almanacs,

Starting point is 05:29:48 are said to have been traced back to Egypt and India, and to have been descried dimly receding beyond the historical horizon. the man of the stone age may have invented the jest about his mother-in-law to lighten the gloom while waiting in his cave for a storm to pass and the courtful of the ptolemies is believed to have originated the perennial tale of the plumber one quip of long endurance has been traced back for a century to lone town but that may have been only a stopping place on its flight down the ages it is this Lone Town had been stirred to its foundations by the arrival of a stranger at the tavern. Any stranger was a refreshment and an excitement, but this one was a marvel, because he was evidently going to stay. Week after week went by. Still he set foot in no other township.

Starting point is 05:30:42 Nobody knew his business, and not to know what everybody was doing in Lone Town, was anguish. Why, the fellow did not so much as. say that he had any business. He did not even give his name. Rustic curiosity could not endure this sort of thing. A committee of citizens was finally selected, at an informal meeting held in the store, and they went to the tavern to see what information could be squeezed out of the stranger. He received them with dignity, listened without surprise to their remonstrances against his seclusion and their request for knowledge, and said, I am obliged to you, gentlemen, for this proof of interest in my affairs, and I will say plainly

Starting point is 05:31:25 that I am not a man with whom you are likely to associate. A jury says I am a criminal. The judge gave me the choice of being hanged or of spending six months in Lone Town. Oh, but I am sorry I chose Lone Town. Good night. As there isn't any Lone Town, now that you have read the story, it is evident that any one of several localities may be hidden under that name. Several towns have contended for the right to it.

Starting point is 05:31:55 But, after sifting the evidence, it is said by the best authorities that the scene of the incident was either Jersey City or Camden. End of Section 62. Read by Ted Perkins, Cozilloo, Canada, May 2022. Section 63 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording.

Starting point is 05:32:24 All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. American Myths and Legends Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner, the Leeds Devil. Within recent times, the Leeds Devil has ramped about the New Jersey Pine region between Freehold and Cape May, though it should have been laid many years ago. its coming pretends evil, for it appears before wars, fires, and great calamities. Albeit a sober Quaker in appearance, mother-leads of Burlington, New Jersey, was strongly suspected of witchcraft. And suspicion became certainty when in 1735 a child was born to her. The old women who had assembled on that occasion, as they always do assemble wherever there is death or birth or marriage, reported that while it was,

Starting point is 05:33:18 was like other human creatures at first, the child changed under their very eyes. It began to lose its likeness to other babes, and grew long and brown. It presently took the shape of a dragon, with a snake-like body, a horse's head, a pig's foot, and a bat's wings. This dreadful being increased in strength as it gained in size, until it exceeded the bulk and might of a grown man when it fell on the assemblage, beating all the members of the party, even its own mother, with its long forked leathery tail. This, despite being reeked, it arose through the chimney and vanished, its harsh cries mingling with the clamor of a storm that was raging out of doors.

Starting point is 05:34:03 That night, several children disappeared. The dragon had eaten them. For several years thereafter, it was glimpsed in the woods at nightfall, and it would wing its way heavily from farm to farm, though it seldom did much mischief after its first escape into the world. To sour the milk by breathing on it, to dry the cows, and to sear the corn were its usual errands. On a still night the farmers could follow its course, as they did with trembling, by the howling of dogs, the hoots of owls, and the squawks of poultry.

Starting point is 05:34:35 It sometimes appeared on the coast, generally when a wreck impended, and was seen in the company of the specters that haunt the shore, the golden-haired woman in white, the black-muscled pirate, and the robber, whose head being cut off at Barnaget by Captain Kidd stumps about the sands without it, guarding a treasure buried near. When it needed a change of diet, the leads devil would breathe upon the cedar swamps, and straightway the fish would die in the pools and creeks, their bodies, whitened and decayed by the poison, floating about in such numbers as to threaten illness to all the neighborhood. In 1740, the service of a clergyman was secured, who, by reason of his piety, an exemplary life, had dominion over many of the fiends that plagued New Jersey, and had even prevailed in his congregation against Applejack, which some declared to be a worse fiend than any other, if, indeed, did not create some of those others. With candle, book, and bell, the good man banned the creature for a hundred years, and truly the herds and henries were not molest.

Starting point is 05:35:42 in all that time. The Leeds Devil had become a dim tradition when, in 1840, it burst its seraments, if such had been put about it, or at all events it broke through the clergyman's commandments and went whiffling among the pines again, eating sheep and other animals, and making clutches at children that dared to sport about their dooryards in the twilight. From time to time it reappeared, its last raid occurring at Vincetown and Burrville in But it is said that its life has nearly run its course, and with the advent of the new century, many worshipful commoners of Jersey dismissed, for good and all, the fear of this monster from their minds. End of Section 63, read by Robin Lee, Denver, Colorado, April 26, 2020.

Starting point is 05:36:41 Section 64 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Rita Boutros American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner Rose O'Malley and Calixto Nothing was known about O'Malley when he settled at Foul Rift on the Delaware,

Starting point is 05:37:15 beyond the two facts that he had a daughter and had been a convict whether he had served his time in the old country or the new whether for filching purses or cutting throats nobody could find out he was harsh moody and dangerous it was gossiped about that he visited the house of the gray witch not many miles away a house she complacently appropriated when its owner had been killed She was usually seen to pass a residence just before a death occurred there, and in time she died alone, after making the cross on her floor with a coal, to prove that she still hoped for heaven. It was likewise said that when the spirit of the Delaware Indian girl, who had been burned alive on a rival's false testimony, came back in the form of a white dough to drink from the river, as she did on every anniversary of her death, O'Malley was the only one who had the hardyhood to fire at her. The bullet went wide, and his gun kicked him black and blue when he did it. O'Malley's visits to the witch and his settlement in this lonely region had some bearing on the

Starting point is 05:38:37 Hans Fahl treasure. Yet, if he recovered it, he never spent more than enough to keep him in bullets and whiskey. Hans Fahl was a Dutch pirate who had ascended the Delaware in a sloop loaded with the spoil of many robberies. After reaching Fahl's point, he packed his gold into a chest, sunk it, and that night killed every one of his crew, lest the hiding-place should be revealed and he should lose some of his savings. Young men, addicted to late hours and taverns, declare that, although the pirate has long been dead, he has been seen prowling along the shore by torchlight, arrayed in clothes that are hopelessly out of date in style, and of lamentable thinness as to quality. He appears to be examining the shoal water near the bank. O'Malley was just the kind of man who would

Starting point is 05:39:40 help himself to hidden treasure if he could find it, and whether its owner were dead or alive was of little consequence. Ghosts did not count for much with him. He never kept at the search continuously, lest he should be watched. He chose for his work nights that were cold, raw, windy, snowy or wet, nights that kept other people indoors and sent them soon to pick. dead. A spade, a pick, some rope, and a bull's-eye lantern were his outfit, and a pistol was always within reach. Seemingly, the treasure did not discover itself, for the ex-convict grew more

Starting point is 05:40:27 taciturn, and scowled more in his lonely walks than ever. The one soft spot in his nature was a love for his daughter rose, a modest, pretty, fair-haired maid. who commended herself to more than her father, because she was so unlike him. He did all he could to keep her from seeing the world and from letting the world see her. Yet this was impossible after the girl had grown toward womanhood and begun to take such duties out of her father's hands as required her to do errands and work in the garden. Several sparks visited that garden while O'Malley was looking for Hans Fahl's money, or was hunting among the hills. But if he caught them within gunshot, they never attempted a second visit.

Starting point is 05:41:23 One war alone persisted where others had fled. It was Cullixto, a handsome, intelligent, half-breed Indian lad, the son of a priest who had formerly been stationed in the vicinity. Though seemingly as mild in disposition as a woman, quiet in manner and low in voice, he had a stout native courage that made him respected by white and red people alike, by all people indeed, except O'Malley, who had warned him never to speak to his daughter or approach his cabin nearer than half a mile. For a young man of Calixto's stamp, such warnings were invitations and he was a visitor oftener than anybody guessed anybody except rose who having been allowed to see few members of the opposite sex quickly fell in love with this gentle but resolute fellow o'malley returning from the river on a certain evening saw the two walking arm in arm he stole forward in the shadows of the trees until he had come

Starting point is 05:42:37 within a few yards of them, when he fired a charge of slugs into the body of the young man, tearing his heart to pieces. That night, Calixto's friends and relatives surrounded O'Malley's house, set it on fire and danced about it, yelling and rejoicing as it settled into ashes. Both Rose and her father perished in the flames. End of Section 64. of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain.

Starting point is 05:43:24 For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org, recording by Rita Butros. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1, by Charles M. Skinner. The Goblin Jesuit. Lopatcong, the name was given by the Lenny Lenape to a pretty valley in the blue mountains of Pennsylvania,

Starting point is 05:43:50 contains a mission house that village rumor declares to be haunted by the goblin Jesuit. Some residents will tell you that they have heard the chimes ringing the Angelus, and that the sound grows higher and fainter as you approach the ruin. It is long since the old place had an inhabitant, and for the sound. for a century and a half the superstitious have looked at it without liking for during the indian war of seventeen fifty five to fifty six half a dozen british troopers and an officer met here with misadventure being benighted in a winter storm they had taken refuge in the house built a roaring fire and were bousing it stoutly from leather bottles the empty chambers were echoed to the profane songs and boisterous tosts of the soldiers, when the officer, looking about the hall, exclaimed,

Starting point is 05:44:52 Why, I recognize this place, it's the old mission, and they say it has a ghost. Let him stay below this night. I warrant it's warmer where he is, sang out a maudlin fellow. Tush, be quiet, let us know the story, said another. The lieutenant tossed down a heating, and answered so far as i remember the ghost is a jesuit a monk a frenchman and sure to be no friend of ours i wonder his bones don't stir in their coffin at the idea of his house being in the hands of his enemies eh what was that sounded like something moving in a box well they say that on the anniversary of his death just when the chimes had gone midnight there are no chimes here any longer, you know. Hark, by Jove, did you rascals hear that? It was like a bell.

Starting point is 05:45:50 I'm sure there's no village near. A high wind plays pranks with a man's imagination on a night like this. Where was I? Ah, yes. As the bell sounds, the last stroke of twelve, there was a knock at the great door, and the monk, rat-tat-tat. The knocker on the door had fallen. The men turned, lowering their bottles from their mouths and stared. Their ears hummed with their own blood. They could hear the surge of it above the snapping of the logs and the roaring of the wind. Pah, no spirit could wrap so soundly. It's some poor belated devil seeking shelter like ourselves. Come in! Though the lieutenant shouted the last words bravely, he fell back in his chair, clenched the arms of it, and turned white in spots through the flush of the brandy.

Starting point is 05:46:45 For the door had swung open, and a cloaked and grizzled man, with fixed eyes and snow-white face, was entering the hall. He scowled darkly on the company. Then, advancing to the table where the liquor was, he picked up a bottle with a bony hand. Ha-ha! cried one.

Starting point is 05:47:05 He takes his tipple. He's honest flesh and blood. sit by the fire neighbor and rouse it to old King George. I, drink, shouted the others. The monks stood still and stared into the faces of the soldiers. Not a word was spoken then. Again the silence fell. The watching faces turned white and sharp.

Starting point is 05:47:30 The stranger walked noiselessly to the fireplace and poured the liquor on the hearth. In a moment it began to rise in steam, thicker and thicker, more and more stifling. One could no longer see across the room. With a shriek, the officer broke the spell that he felt to be closing about him, and rushed into the storm. It was daylight before he dared go back.

Starting point is 05:47:56 When he reached the mission, he still lingered on the step, fearing to go in. At last he turned the knob and entered. Six bodies lay on the stone floor. End of Section 65. Section 66 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org.

Starting point is 05:48:35 Recording by Rita Bouchos. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. A kindness repaid. during the revolution there was no little friction between loyalists and advocates of liberty in parts of the country that were not often scourged by the armies of either colonies or king in pennsylvania the germans were inclined to side with the tories possibly because their kinsmen the hessians had engaged as soldiers of fortune under the english flag while the scottish settlers entered the scottish settlers in turn the declaration of independence and some of them bore arms with the troops of washington in doubtful districts the opposing parties kept close watch of one another and on the arrival of a stranger in a village not many hours would elapse before his business was known while the patriots lay encamped at morristown new jersey during the winter spies were abroad in the service of both armies a tall courteous stranger arrived at brachley manor lopatcong one evening for as there are no inns hereabout he had gone there to ask food and shelter which were willingly granted by the hospitable old squire if the stranger had thought to arrive or leave without being seen

Starting point is 05:50:05 however, he was mistaken. Guards and watchers had reported his progress from point to point, and late in the night there was a clatter of hooves outside, a clang and click of weapons, then an assault on the door which was forced. Squire Brackley, roused by the commotion, went into the hall holding his candle high, and was confronted by half a dozen cavalrymen in buff and blue. Gentlemen, said he, for I take it from the color of your coats that you are gentlemen.

Starting point is 05:50:41 I do not know your errand here, but I have to remind you that there are ways of entering one's house without breaking in. Your pardon, said an officer, but we feared that if we gave warning our man might escape. What man have I disobeyed the law?

Starting point is 05:51:00 We know you, Squire, yet you are disobeying, the law, we have learned that you are harboring a spy. The notorious Moody is under your roof at this moment. It may be, as you say, I do not know this Moody. A man came to me asking food and shelter. So long as he has placed his life in my hands, I shall not betray him to his enemies, though his enemies are my friends. Threat and argument availed nothing. The old man was so determined, yet so complacent, that the troopers guessed the neighborhood to be unsafe. They might be menaced by the approach of a British squadron, so they hastily withdrew.

Starting point is 05:51:45 As they rode away, Moody, for it was he, stepped from his concealment, and thankfully wrung the hand of his host. Sir, said the squire, I would have no harm befall you under this roof, but, if it is true that you are seeking the injury of my country, I must ask you to go. With a bow and renewed thanks for the favor he had enjoyed, Moody took his leave. Some months later, Squire Brackley was stopped by three highwaymen while riding toward his home in the moonlight. With the butt of his whip, he struck one fellow in the face, and almost upon the stroke there came a pistol shot from a thicket. Another of the robbers grasped a wounded wrist. Then all three ran away, uttering loud curses. A stranger stepped

Starting point is 05:52:39 from the bush. He lifted his hat, as Bracley thanked him for his interference and showed the face of Moody the British spy. Was he chief of the robber band, or was his arrival an accident? At all events the old squire's kindness was repaid. Section 66. Chapter 67 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Librevox recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org.

Starting point is 05:53:27 Read by Vincent Yao. American Myths and Legends Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. The White Wolf of Venango On corn planters reserve in Vanango County, Pennsylvania lived an Indian family named Jacobs, big athletic fellows, full of hard sense and afraid of but one thing, the white wolf.

Starting point is 05:53:56 For to see the wolf was bad medicine, to chase it, death. There was never a doubt, as to its being a real wolf. It had eaten too many hens and sheep and killed too many dogs to leave room for any question on that point. Yet, traps would not catch him. Dogs in packs could not bring him to bay.

Starting point is 05:54:23 Bullets either missed him or glanced from him. A young member of the Jacobs family engaged to guide a party of hunters through this region and all went well until they had reached the head of the clarion. On breaking camp at this spot, Jim Jacobs took no part in the preparations. He smoked a silent pipe and said that the others must go on by themselves. For he had seen the white wolf,

Starting point is 05:54:53 and that meant bad luck. They joked and gibed him without moving him in the least. He finished his pipe, told them by, by what trails they could reach McCarty's trading station, bade them a Jew, struck into the forest labyrinth and went home. He was killed in an accident soon after. The hunters scoffing at Jacob's superstitions kept on. They got the help of a trapper, who kept a number of dogs, and decided to leave the deer to their liberty for a time and hunt down this hoodoo. after much luring and watching they came upon the fellow's tracks and on a quantity of pheasant feathers for he had left his lunch in a hurry and presently near baker's rocks they saw him

Starting point is 05:55:47 white as a polar bear three feet high at the shoulder bristling and snarling the eyes of this beast seemed to shoot red fire four rifle shots rang out and the wolf was gone, with the dogs in hot pursuit. In an hour he was overtaken again, and again, and the guns were emptied. The animal leaped over a cliff, 60 feet into a stream, almost at the moment when the shots were fired. No blood was visible, no splash was heard, the dogs found no scent. It was the last time that the white wolf was seen,

Starting point is 05:56:35 but in a few months, every member of the hunting party was dead. End of Section 67. Section 68 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. American Myth and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. Wheeling Stogies

Starting point is 05:57:16 In Wheeling, West Virginia, they make a cheap cigar called the Stogie. Similar offenders are made in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, one variety of which is known as the Toby. These long, thin bunches of tobacco are hastily put together, native leaf, and leavings being used in the making. They are alleged by experts to be not more than half as bad as they look, and smell. The name Stogey came about in this way. Before the days of canals and railroads, all freight had to be sent from the coast cities to what was then called

Starting point is 05:58:01 the West in big canvas-topped wagons, known from the place of their manufacture, as conestoga's. The teamsters were willing to take a part of their pay in tobacco, out of which they fashioned a rough likeness to a cigar that became known as a conestoga. That name was too long, so they called it a stoga, and this got itself twisted into stogie,

Starting point is 05:58:33 by the tavern idlers to whom the carters gave the rolls of leaf. The tale of the Pittsburgh Toby sounds less likely, but its origin has become a town tradition. So, here it is, for what it's worth. When that city was a village, and a good blue Presbyterian one, a certain Burgess suffered wide renown as a swearer. Every time he was taken to task for his temper and profanity,

Starting point is 05:59:04 he would quote the passage from his favourite. tristam shandy in which uncle toby said a bad word which a guardian's spirit took straight to heaven a wrong place to take such words for though the recording angel entered it on the great book he dropped a tear that blotted it out forever as the burgess grew old his memory became uncertain and it troubled him not a little to be compelled to get his book from the shelf when he wanted to repeat a paragraph that had been as familiar to him as his own name deep was his sorrow when some unconscionable reformer ran off with tristam shandy leaving the old man to gasp and glare and stammer when he tried to frame his usual excuse They did say that a church elder took the book, in order that the Burgess should have no support in his sin. This elder, at least an elder, began an earnest effort for the Burgess reform, and he was at it one day preaching, arguing, gesticulating,

Starting point is 06:00:14 while his victim sat on his porch, hunched in his chair, his eyes roving sadly, and his fingers working in vain attempt to recall. his defensive quotation, when Tom Jenkins, a well-known teamster, came lumbering along in his conistoga. He knew the Burgess, and taking a sudden pity on him, halted his horses, jumped off from his wagon, and stumped up the steps to have a word with him, but also to save him from the avalanche of adjuration. Giving no heed to the elders hints and signs, he offered one of his Stogeys to the Burgess,

Starting point is 06:00:58 the first the old man had ever seen. Flint and steel were pulled out, a light was struck, and the two began to smoke, while the elder grew in deeper earnest and shouted louder and louder in warning and expostulation. The Stogey seemed to have medicinal qualities,

Starting point is 06:01:18 for soon the burgess began to find his tongue in the old way and he loosed a torrent of profane objuration that made his tormentor stand aghast then he quoted and the ministering angel the angel damn flew up to heaven to heaven you blink blank son of a sea-cook with the oath and blushed as he gave it in he shouted this his memory coming back to him but the recording angel as he wrote it down dropped a tear upon the word and blotted it out forever forever sir he roared as the elder hurried down the steps holding his hands to his ears and raising his eyes in despair Then, turning to the Teamster, Le Burgess said, looking significantly at the roll of tobacco he held in his fingers, Tom, you've brought back my uncle Toby. And, the name of Toby fastened upon the cigar that day. End of Section 68.

Starting point is 06:02:37 Section 69 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. American Myth and Legends, Volume 1, by Charles M. Skinner.

Starting point is 06:03:00 The Man with the Skates. For all, they have schools and colleges roundabout, Bryn Maw, Haverford, and other near towns, keep alive the traditions and superstitions that belong to early settlers west of Philadelphia. And it is suspected that the colleges have as much as anything else to do with the survival.

Starting point is 06:03:23 There are abandoned houses and ruined mills and desolate cemeteries to which ghost stories naturally attach themselves. And the students of Brynmar know the house with a chamber in which nobody can sleep because a red eye is watching all night from a corner. And the house with a boarded-up room in which the grey lady walks, a quiet, unobtrusive, well-bred spectre. And the two-story stone house at Glenwood that was built in 1753,

Starting point is 06:03:58 and is so undoubtedly haunted that sensitive visitors, even as they approach it in the daytime, feel that they are being watched by something through the heart-shaped holes in the green shutters. The original occupant of this house was a Tory Miller, who sold to the revolutionary troops flower in which he had mixed powdered glass. His only reason for remaining about the place in these days is to protect the money he buried in his cellar before he himself was buried, his neighbours having considerably hanged him.

Starting point is 06:04:35 It is reported that several persons who have attempted to explore that cellar have come to a quick and violent end. but no ghost of the neighbourhood is quite so creepy as the man with the skates. He was a young fellow, a collegian, who, while skylarking with his roommate, lost his temper and dealt a vicious crack on the other's head. His friend seized him by the throat and punished him with a terrible choking. People in a passion do not realize what strength they exert, and when the roommate relaxed his fingers, he was horrified to see the young man fall back, his eyes staring, his tongue thrust between his teeth, a livid mark about his neck.

Starting point is 06:05:26 He shook him, there was no resistance. He called to him, there was no answer. He listened at his heart, there was no beating. The man was dead. The homicide's first impulse was to shout for help, to summon a doctor, but, as he placed his hand on the knob of his door, he asked himself how he should explain those ghastly marks of murder. Murder! The blood of a fellow creature was on his hands.

Starting point is 06:06:02 He coward. He wept. He prayed. But the figure on the bed did not stir. He threw a towel over the first. face but the lips seemed to move beneath it, the eyes to shine through, and he took it off again. How should he be rid of that accusing object? He went into the hall and listened. The house was still. A clock in a distant room struck one. He went back to the dead man, put the stiffening body in an overcoat, gloves and hat. fastened skates on its feet and dragged it as quietly as he could down the stairs but every now and then the skates would catch with a metallic click and he would pause in an agony of fear to know if the sound had roused someone from his bed he drew the body out of the house without being seen however and hauled it over the frozen earth to a pond often used for skating the ice

Starting point is 06:07:10 The ice was thin. He broke a hole through it and cast in the body. Next day a search was made. The corpse was found in the pond, and the coroner's jury declared that death was caused by drowning. On the next night, soon after the clock had struck one, there came to the ears of the sleepless man in the chamber where the killing had occurred,

Starting point is 06:07:37 a clinking sound on the stairs. and a chill coursed through him as he thought of the skates the sound came nearer and he could hear that it was caused by something dragging itself along the floor the knob turned but the door did not yield then by the light of the lamp without which he had not dared to stay in that room the watcher saw two swollen hands and wet gloves clutched the edge of the transom and heard something scrape along the door as the body lifted itself into sight. The man in bed pressed the quilt against his mouth to avoid a shriek of terror. For the face that glared through the transom was the face of the man he had killed. The body lowered itself. The skates clogged feet shuffled through the hall. and there was silence.

Starting point is 06:08:46 On the next night, the man found an excuse to change his room, but shortly after the stroke of the clock at one, the same sounds were heard, and this time the drowned man entered and stood threatening above him. Then the bloated, dripping shape lumbered out of the apartment, and there was peace that mockery was, of peace that has no rest. The man had a feeling that if he were visited for a third time, it would be his death night.

Starting point is 06:09:23 Worn out with fear, remorse and sleeplessness, he went to the house of a friend and asked leave to lodge with him. In the morning he was dead, with finger marks on his throat. Some say that babbling crazily in his sleep, he disclosed. his secret and that the friend in a sort of hypnotic frenzy repeated the killing. Others believe that the drowned man returned in the small hours and avenged himself. End of Section 69. Section 70 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1.

Starting point is 06:10:15 This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org, read by Greg Giordano, American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. The Death of Tammany In spite of its present status, the organization known as Tammany was once composed of Americans and existed for a benevolent purpose. Tamini, or Tamanant, the Indian chief for whom it was named, was as migratory as Homer in the matter of birthplace,

Starting point is 06:10:58 but it is commonly agreed that he was a Pennsylvanian, that he lived at one time on the site of Easton, that he lived in Delaware afterward, that he hunted and roamed over the hills about the Delaware water gap, that he occupied Tamini Flat in Damascus, Connecticut, that he was one of the Indians who made the treaty with William Penn, that he had a favorite tree, an elm, in the shade of which he was fond of loitering and the tamany society of philadelphia used to assemble beneath it to eat planked shad a fashion of serving this delectable fish that is believed to have originated with old tamany himself he was a brave man and sturdy fighter and he kept faith with the english and americans and did much to restrain the martial order of his people when they howled with longing for scalps with red and yellow hair Admiration for this service led to the appearance of societies named in his honor in 13 states, in towns and villages too, in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Louisiana.

Starting point is 06:12:06 His last resting place is as various as that of his birth, for he has been distributed over parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, one tradition putting him under the cellar of Nassau Hall in Princeton, another denying to him an earthly burial because, like Pasekanaway, he was translated in a flame to heaven. In this last tradition, he took leave of the world on the bank of Nishamini Creek, near Prospect Hill, New Britain, Pennsylvania, a spot that was an Indian burial ground a long time ago. It is related that when he had grown quite old, he undertook a journey to Philadelphia, to hold conference with the Quakers.

Starting point is 06:12:49 But having become rheumatic and slow, the younger men left him on Prospect Hill, supposing that he would keep on at his own pace while they pushed ahead, being impatient to reach the town. A girl of the tribe remained with him to cook his meals and prepare his couch. But as she had a lover in the neighborhood, she ran away shortly after the fall of night,

Starting point is 06:13:13 and the venerable chief found himself, entirely alone. Then he realized that he had outlived usefulness and respect, and might better be dead. To the poor little fire which the girl had left for his cheer, he added wood until it became a blaze that could be seen afar, and its glow against the clouds, filled several watchers with astonishment, and with fear, lest it should be a token of coming misfortune. Standing close beside the fire, he plunged a knife.

Starting point is 06:13:46 into his heart and fell into the flames. The great shower of sparks arose, and Chief Tammany was a memory. His charred corpse with a knife in it was found by the other Indians on their return from the long talk. They buried it between two trees, and as his relatives died, their bodies were placed in the earth near his, every grave being marked with a stone. But there are some who say that by reason of the virtues that made him a saint, he did not suffer in his death. Instead of committing self-murder, the flame bore him lightly upward

Starting point is 06:14:22 out of the sight of men and that he reached the happy hunting grounds alone. End of Section 70. Read by Greg Giordano, Newport Ritchie, Florida. Section 71 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 This is a Librevox recording.

Starting point is 06:14:51 All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org, read by James K. White. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1, by Charles M. Skinner, Hexenschedel. Pennsylvania no longer has its witches, but it has its Hexensteadl, or Witch Village, that was founded in the 19th century. It was famous in the 20s for the three witches or hexes who practiced spells and divinations there and were regarded by the neighbors with awe.

Starting point is 06:15:36 One of these old women, who was accustomed to spend her time and wandering over South Mountain, had a dead cheek. The devil had touched it. In those times, a witch also had this power of numbing and killing flesh

Starting point is 06:15:52 by touching it. The two other belldoms, withered and forbidding, often met this woman on the mountain, each bent upon her cane, her sharp nose and perky chin, appearing beneath the hood. What they did, and what they said,

Starting point is 06:16:11 no Christian might know, but the three moving dots on the mountain top that were seen against the moon were known to be the witches, and every good Dutchman, when he saw them, read his Bible with all the speed he knew. While these meetings lasted, all sorts of mischiefs were abroad. Windows rattled, the trees whispered,

Starting point is 06:16:35 there were scuttlings and clippings of clawed feet on dark stairs and in cellars and garrets. Corn was also stolen from cribs and scattered about. Hay was lifted from mose and lugged off to the barns of less thrifty people. Fires went out, ovens refused to bake, cats bawled as if their hearts were breaking, bells were struck, and occasionally some person suffered a downright injury, as in the case of the girl who disliked work and was spelled for 21 months,

Starting point is 06:17:11 so that she could not leave her bed and chair. Her father became a weary of these doings and made his peace with the witch who had cast the spell by carrying water for her. When he had done this, the crone made signs in the air, cackled a laugh, and showed her three teeth.

Starting point is 06:17:32 She's well, she squeaked. And when the father went home, the daughter was on her feet, singing hymns with the rest of the family. One housewife could not bake her bread, the oven misbehaved so. She sent word to the witch that if her bread did not bake next day,

Starting point is 06:17:54 she would rouse the village and drive the hags for 20 miles. A blood-curdling yell was heard outside of her house that night, as if a devil were being forced from his congenial fires into the December chill. Nothing was seen through the windows, no hoof-marks were found in the snow, but the bread was baked next day. Some of the more timid kept on the same, by making presents to the witches, especially of flour and vegetables. For all the devil's aid, these poor old women lived in greater straits than any of their neighbors. In the old world,

Starting point is 06:18:36 a soul was never sold except in payment for riches, splendor, power, fame, love, pleasure, youth, long life. But in America, hardly a witch made any witch made any of the world. material gain through her barter with the fiend. She usually dwelt in squalor, and her powers were principally exercised in prodding pins into hysterical subjects, frightening children, curdling milk, causing pigs to walk on their hind legs, and affecting hens with pip. Poor creatures. End of Section 71.

Starting point is 06:19:25 Section 72. of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Read by Greg Giordano. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1, by Charles M. Skinner. A Philadelphia Excitement

Starting point is 06:19:54 Philadelphia has been compelled to endure a reputation for peace that is galling to the spirit of those residents who gauge the importance of a town by the amount of commotion it makes and who point with envy to cities where murders, politics, sensational journalism, and steam whistles betokened the intellectual ferment, as New England felt the restraint of the roundheads, and as the opposing spirit of the spirit of the Cavaliers was kept alive in the South. So Philadelphia was impressed by Quaker doctrine and Quaker dress, and never went in for hysterics, even in which times it refused to engage in hangings and burnings. It preyed over the suspected, made them feel uneasy, but it would not punish them. When one genius was born too early, for he belonged to our age of self-appertizement, proclaimed that he was, going to hell at 6 p.m. Sharp. Only a handful of town idlers gathered to see him off, and appeared to be sorry that he changed his mind. There used to be a phantom coach that was driven

Starting point is 06:21:07 madly through the streets in the middle of the night by the ghost of a man who had died in an unforgiving spirit toward one of his servants. He created no end of din and clatter, in order to show how sorry he felt, and the people said, if it relieves his feelings, to do this, even let him continue his excursions. Philadelphia came perilously near to being excited, however, in the days of Colonel Tom Forrest. He was one of those people who knew where the pirate Blackbeard had buried his treasure. It was somewhere between Atlantic City and Elizabeth, and the mysterious hints he kept dropping, his wise nods, his ifs and butts spoken in tones of thrilling significance stirred the town deeply. At one time he allowed it to be supposed that the wealth was hidden

Starting point is 06:22:02 in the earth on Coates Street, now called Fairmount Avenue, near Front Street, and with hope and enthusiasm, Philadelphia laid off its jacket and dug for it, but in vain. He appeared in the marketplace soon after, with a parchment that looked old. His enemies and several of his friends vowed that his look of age was due to candle smoke and dirt and vinegar, reporting to contain the dying confession of a scamp who had been hanged on Tyburn, and who, just before he submitted to the halter, told his confidant how he and other associates of Blackbeard had put several golden fortunes into an iron pot

Starting point is 06:22:44 and sunk it in the sand at Cooper's Point, New Jersey. A company was formed to consider this revelation, and Colonel Tom had engaged a room for its business purposes. This room was just under a hall used by secret societies, and in the midst of a discussion, which was being carried on in a bated breath. The colonel's being more strongly abated than usual, a trap-door, and the ceiling slid open, and a skeleton leaped down upon the table at which the adventurers were seated.

Starting point is 06:23:17 Here again, the colonel's ever-ready enemies declared there was no skeleton, that broke up the meeting in such fell disorder, but a young man in black tights, of which a skeleton had been painted. Forrest held his ground, like the soldier that he was, and when he rejoined his comrades, who were shivering in the street, he told them how the awful visitant had unbent to him, and had given permission on behalf of the pirates to dig for black-beard's treasure. The hat was passed in order to cover the expanse, of the venture. A few nights later the company assembled at Cooper's Point, and, so soon as it was dark enough, began to ply picks and spades under the colonel's direction. Just as one of the spades

Starting point is 06:24:05 struck a metal substance, supposed to be the treasure-pot, two black men in breech clouds, leave from nowhere upon the pile of stones where the tyburn rascals' parchment lay, and all except the colonel fled. He succeeded in persuading his associateing his associate's to return, but when two black hats sprang out of the pit, with tails sputtering and fizzing and snapping. One drusely like firecrackers, the horror was complete, yet the pot was unearthed, and carried to Philadelphia, but while lifting it from the boat to the wharf, the tackle broke, and it sank into the river, never again to be seen by any stockholder in the Blackbeard Treasure company, unless it might have been the colonel, for he appeared so merry and prosperous for months

Starting point is 06:24:55 afterward that he was boldly accused of emptying the gold in his own valise before the pot went overboard, and was actually sued by fellow members of the corporation to recover their share of the plunder. End of Section 72. Read by Greg Giardano, Newport Ritchie, Florida. Section 73 of American Myths and Legends Volume 1 This is a Libervox recording All Libervox recordings are in the public domain

Starting point is 06:25:33 For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org Read by Ben Tucker American Myths and Legends Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner The Belled Buzzard Roxbury Mills, Maryland is the home of a buzzard that wears a bell about its neck, and the clang of the toxin strikes terror to all who hear it for, so surely as this iron note sounds through the air,

Starting point is 06:26:00 so surely our war pestilence or accident impending. None knows when or by whom this curious freight was added, but it is said that the creature has affected the hills of the Patapsco for many years. It avoids all company, or else its kind is frightened and avoids it, as it is always seen alone when seen at all. it will sit for hours on a limb or crack gazing over the country and dreaming of the time when the land shall echo again to the rattle of rifle volleys and crash of cannon for the people believe that it took its abode here soon after the civil war and having tasted that most expensive of meats human flesh will not touch meaner carrion it has never been known to prey on dead cows or horses but it seems to divine the provision of its wished for food For whenever riot or murder or conflagration or pestilence or disaster approaches in any form,

Starting point is 06:26:58 its black shadow is seen moving across the fields and roofs, and its bell is kneeling some soul to a speedy flight. End of Section 73. Section 74 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libervox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.orgs. Org. Read by Ben Tucker.

Starting point is 06:27:31 American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. Stick Pile Hill A mournfully decadent village is Orleans Crossroads in Maryland on the line of the old Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, especially mournful to people whose memories are long enough to recall it, when it was a bustling place in the coaching days, the disappearance of the stages, the lessening of canal traffic, and the opening of other districts by the railroad took the life out of it.

Starting point is 06:28:03 While the canal was a building, many rough fellows were employed in the construction, and rougher ones hung about their camps profiting on wage nights, by the selling of liquor and cheating at cards, and graves on the hillsides mark the scene of drunken differences. Among the spots along the canal which have their haunts and spooks, none is better known than stick-pile-hiddle with its terrifying peddell. In the flesh he was an old fellow who had arrived at Orleans crossroads by canal, and after selling some of his goods in that settlement,

Starting point is 06:28:36 had flung his pack on his back and trudged away on the bad road that wound across the mountains. The loafers basking in the spring sunshine watched him until he disappeared. Next morning a scared man rode into Orleans and stammered a tale of murder on the highway. How riding to replenish his jug and sack he had found, at the roadside the body of a stranger with the head beaten in, two sassage mate, the pockets turned wrong side out, and rifled pack close by. The victim of the crime was buried where they found him. A week later, one of those worthies who make a business of sitting in village stores on Saturday nights

Starting point is 06:29:18 was deprived of once growth by a vision near the peddler's grave, and he retained such a nightly fear of the place afterward that he would go a mile and a half out of his way to reach his home. The peddler had appeared to him, misty-like with his head like mush, and its clothes dabbled with red. Others began to report on the apparition. It dodged in and out among the trees. It rushed at them in a way to make their hearts leap out of their throats, where those organs had lodged at first sight of it, and, whirling off like a leaf on the gale, emerged from an unsuspected corner and made them faint with dismay. People fell out of the habit of using the road at night, and presently, out of the habit of using

Starting point is 06:30:03 it at all after it had been noticed that when one passed the grave in the day, some quick misfortune was sure to happen in consequence. The travelers lost articles of value. They fell and broke their bones. Their wagons collapsed. Their horses ran away. The road threatened to go utterly to the weeds, and people went around the spot until a worthy at the crossroads recalled that a ghost could be laid by a small branch thrown on the grave,

Starting point is 06:30:29 where the body had been interred. And to this day the farmers who cross the mountain toss a few twigs on the earth in which the peddler has at last consented to secrete himself. The pile sometimes reaches a hide of five feet, and is burned every winter to make room for a fresh accumulation. That is the reason for calling it stick pile hill. End of section 74. Section 74.

Starting point is 06:31:00 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is the Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Read by Ben Tucker. American Myths and Legends Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. The Picture Tree of Tenely Town. A large chestnut oak near Tenelytown, Maryland,

Starting point is 06:31:28 is held in much account among the people roundabout, because it has a part in the story of the place. It relates to a slave owner named Claggett, a coarse, ill-natured fellow who vented his spites on the backs of his necrows and who could live on kindly terms with nobody. It was said of him that he sold his own children into slavery, partly that he might profit by the sale, and partly that he might inflict the pain of separation on the slave women who had borne them. Clagget left his house on a rainy night in one of his tempers and started for the village two miles away over a road deep in mud. He did not return, and towards morning a search was made for him.

Starting point is 06:32:07 He and his horse were found beneath the chestnut oak, both dead, their skulls broken by a collision against the trunk. They must have struck it with tremendous force. The body of the man had Christian burial, but there was no sorrow at his grave. His widow bore a red stripe across her face, clagots goodbye to her on the night when he left home. So soon as the estate could be settled, the family. moved to a northern town, and in time the name of Claggett was half forgotten. The slaves were either sold or ran away to the free states, and the way of their owner's death would have passed out of the local traditions, if it had not been that the knots and gnarles and the bark of the old tree began to

Starting point is 06:32:48 take the shape of the torn faces of a man and a horse, just at that part of the trunk which had been spattered by their blood. It was not until after the war that it became known how Claget had died. It had been supposed that he was reckless with rage and liquor, and that in the intense dark his horse had not seen the obstacle he had struck. Reckless he was, but the night was not so black as to hide a sheeted figure that arose at the wayside, tossed its arms at him, and screamed in a voice which sent a chill through his fevered blood. For like many harsh people he was superstitious and was known to believe in ghosts. When Claget was drunk or disappointed, he would find somebody to vent his cruelty upon,

Starting point is 06:33:30 his usual victim was the first slave he encountered man woman or child. On the last day of his life he had seized upon an unoffending elderly woman and had tied her by the wrists to a tree. Her clothing was torn from the upper part of her body that he might strike her with his whip as he passed to and fro about his plantation. And there she stood, hour after hour, with blood trickling from welts on her back in a chill rain numbing her. After darkness had fallen, Claggett's wife stole out

Starting point is 06:34:00 to the poor creature, cut the thongs at her wrists, led her to her cabin, and gave her some restoratives as well as some pitying words. She had hoped that presently her wretched husband would go to bed drunk, it would not discover the release of the slave. But he did discover it, and he stormed into the house shouting and swearing at his wife, and finally striking her in the face with the very whip, which had been reddened in the blood of the old niggress. Then he went forth cursing, kicked his stable boy, ordered him to saddle his fleet of and most spirited horse, and in a few minutes had posted off

Starting point is 06:34:34 toward the tavern, through the rain. There was in his household a stout negress, the mother of one of his children, and her wrath against him that night was so deep as his against his wife, though more silent. The slave who had been so outrageously treated at his drunken whim was her mother.

Starting point is 06:34:53 When the boy started to saddle the horse, she knew where Claget was bound. It may be that she merely wished to shock or scare, him or cause him to break an arm or leg by a fall, so that he would be incapacitated from further abusing his people for a time. And it may be that she did not think about the matter at all, that she obeyed a blind instinct for revenge. With a sheet from the wash in her hands, she ran across the fields, and by a cutoff reached the chestnut oak, just as he came, lurching and pounding by. She threw the sheet over her head, sprang forward, and screeched with

Starting point is 06:35:28 all her lungs. She heard his frightened youth. yell, a crash, and then the world was better off. End of Section 75. Section 76 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner.

Starting point is 06:36:04 The Devil's Racecourse In his own improper person, the devil was a more familiar figure in the old world than he ever became anew. It seems as if he must have found more subjects there. Yet he did find time to pay an occasional visit to these shores, and one of the towns that he favored with a visit was Baltimore. It is alleged, indeed, that he found this little city so congenial that he set up a sort of headquarters there, but the residence Poo-Poo at his statement, and set it down to the workings of evil minds in Annapolis, since Baltimore became the state metropolis, and Annapolis merely secured a brick capital and a naval academy. But to our story, there was in Baltimore on the edge of the hill called

Starting point is 06:36:53 St. Clair, a circular clearing, 300 feet across, that was known to a few as the forest ring, and to the many is the devil's racecourse. Until the 19th century had been half spent, was avoided by the superstitious, who could still trace it on the earth. Near it stood the cabin of Sam Jones, a free Negro. The Jones, who reported that when hunting one night,

Starting point is 06:37:19 he fired at a coon in the middle of the ring, and nearly died of fright, for the coon sat up and uttered a long bellowing laugh, and the stumpy sat upon flashed into livid flame. It took two or three years for Sam to recover his nerve, and when he did he kept about the populist districts after dark. As luck would have it, however, he was halted in the twilight, on one of his infrequent errands in this quarter, and bidden by a tall, dim stranger to give a letter to a recluse, commonly known as Sirley Bill, who lived on the other side of the river.

Starting point is 06:37:54 The coin that the unknown dropped into his palm to speed him, nearly squirted his fingers, The stranger, as the reader will have guessed, was the devil himself. But why didn't he take his own message, will be asked? Because at that instant, the shadow of the cross, made by branches of a withered pine, rested on Bill's roof in the half-moonlight, and two parsons who had offered to pray for the hermit were talking under his window, though, as it fell out, neither had the courage to enter. They were hardly out of hearing when Sam whacked his summons at the door. What the devil brings you here, bald surly Bill, as he faced the messenger.

Starting point is 06:38:35 Letter for you, sir, answered Sam, thrusting a square missive into his hand, and holding out his own, in evident hope of reward. He got a kick, and fled. Still, he had not fared badly in his own accounting, for the devil's dollar kept him in rum and mischief for a couple of nights. Over the fire in Bill's kitchen hung a cauldron of witch-broth that had been bubbled. and stewing, giving out the vilest odors, and as he bent to the perusal of the letter, the fire died, the stuff chilled, and its power of ill-doing was lost. For Bill dwelt long

Starting point is 06:39:12 upon the letter. It reminded him that since his compact were the chief of hell, he had not sent a single soul below, and the time had arrived when he must do so. He must shed the blood of someone who had committed to crime. Who should that one be? Ah, he had it, because he had it, captain under whom he had sailed as a buccaneer, the blackest-hearted rascally knew, whose hands had smoked in the gore of fifty victims, and who, a murrain on him, had triced him at the mainmast for breaking into a liquor-cask and lashed his back till ribbons of skin hung down. He would be revenged tremendously, for he would not only slay his body, he would worse than slay his soul.

Starting point is 06:39:54 Sirly Bill had served behind the old brass murdering pieces aboard the pirate. I chopped the timbers of many a merchantman with eight-pound shot, never felt a kink in his moral inwards, because he hadn't many of those fitness. Yet now, when he came to deal the blow to his old captain, he found he could not do it without first engaging him in a fight. He went about the business early in the morning, got into a successful brawl, struck and killed him, tipped his corpse overburrow. board and left her the other side of the sea in the first ship that had her nose pointed in that direction his chest was full of the captain's gold he was buoyant in the devil's promise of five years of pleasure and plenty

Starting point is 06:40:37 under a name that is best not told for the tradition of his bounties and entertainments is still current among many whose blood is blue he flourished through the old world capitals drinking deeper than any prince yet never drunk guinea fiercely yet always winning throwing money right and left, yet never lacking. With all his fortune, he could never keep a friend. His temper was high, his tastes were low, his passions were vulgarly displayed. But there was something more. At the wine, a wild light that was like despair blazed in his eyes, and the mark of a claw burned on his forehead. In St. Peter's at Rome, the meaning of his doom came over him, so that he shrieked in agony, and so fearsome was his cry, that a priest who was serving at the altar fell paralyzed. Toward the end of five years he returned, hoping, believing that, through his arts and promises,

Starting point is 06:41:35 he could gain another stay from Satan. His house was as he had left it, and he resumed possession, unknown to any neighbor at the time. The last night of his five mad years had come. Sam Jones, making his way home, belated, had the second and vastest scare of his life. A storm was raging. Such a storm as the oldest resident could not remember. Rocks were splintered by lightning. Trees fell with a resounding crash. Torrance burst through dry hollows. Cries and moan sounded through the booming, howling and plashing of the tempest. At the devil's race course, Sam saw a figure in flight, seemingly crazed and not aware that it was running in a circle, while close behind, going at an easy loat, was the fiend. A Niagara, of fire descended. Along bellowing laugh reverberated through the heavens. Sam's liver, heart, and other works went up. In the morning, a charred thing that had been surly built lay in the center of the circle. End of Section 76. Section 77 of American Myths and Legends,

Starting point is 06:42:50 Volume 1. This is a Librovox recording. All Librovox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Read by Winifred Asman, American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. Spectors in Annapolis. No town of its size in this country contains more quaint old houses than the drowsy capital of Maryland. If it were not for the drilling and skylarking, in the Naval Academy and the periodical eruption of the legislature, Annapolis would be in danger of oversleeping every now and again, and so missing a day.

Starting point is 06:43:39 It is a place not only of lawmakers and future admirals, but of ghosts, some of whom belong as rightfully to the wharves and markets and old mansions as do the white porticoes and brass knockers. There is the headless man, for instance, who frequents the market house, and has been seen even within a dozen years by a crabber, who, going abroad at a small hour to prepare for his work, was startled on beholding the trunk walking down Green Street and loitering about the empty place where the gardeners and hucksters would presently assemble. The beholder turned his back on the apparition and scuttled away for home with all his might.

Starting point is 06:44:23 judged then of his horror when he found the grisly being awaiting him on his own doorstep. The Bryce House, with its fifty-thousand-dollar wine-cellar, had a gentle ghost that the occupants regarded with a friendly interest and did not interfere with, for she never groaned or glared or knocked at doors and windows, as ill-bred spirits will do. She appeared at dusk, just before candles were lighted, when the rooms were veiled. vague and shadowy, rather than at midnight. She seems as in search of someone, for she looks into the faces of those she meets, then turns sadly, goes to the great mantle in the parlor, and leans against it with her face in her hands. When the lights enter, she is gone. Her visits may have something to do with the treasure secreted in the walls. A whitewasher

Starting point is 06:45:20 working in the cellar, alleged that he pulled a loose stone out of the basement, thereby disclosing the entrance to a hiding place. He rolled up his sleeve to thrust his arm the easier into the cavity when a spider of monstrous size and horrific aspect leaped into the opening. Its head was as large as the child's and armed with ferocious fangs. The white washer struck at it with the handle of his brush. The creature bit it off as one might crack a clay pipe with his teeth and swallowed it. Then the workman pushed the stone back to its place again, convinced that if any money had been put there, it was not for him. And there was the ancient, hip-roofed Chandler mansion on Duke of Gloucester Street where a woman abode who was held in respect for her courage and sense. Both of these qualities

Starting point is 06:46:17 were put to the test one moonlight night, just after she had retired. The curtains at the wide door parted, and a man entered her bedroom. Had she lacked courage, she would have fainted. Had she lacked sense, she would have thrown a pillow at him and screamed at him to get out. Her first thought was that he was a thief, but his bearing was that of a gentleman. His action was not furtive or menacing, and he was well-dressed, as she saw by the moon when he crossed the chamber, and resting his head on his hands, looked sadly down the street toward a light that twinkled in an upper window, her cousin's house. The man gave no attention to her, nor to the objects in the room. Her next thought, therefore, was that the unknown was some visitor of distinction,

Starting point is 06:47:07 the guest of a nabob in the town, who had the habit of sleepwalking and had entered, her house through some door or window accidentally left open or unlatched. Should she call the servants and reveal his presence to the household? The situation would be called compromising by any gossips base enough to put evil constructions upon accidents, yet the very fact of summoning the servants would prove that there had been no secrecy and no understanding of such a visit. She was resolved. It was only a step to the bell-cord, and she gave a pull to it that roused a long jingle in a remote part of the mansion. Feet were heard pattering through the hall outside, and the servants entered with lights. The stranger had disappeared.

Starting point is 06:47:56 No trace was found of him, high nor low, and no bolt or clasp or lock had been tampered with. In the morning the woman called on her cousin and related her adventure, describing the man with some minute. The cousin fell into a chair, crying in amazement. It is Mr. Blank, my betrothed. What is he doing here? A few days later came a message announcing that Mr. Blank had died at sea, at the hour when he was seen in the Chandler Place. End of Section 77.

Starting point is 06:48:37 Section 78 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the... the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Goggle-eyed Jim. Near Lake Drummond in the dismal swamp is a lonesome house, half in ruins surrounded by rotten palings and dead trees. It is said to be of great age for a new country to have been built in short by a land partner of one of the famous pirates of the Spanish Maine who wanted a safe hiding place both for captured treasure and himself.

Starting point is 06:49:16 Being so close to the line between Virginia and the Carolinas, he felt that in case of pursuit by the officers of either colony, he could claim to be out of their jurisdiction. And this uncertainty as to boundaries helped a number of other scalawags out of trouble in later years, for they took shelter there also, and even so late as the Civil War it was used by spies, deserters, blockade runners, and smugglers, a rumor that the place was beset by haunts, favoring the privacy that law-breakers. and adventurers wished to keep. At one time, a poor person set up his office here for the wedding of runaway couples, and the spirit of a bridegroom, slain by the angry father of the bride, is one of the haunts most often seen about the place. Another phantom that may be met in this vast and lonely marsh is that of goggle-eyed Jim, a horse thief of distinction who wore green goggles as a disguise and came to his end,

Starting point is 06:50:12 but that is a mystery, the when, the wear, and the how of it. Suffice it that the fellow had been troublesome for many years along the border, and he usually kept so close to the state line that when a Carolina sheriff was after him, he could dodge into Virginia and vice versa. At last, a Carolina constable was put upon his track by a swamp angel, as residents of the swamp are called, and followed to this house near the lake. The thief takers mad was up, and requisition or not, he was resolved to have goggle-eyed Jim. Under cover of night he climbed by a rickety ladder to a window where he had seen a dull light, and looking in he saw Jim carousing with a bold-looking woman. They were drinking liquor from tin cups. You don't go out of this place alive, muttered the constable as he pulled a big pistol from his belt.

Starting point is 06:51:03 Jim's face was toward him, and the thief still wore his goggles. It seemed as if the eyes behind the glasses shone green, and the face, gray and the face, gray and uncertain in the light of the one candle, turned toward the window with a malignant grin. The pistol went off with a startling clamor. The woman leaped to her feet and whirled out of the room. Jim, with both hands, clasped over his heart, where the bullets seemed to lodge, rushed to an open window and balanced, ready to leap into the air. On firing the shot and seeing that it had sped to its mark, the constable slid down the

Starting point is 06:51:39 ladder and ran around to this window. He saw the dark form of the robber shoot into space and disappear in the grass. I have you, he cried, and sprang to the spot where goggle-eyed Jim had fallen. But nothing was there. Nothing but the long grass rustling in the evening wind. No mark of a body, no print of feet. The constable lit his lantern, but it revealed no trace of any human creature. He knocked at the door of the house, no answer.

Starting point is 06:52:09 He pushed the door open and ran through the rooms, silent and empty all. He went away in a hurry. A few days later, the body of the swamp angel who had betrayed the criminal was found floating in Lake Drummond with a buzzard perched on its breast. Is it any wonder that goggle-eyed Jim is thought to be the devil? End of Section 78. Read by Debbie Talley, San Antonio, Texas, June 1, 2022. Section 79 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1.

Starting point is 06:52:49 This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibreVox.org. Read by Lee Vogler, American Myths and Legends, Volume 1, by Charles M. Skinner, the dismal swamp ship. Among the buccaneers from the West Indies who afflicted our coast, Spadebeard was one of the worst. He looked every bit the devil he was.

Starting point is 06:53:17 His eyes were like fire, his hair and beard were glossy and coal black. He was alternately treacherous and imperious. He had fallen in with an English merchant ship that had been separated from her convoy in a gale and turned her adrift after killing all of her crew and stolen all her treasure, for she was freighted with Gullion. Before the frigate which was her convoy could attack, he had run in behind. the Virginia sand keys and escaped. But heaven's vengeance he could not thwart.

Starting point is 06:53:50 An immense tidal wave swept against the shore. The pirate vessel was lifted upon it and carried inland, mile after mile, through the cypresses and left among the trees when the tide flowed back. There in the dismal swamp among the bayous, barely wide enough to give her passage, this shattered hulk is doomed to cruise forever. Her rigging and sails are gone, but Swamp Moss has grown to her masts and spars in their place, and the crew, wasted to skeletons and gray with mold, still work the ship, reefing gales with dangling snakes, and yell oce and blasphemies.

Starting point is 06:54:32 Spade beard with one arm off at the shoulder and a piece broken out of his head, copes with phantom enemies and fires silent broadsides of green light from rusty canes, into the melancholy woods. Pale gleams flit over the deck and shine through the seams in the hull. This dreadful ship is usually seen in thunderstorms, at night, and is often struck by lightning, though never disabled. Guides and hunters in the swamp dreaded beyond all other things of this world, for whoever meets it is doomed to death within a year.

Starting point is 06:55:08 End of Section 79. Section 80 of American Myths and Legends, 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Leaprovox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. read by Lee Vogler, American Myths and Legends, Volume 1, by Charles M. Skinner. Jimsonweed. Among the flourishing, therefore, despised growths of wasteplaces in our cities, is the stratamonium, or thornapple, more generally known as jimson weed. It has a beautiful trumpet-shaped flower, a white streaked with lavender, faintly fragrant, and the blossom is exceeded by a seed pod, as large as a butternet and covered

Starting point is 06:56:00 with thorns. The odor of the crushed leaves is sickish and unpleasant. The plant has long borne an ill name, for it has said that witches have used it to work injury, and to this day Halify medicine men take a decoction of it and small doses to produce visions from which they can prophecy. Jemson is a short and careless way of pronouncing Jamestown. For it is recorded that after Jamestown, Virginia had been burned in 1676 in order to keep out the objectionable Governor Berkeley, this plant sprang up and covered the ruins.

Starting point is 06:56:38 Nobody knew how it got there, for recording to one authority, It had to come up from Tropic America to reach our vacant lots, while another expert says that it came all the way from the Caspian. It is or ought to be well known that the plant is a poison, and children who swallow its seeds required the doctor, quick. In proper form, it is a useful remedy, but it is not for quacks and grannies to play with, nor is it to eat, as the soldiers at Jamestown discovered,

Starting point is 06:57:10 for they picked a quantity of the young leaves in the spring for greens, and the effect was a very pleasant comedy. For they turned natural fools upon it for several days. One would blow a feather in the air, another would dart straws at it with a fury. Another stark naked was sitting in a corner like a monkey, grinning and making maws at them. A fourth would fondly kiss and paw his companions and smile in their faces,

Starting point is 06:57:37 with a countenance more antique than a Dutch doll. A thousand simple tricks they played, and after 11 days returned to themselves again, not remembering anything that had passed. End of Section 80. Section 81 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org.

Starting point is 06:58:14 White House The place in Virginia, not far, from the national capital that is called White House took the name because it was applied originally to the well-built home of a planter, now somewhat fallen from its ancient dignities. It is not white, and never was, but the fact that it is called so perpetuates the memory of a young man who aspired to be the nation's president. Thousands of American boys had the same ambition until they outgrow their youth, but they seldom believe so earnestly as did this one in their divine ordainment to election.

Starting point is 06:58:48 The young fellow was a student, a Virginian, gallant, aristocratic and bearing, eager, intelligent, and deeply in love with the maid who owned the manner. Last of her line, she had received the old place as an inheritance, and lived here attended by two or three black servants of the family. The student's consuming purpose, aside from that of calling himself the husband of this young woman, was to be seated in the White House at Washington. He so often discussed this matter with the mistress of the manse that she too became imbued with the idea that he had been chosen by fate to shape the destinies of the Republic during at least four years of his life. It was possibly a wee pride in what she felt would therefore be her own station that caused her to accept him almost precipitately when he offered his heart and hand. They could not marry for a time, but the years of patrol were, in part, occupied by rehearsals for their dignities to come. They went to Washington, where their relationship to old families caused them to be received into official society. They attended diplomatic dinners and presidential levies.

Starting point is 06:59:56 They were often in the Senate galleries together, listening to debates. The young man knew little of politics, but he believed in statesmanship. On returning to her Virginia home, the girl gave a seat. series of entertainments in honor of her fiance, and amusingly copied the forms and ceremonies peculiar to social observances at the Capitol. The neighbors noted this, and began to speak of the pair laughingly as Mr. and Mrs. President. The servants, who took the matter more seriously, prayed on every Sunday that their hopes might be realized, and the older among them fell into the way of addressing the young man as Massa President. It was a pleasant dream. It may have had its

Starting point is 07:00:38 uses in giving dignity and purpose to two young lives. In the South, a common exercise, even to the time of the Civil War, was the tournament. The roundheads of the North frowned on such sports, but the cavaliers of those states which bear the names of the Stuarts clung to the traditions of a remote ancestry, and although the joust no longer took the form of personal encounter and intended injury, it called for address and courage, and was to be undertaken only by skilled horsemen. attorney was held at white house and the student was one of the contestants the writers were to charge a number of rings and the one who returned with the greatest number on his lance would have the privilege of crowning his fare as queen of the feast so kissing his hand to the young woman whose colors fluttered on his arm and on whose white brow he never doubted he should place the wreath the student spurred his horse set his spear and advanced at a gallop he had almost reached the rings when a cry of horror went up from the assemblage. His horse had fallen heavily. Friends ran to help him to his feet.

Starting point is 07:01:46 The girl, who had risen from her seat, looked toward them anxiously. She saw one of them remove his hat. Her lover then was dead. His neck had been broken by the fall. When the young woman had recovered from the illness which seized her on this discovery, it was obvious that it was merely a physical recovery. Her face had gained no seeing. Her eye was bright. Her step was light once more, but her hair was white and her face wore a curiously absent expression. From that day she lived wholly in the past, a past brightly colored by dreams the Twain had dreamed of the future. Again her lover was by her side, student no longer, but first man of the land, and she, therefore, the first lady. Her home was the White House at last. The guests set the

Starting point is 07:02:34 receptions and dinners were merely the neighbors, and sometimes it was the servants who sat in the places of honor, but all were received as grandly as if they had been dukes and duchesses, and beside her at every state banquet stood the chair of the president. So she lived and so she died, happy in the belief that she was mistress of the White House. End of Section 81, read by Debbie Talley, San Antonio, Texas, May 2nd, 2022. of american myths and legends volume one this is a livery box recording all livery box recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liverybox dot org american myths and legends volume one by charles m skinner the virginia witch virginia did not pretend to be so good as new england did at the end of the seventeenth century and very likely that is the reason why it was not so upset in its conduct and its intellects at the time when the yankee witches were inviting death by souring milk and jabbing pins into the arms of hysterical girls

Starting point is 07:03:59 grace sherwood the witch accredited to the old dominion lived near lynhaven bay in princess anne county and her great sin was the crossing of the ocean in an egg shell. On this voyage she visited the shores of the Mediterranean and finding there a quantity of rosemary, she dug up two or three healthy plants, loaded the eggshell with them, it must have been a rock that laid that egg, and set them out before her cottage, where they increased until the shrub became common along the sandy shores. The graver citizens of the county took alarm at this. If Grace Sherwood could cross the Atlantic in a shell, she could ride on a broomstick. And if she could ride on a broomstick, what could prevent her saddling and bridling a slumbering warden and riding on his

Starting point is 07:04:58 back to a sabbat of imps among the pines? Plainly she was a dangerous woman. So, in 1706, she was arrested, examined by ancient and knowing women for unusual spots, and on complaint of Her Majesty the Queen, represented by Master Luke Hill, the public prosecutor, was condemned to the water test. In this, if a suspected woman drowned, it proved that she was innocent. If she swam or floated, she was guilty and was worthy to suffer death on the the gallows or at the stake. This witch was bound by the wrists and cast into the sea, but the court, which was more lenient than some, directed that if she sank, she was not to be allowed to remain beneath the water until dead. However, she did not sink, but swam, in spite of her tied hands, and this, together with the discovery of two moles on her body, proved her crime

Starting point is 07:06:05 beyond doubt. The place where she was put into the water is still called witch duck. History forgets her after this test, but there is a tradition that she died in prison. End of Section 82. Recording by Alan Mapstone. Section 83 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public. domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. The Virginia Cocktail. While Mexico has its cocktail legend, and while we know that the Dutch in America used to prelude their meals with a hansdart of gin and bidders, Virginia enters

Starting point is 07:06:58 the lists with a counterclaim for the national beverage and would feel hurt indeed if the award went to the Aztecs or the Knickerbockers. Her allegation takes this form. A comfortable tavern once stood and thrived near Culpeper Courthouse in the Old Dominion, and exploited the sign of the cock can bottle, the cock lustily crowing the merits of the bottle. There was a certain play on words in this combination, too, for in those days the name cock was commonly applied to the tap, and it fell about by an easy use that the unfortunate who got the last drink or tail of the liquor had the cocktail. A certain doughty colonel of Culpeper went to the hostelry one day to slake for an instant

Starting point is 07:07:39 the burnings of a perennial and joyous thirst. Great was his disgust when he was served out of the muddy tailings of the cask. He flung the liquor on the floor and threw the bartender out of the place with the sarcastic remark that if an honored customer was to be served with such leavings, he would drink nothing but cocktails of his own mixing. In a frenzy that he supposed to be due to craving, but that his disciples alleged to have been genius or inspiration, he caught up a bottle containing gin and emptied half a glass of it, recklessly tossing in sugar, lemon peel, bitters, and a spoonful of vermouth,

Starting point is 07:08:15 stirred a bit of ice with the mixture and quaffed it at a gulp. And behold, the sorrow was gone out of his heart and he kept no hatred for the bartender any longer. He had invented a cocktail that would go down to posterity and down posterity's throat, and life was once more filled with sunshine and alcohol. End of Section 83, read by Debbie Talley, San Antonio, Texas, May 2nd, Section 84 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org.

Starting point is 07:08:59 This recording is by GWTN. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner, Section 84. Among the early settlers of Canawa Valley, West Virginia, there was a young physician, Dr. Triplett. At least he put out his shingle announcing himself as a doctor of medicine. But he took more pleasure and felt more pride in hurting than in healing, for he was a famous hunter, fisherman, boxer, and wrestler. And before he had been in Canawa a month, he had beaten every man in camp had become admired and important. Tiring of civilized ways and despairing of patience in such a healthy country,

Starting point is 07:09:45 he moved up Elk River and at the debauch of the buffalo built the first cabin ever erected in that region. He lived by the rifle, visiting the settlements but once a year to sell his peltry and buy supplies. Sometime after he left Canawa, there appeared an Irish giant at the Salt Works, one McColgan. He was a fiercer fighter than triplet. In a week or two, he had pounded every man in the village either into meekness or unconsciousness. But he was not liked as Triplett had been because he was surly, brutal, and revengeful, not satisfied with proving his supremacy in a battle, must break his opponent's bones or wound him in such a manner as to make him faint from loss of blood.

Starting point is 07:10:31 Hence, there was a general wish to be rid of him, and the neighbors cunningly nagged him with reports of the prowess of Triplett. He heard so much of that redoubtable hunter that he finally decided to try conclusions with him, though it was a three-day's journey to the lodge. The public sighed with relief when they saw his burly form disappear toward the wilderness. Dr. Triplett was rather startled by the invasion of his privacy when, three days afterward, McColgan asked the shelter of his cabin and told him that he had come all the way from Knawa to thrash him. One or the other of the pair, he said, must be drubbed in order to have it understood which of them was Champagne of that region. In spite of the purpose of

Starting point is 07:11:17 his visit, Triplett received him graciously and refused to fight until McColgan should have fed and rested after his long tramp. Realizing that sleep and supper would give him a probable advantage, the bully accepted this proposition willingly enough and warmed with the behavior of his host, to say nothing of his fire and long pint of corn whiskey, he thawed out quite decently, and the evening was passed in smoke and stories. After the newcomer was fairly pickled in liquor, Triplett asked him if he had ever chased a bear until he backed against a tree, then seized him by the hind legs and beat his brains out against the trunk. It was rare sport. It was rare sport. he assured him. McColgan looked at his host with a new respect. A man who could handle bears like that

Starting point is 07:12:05 was not to be easily destroyed. He would practice on a bear before he annihilated triplet. Next day, he went into the wood and, as luck had it, scared up a bear and ran him against a tree. He seized the brute by the ankles, preparatory to swinging him through the air, when rip-biff smash, the bear had cut open his face, delivered a hammer blow on his head, and flung him into a gully ten feet away. As soon as he was able to hobble back, he told Triplett he had been hurt in a fall. He was afraid to undertake the flaying of the young doctor now, yet ashamed to go back to Canawa. Triplett's surgery soon restored him, but he lingered in his cabin. The longer he stayed, the less he cared to fight, and after a month or so, he declared a friendship for the man he had hoped

Starting point is 07:12:59 to trounce, and decided to stay near him. He built a shanty where the town of clay now stands. There he lived to a reasonable age, growing milder in his disposition and caring to fight but little. More than a generation after their settlement in the wood, the two, then 70 years old, sat on a log together rehearsing some of their hunting experiences. McCulligan looked sharply at Triplett and asked, Do you suppose as a man ever got a bear by the legs and bait his brains out against it three? Triplett, who had years ago forgotten the question he had put to the Irishman on his arrival, answered, I don't suppose any man is fool enough to try.

Starting point is 07:13:43 Then Begora! We settle the championship of Elk River and the Great West right now, exclaimed McColl. pulling off his coat and falling upon his companion. The acquaintances who stopped them declared the fight a draw, and from then till their death their friendship remained unbroken, each enjoying the honor of being the champion of the Elk River country. End of Section 84. Section 85 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1.

Starting point is 07:14:21 This is a Libra Vox recording. All Libre of Ox recordings are in the book. public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org, read by Greg Giordano, American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. Cape Fear River Outlaws Among the Scotch-Irish immigrants who had come to this country in hope of peace and liberty and had settled at Cape Fear River, North Carolina, were several who kept their allegiance to the king, and sided against their neighbors when war broke out.

Starting point is 07:15:02 Those who fought in their British ranks, one of their respect due to enemies. But there were a few desperadoes among them, who ravaged the country in malice, such were the three who had stolen Harriet Eskridge, a mere child from the arms of her mother. Her people were too poor to offer ransom, but no expectancy of reward was needed to urge her friends undertake the rescue. Three stout farmers were quickly on the trail, and although they had to avoid the appearance of men hunters, crooking about in the brush that the kidnappers might not be warned, stopping to eat but once a day, and traveling so late that they could barely make out the hoof prints left on the earth by the horses of the Tories, they reached only an hour or two

Starting point is 07:15:50 after the others, a hut near the head of Haw River. It seems to have been the purpose of the outlaws to leave the girl there, to meet death from starvation. Tying their horses at a distance, the farmers crept to the hovel on hands and knees. Then, at a signal, they dashed through the door and laid about them with clubbed muskets, though the Tories caught up and fired their own rifles. They were so jarred by the surprise that they aimed no better than Spaniards, and were soon at the mercy of the Americans. No mercy was shown. All three of the raiders were hanged with grapevines.

Starting point is 07:16:31 Harriet was released from her bonds. She had been tied to a post in a corner of the hut by leather and thongs, and returned in safety to her mother. This act created a bitter feeling on the part of the Tories, while the boldness and uselessness of the abduction filled the Americans with disgust and wrath. Other outrages were to follow. Captain John Wood, an old Indian fighter who had served in the colonial army under Green, Marion, and Sumter, as one of those soldiers who prided themselves on the fact that a reward had been offered for their heads by the British officers. The Tories undertook to earn it. They captured him when he was alone, unarmed, and lashed him to death with whips and rods, to atone for the lives of the royalists he had hanged and shot.

Starting point is 07:17:23 Just before his death he groaned, I have a boy who will one day repay these cruelties, and they were repaid sooner than he might have hoped. With his mother's consent, Frank Wood, a lad of 18, joined the colonial army and took his baptism of fire, not many months later at King's Mountain. Colonel Ferguson, with a British column in that battle, had been accused of unsoldefully conduct,

Starting point is 07:17:53 when he carried the war into the Carolinas. He and his men were charged with plundering houses, assaulting women, destroying property, killing peaceable citizens, and rewarding Tories who had committed such acts of savagery as the killing of Captain Wood. The invaders had created no end of scandal in the land by bringing women to their camps, some from the old country, and some wenches of native families, who have been attracted by the glitter and color of the British uniforms. General Cornwallis was accompanied by Agnes of Glasgow, his tomb thus inscribed, maybe seen near the old battlefield of King's Mountain.

Starting point is 07:18:37 His chaplain, one Frazier, not quite daring to appear among his soldiers with the mistress, took a Virginia girl to wife, forgetting that he had a wife or two elsewhere, and after selling her property and pocketing the proceeds, escaped through the American lines, reached Nova Scotia, and sailed back to his own country. Colonel Ferguson had two women in his camp on the day of his last fight. One of them, a certain Polly, ran away with a red coat early in the engagement, but the other, known as Virginia Salle, was struck by a stray bullet and was buried with him

Starting point is 07:19:13 on the field, wrapped in a bull's hide in lieu of coffin. Ferguson was wounded seven times in that battle. but the ball that finally brought him to earth and the richer eyes again was fired by frank wood son of the man so cruelly put to death wood also shot three of the tories who had taken part in the killing of his father and ten others of the band were hanged what was long after were called the tory tulip tree on broad river if you had now been opened that was not to be settled without the taking of many lives foremost among the tory ruffians was big Bill Harp, a scotchman who had been captured at King's Mountain, but had escaped, and immediately began a tour of devastation. He burned the houses and barns with the Americans, killed or stole their cattle and horses, but innocent people to death, even slaughtered children in sheer devilry. A band of half-breeds and renegades went with him, and although at the beginning there may have

Starting point is 07:20:16 been some notion of helping the royal arms. In the end, Harp, and his cutthroats, kept the road as highwaymen, and abandoned civilization altogether. One of his rays was on the wood estate, that had already suffered so heavily, and on this expedition it suffered more than ever in a material sense, while, worse than all, Frank Wood's sister was stolen, and was forced to become the mistress of this fiend. As soon as he learned of this crowning outrage, Frank obtained leave of absence from the army, and, gathering his neighbors, took an oath with them to put harp and his band to death. The scoundals were slippery, albeit they left the trail in blood and embers,

Starting point is 07:21:02 was learned that for a day or two Miss Wood had been hidden in the mammoth cave. At last, the outlaws were overtaken where the road from the Hopkinsville, Kentucky, forks to Morganfield, and a battle ensued. A few of the robbers escaped, the others were shot like rabid dogs. One of Harp's last acts had been to kill the wife of a planter. The planter chopped Harps' head from his shoulders and placed it in the notch of a limb on Lonesome Oak, where the fight had occurred, and so the long feud ended. And of Section 85, read by Greg Giordano, Newport Ritchie, Florida. Section 86 of American Myths and Legends Volume 1.

Starting point is 07:21:53 This is a Libravox recording. L'Ibravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Read by J. Thurgood American Myths and Legends, Volume 1, by Charles M. Skinner. Cain's Mark A Virginian named Mortimer, who had suffered reverses in his own state, sold his property, all but a couple of slaves, and with his wife, two.

Starting point is 07:22:25 two sons, and the two servants removed to Murphy, North Carolina, where he lived for a few years in mean retirement, and died poor. Sowered by this change from affluence to penury, the widow fancied that she owed some manner of grudge against humanity, for she had been brought up to believe that labor was beneath the dignity of white people, and she taught hardness of spirit and conduct to her boys, encouraged them in sharp practice in dealings with neighbors, supplied them with arms, and praised them for the taking up of quarrels, tolerated harshness and suspicion in them, urged them to gain whenever they could, and if need be, to defend every personal right by violence. Such teachings bore their fruit. The elder of the sons had lent a few dollars to the

Starting point is 07:23:19 younger, and after the time agreed upon for payment had gone by, he demanded the money, swearing that if it were not in hand within a few hours he would have his debtor's blood. Toward evening, the mother heard the young men in high talk at the gate and went out to learn what was the matter. Almost as she came between them, there was a report. The woman gave a cry for the ball fired by the elder son had cut off her forefinger, as she was raising her hand. Then the bullet, entering the forehead of the younger, killed him instantly. The dead man had raised a knife against his brother, so that the verdict of the coroner's jury was self-defense. The mother was the only witness.

Starting point is 07:24:06 On the night of the acquittal, Mortimer was visited in his chamber by his victim, who plucked out a few of his glossy auburn hairs and disappeared. The man lay as in a trance, unable to move or speak. On the next night, the visit was repeated, and every night thereafter for years. Each night the corpse had wasted a little, until at last it had become a skeleton. And it was unspeakably horrifying to the slayer

Starting point is 07:24:43 to feel the bony fingers plucking at his hair, his beard, his eyebrows, his lashes, the hair on his hands. In time, he had lost every hair on his body, and had become a marked man. Though dreading the comment and curiosity of the people, he traveled from place to place and went abroad, mostly at night, well muffled. Those who knew him said that he bore the mark of Cain. End of Section 86. Section 87 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1.

Starting point is 07:25:33 This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Read by Chuck Williamson. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. by Charles M. Skinner. Section 87 How Bill Stout settled a mortgage.

Starting point is 07:26:03 Thirteen miles from Russellville, Kentucky, lived the widow king, on a tract of 300 acres her husband had left her. He also left a mortgage, and although the amount unpaid was less than $400, the widow's creditor was troublesome. unversed in business affairs, and hoping for a good crop that would enable her to clear away all indebtedness, she had recourse to a notorious skinflint of Logan County, who protested an interest in her and her orphans, and provided her with the sum she wished, at 60% a year compound interest.

Starting point is 07:26:50 The crop that year was but ordinary. So the widow sold a slave and a horse. Next year, it was ordinary too. So she parted with her other slaves and gave up furniture, dishes, glass, and farming tools, retaining only material enough for housekeeping. But even this did not suffice. And the usurer posted a foreclosure notice on her gate.

Starting point is 07:27:19 Of course the rascal had the law in his side, but there were parts of the land in the first half-century of our history, where the public opinion that made law was higher than the law it made. Such was the faith of Major Bill Stout, who, having served for several terms as sheriff, had resolved himself into a committee for the administration of justice, if not a flaw, and who inspired a wholesome respect for himself and for right conduct in the breasts of the unruly. Several robberies, outrages, and murders were punished by him, for he was an excellent shot,

Starting point is 07:28:08 and his right thus to act as judge, jury, and executioner, appears never to have been called into question by his fellow citizens, who indeed were grateful to him for the saving of expense and bother. The usurer who had possessed himself of most of the widow king's effects, and who was now in a fine way to get her farm, was walking through his corn patch on a sunny afternoon, wondering if a benign providence would so shape events that he would one day hold a mortgage on every house in Russellville and be able to raise his interest charges to 75% when he came to an abrupt stop

Starting point is 07:28:53 for he found a cocked rifle at his breast and at the other end of this weapon stood Bill Stout looking particularly grim and a great trembling the rascal cried what is the matter major Why do you point that gun at me? What have I done? Oh, nothing to me, Harris. But old master,

Starting point is 07:29:23 here the Major glanced reverently aloft, has sent me to kill you and throw you into that hole. He says you are not fit to live among men. Oh, Major Stout, have mercy. Be good. Have mercy. Don't pray to me. I have nothing to do with it. Pray to old master. He may help you.

Starting point is 07:29:52 I can't. Oh, Lord, save my life. Oh, Lord. Be good to my wife and children. Ah, that's good. Now while you're at it, put in a word for the widow and orphans you have ruined. Oh, yes, yes. Have mercy on me and on Mrs. King and the King brats and me and

Starting point is 07:30:21 hold on now. Pray for each one of the King family by name. Yes, I'll do anything for them. And for you, if you'll only spare me. Oh, you've decided on that. You've decided on that, Very well. I may. Mind. I don't promise, but I may. Let you off if you give back her niggers and release the mortgage. My money, my money, to think of being robbed of my hard-earned money like this. The major raised the gun. Hold on, hold on, I'll do it. Stout had come prepared. The needful papers, together with a quill and a vial of ink, were in his pocket. He placed these on a smooth log, and Harris recorded his promise in steadfast black and white.

Starting point is 07:31:32 Though the tears started and his heartstrings tugged when he wrote the introduction of my own free will and consent, I hereby, and so forth. Major Stout resumed. Now, I'll let you go, perhaps, on two conditions. One is that you meet me at nine o'clock tomorrow morning at the clerk's office in Russellville and acknowledge the release. If you fail in that, I'll chase you down, if it's from Lake superior to the Gulf of Mexico and kill you on sight.

Starting point is 07:32:15 The other is that you shall not mention my part in this affair to anybody. You have no witnesses for that matter, and if this meeting were known, the widow might refuse to take back her property. Understand? I understand. The Major watched Mr. Harris as he went homeward, clutching at his hair and beating his breast. Then he looked at his rifle,

Starting point is 07:32:50 whistled down the barrel of it, and departed. Next morning, the Widow King came into her own again. Major Stout looked large and happy, and Mr. Harris, albeit aged and worn, experienced a new sensation, For the clergyman spoke to him pleasantly, and the townsfolk lifted their hats and shook his hand. End of Section 87 Section 88 of American Myths and Legends Volume 1

Starting point is 07:33:32 This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. Some Georgian lycanthropy. Lonely, unprogressive, oblivious of the progress made elsewhere in the world, the mountaineers of the Alleghenies live a life apart, a prey to countless superstitious fears. There's is a land where one slips back into the 17th century, where great hills and yawning gulfs seem to have cut them off from the advance of learning, as from those creature comforts so common

Starting point is 07:34:18 in the humblest coast and prairie towns. Where the man who is hysterically religious on Sunday, and during camp meeting distills moonshine whiskey for a livelihood, and shoots revenue officers who threaten to disturb him, where black and white magic flourish, and one may buy the service of the devil by scouring a tin plate in some remote cave or glen and avowing, I will be as clear of Jesus Christ as this plate is of dirt.

Starting point is 07:34:45 Here the future is still forecast by ceremonies. Hearts are won by charms, and the coming of death is foretold by the howling of a dog, the aspect of the bark of three trees, a wild bird flying into the doomed house, a door opening by itself and knocks on the window. The white dog that haunts trout run. The black dog that scares the belated farmer in Chetada Valley. The white stag of sequatchy. The headless bull that speeds over Big Frog Mountain.

Starting point is 07:35:21 The bleeding horse to be met in the passes of the great smoky mountains. The gray wolf that appears on Piney Ridge at midnight. The goblin of a haunted hollow in Rockingham County that is at first one animal and becomes another while you look at it. The bear of crack-whip furnace that screams in a human voice. The invisible monster in the same neighborhood that beats horses who is frightened away by the name of God and cannot chase a victim across running water. The ignis fatchus, here called Jack Palant, that one is compelled to follow when it beckons.

Starting point is 07:35:59 The phantom brute that haunted a cruel slave owner to confession of murder and death. The buried miser who walked in the company of two women who had killed him for his money till they shrank to skeletons through the misery of his company and died in agony. The headless herald of misfortune who rides about Indian fort in the Cumberlands.

Starting point is 07:36:21 Corpses that lie in rooms of deserted houses, and when the coroner goes to remove them, have disappeared without disturbing the dust on the floor. Witches who ride horses to exhaustion at night, unless the steeds are anointed with Asafatida and lard. And people who become beasts of prey at certain hours make the mountains mysterious and terrible. Harts, likewise, or haunts,

Starting point is 07:36:47 The woods, watched beside tombs, and pestered decent people in their homes. One woman, who had exacted from her husband an oath that he would always remain a widower after her death, was so distressed by his second marriage and the breaking of his word that his house became almost untenable. She floated about in the murk, sobbed, sighed, and as she passed the faithless one or any of his relatives on the stairs, the atmosphere in which she had enveloped herself was so chill it froze them almost to the heart. Of all the evil beings that trouble the hills, none are more dreaded than the lichenthropes, the witches who take the forms of animals. One of these creatures, who had been seen in his proper human form to walk on water and to rise

Starting point is 07:37:38 and air, sat on the chest of a physician's sister-in-law, night after night, not in the shape of a nightmare, but of a wild cat, and so pressed her to-day. death. Kinchie Funni swamp in Georgia were the negroes fish for Bream in the daytime, willingly enough, but who cannot be persuaded to go about there after sunset because of the spooks was for a long time the home of the swan. This bird was an evil spirit in disguise, and it carried trouble and illness to every settlement in which it was seen. Many attempts were made to shoot it, but all were unavailing until a clear-eyed, steady-handed army officer sent a bullet through its heart, and by general consensus the illness and trouble ceased on that day.

Starting point is 07:38:24 One of the most remarkable accounts of lycanthropy comes from Fannin County, Georgia, with a great Smoky Mountains end. A miller, who lived in a long, low room just off from the place where he ground his wheat, died suddenly of a disease no physician could determine. Before his death he attempted, but in vain, to tell something to his friends that they believed had a bearing on the cause of his illness, but his gestures were feeble. and his words rambling.

Starting point is 07:38:51 A second miller took the place, and in time a third, and both died in the same fashion. The mill was avoided for a while, with fear. At last, a neighbor who lived down the stream offered to run the mill if he could have it on easy terms, and the owner allowed him to take it. He took an axe with him, cut some wood, and started a great blaze in the fireplace. As he applied the match, a brindle cat slipped out of the chimney and walked tamely about the room, sometimes rubbing against his legs, seated before the fire, he brought out his Bible and read it with diligence. Yet he could not repress a sense of something wrong, of something impending.

Starting point is 07:39:31 The cat began to scratch and cry after a little, looking ascant at him in his book and begging to be let out. He read on. Presently, he glanced down and saw the animal crouched before him with a baleful light in her eyes, eyes he had seen before, and not in the head of a cat. A shrewd, shock of fright and repulsion went through him. He grasped his axe, made a blow at the creature, and cut off a forefoot. With a woman's scream, the cat leaped up the chimney and disappeared. Shaken and anxious, the man hurried home. His wife in her human shape once more had lost a hand. She bled to death. End of Section 88. Section 89 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox

Starting point is 07:40:26 recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. The White Bride of St. Simons There was a day when King's retreat was a famous center of hospitality. Thomas Butler King built it on St. Simon's Island off the Georgia coast and took most pleasure there when others found pleasure in his company. This island where John Wesley preached his first American sermon, and Aaron Burr was once in hiding, was often visited by the rice planters whose slaves rode them across from the mainland,

Starting point is 07:41:00 and the retreat shone with light and was gay with laughter and music until the small hours. Among its guests along in the 40s was a lawyer from Liberty County, with his young and lovely wife. They had been invited to King's retreat to spend their honeymoon. Unluckily, another guest was there, a planter who a few years before had sued for the hand of the bride and had been rejected. since in breeding would have dictated a return to his own plantation, but he lacked both, and found a bitter pleasure in watching the endearments of the pair and thinking that but for this rival, the highest earthly happiness might have been his own.

Starting point is 07:41:37 He drank more freely after dinner than he should have done, and in a harsh and forgetful moment he made a sliding and resentful allusion to the bride. With the hot blood of the South boiling in his veins, the husband struck him in the face. There was in that day but one way to restore peace after such a quarrel, and that was for one or the other party to slay his opponent. Back of King's retreat is Lover's Lane, an avenue of live oaks a mile and a half long, beautiful yet funereal in its drapery of moss.

Starting point is 07:42:08 The avenue has grown darker, the vista more solemn with every year, for an end has come to the gaieties on St. Simon's, and the comfortable old mansion has lapsed deeper into decay from the autumn of its desertion. after dark lovers lane never has a visitor and the negro labourers are more afraid of it than if pestilence walked there visibly for on the night of the insult the husband and the planter met under the live oaks with only a faint moon to light them they were in the swing of the fight steel beating against steel quick rushes and stamping feet breath labored and free arms tossing when a cry near at hand startled both of the duelists and as by spoken consent they faced suddenly toward the point from which it had come the lawyer holding his rapier advanced slightly as he peered into the shadow instantly came the flash of a white dress a voice spoke his name and two arms would have circled his neck but the bride had run upon her husband's sword

Starting point is 07:43:05 and had innocently accomplished her own destruction. Her happiness ended in his embrace. The duel was resumed, now with a deadly fury, and the insulter was presently stretched lifeless upon the sod. From that hour a darkness deeper than the night overspread the existence of the husband, and still one will see the flash of that white dress if he watches late and hear the echo of a cry.

Starting point is 07:43:32 That is why the negroes avoid lovers lane. That is why King's retreat is falling into ruin. The White Bride Walks there. End of Section 89. Read by Debbie Talley, San Antonio, Texas, May 2, 2022. Section 90 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a LibraVox recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain.

Starting point is 07:44:03 For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibraVox.org. read by Greg Giordano American Myths and Legends Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner The Drinking of Sweet Water Loguchi, the puck of Indian sprites that flitted about the swamps and woods of Georgia, was not with the wood divinities

Starting point is 07:44:27 when they met on the flower island of Okanofi to discuss the strange race that landed on the shores. For though Loguchi was a merry elf, whose tricks and whims amused the other spirits. He so loved the Southland woods and waters that he would not listen to any talk of leaving them. He hid in a hollow tree and gave himself to bitter thought. Satilla, three-eyed messenger of the gods,

Starting point is 07:44:55 sought for hours through his playgrounds, but did not find him, like the moths and beetles that imitate the leaves and bark they rest against. It was not easy to see when he chose to remain quiet. For his face was brown and wrinkled. His cheeks were puckered like pine knots. His back was as rough as a pine cone. His little red eyes snapped and twinkled when they were open. But when shut, you did not see the wrinkles where they had disappeared. His nose was flat. His mouth was wide. He was short, bow-legged, and his knobbed hands ended in claws like a panther's. Yet, with all his ugliness of look, he was gentle, and the hunters hated him only because of his because he turned aside their spears and arrows when they went to slay the deer. The sprites resolved to leave their home in the woods and followed the Greek nation to the west, where other tribes were assembling.

Starting point is 07:45:51 Below Gucci stayed. Sometimes at nightfall he could be seen scampering among the pines and savannas, startling red laggards, and even more the white pioneers who were setting up strange lodges on the sweet water. The village they called St. Mary's. Trees began to fall under the white man's axe. Loguchi crept to their houses in the night, and bent and gnawed their tools, till he saw that with the magic of their own they made them straight again. Then that which so often happens among men befell Loguchi. From fear and hate he grew to tolerance. He could not leave his country vexed and blighted as it was, and he even found a new pleasure. in frightening these pale faces so they grew yet paler. He would drop into their paths, almost under

Starting point is 07:46:42 their feet, as they returned from the hunt, and startled them with a squeal or a hiss. He would bound upon their shoulders from an overhanging bow, and before they had caught breath again, he was lost in the undergrowth, and they heard his shrill, defiant laugh. Going into the distance, He would make threatening faces at them, from the cops, as they went to their day's work, and at night he would prowl along the edges of their town, and sound the call of fierce animals. But they were not such a bad people, after all, these men with the sick faces. They fought less than the red men. They never scalped and tortured.

Starting point is 07:47:23 Once in seven days, they were sober. Sometimes it seemed as if they were trying to be good. The wood sprite shuddered when he heard the crash and groaning of the trees under the saws and axes. But he spread his nostrils and enjoyed the flavor when the cutters smoked in their camps at evening, for they smoked more furiously than the Indians, and tobacco was Laguchi's special incense. A girl at the settlement, wandering by the sweet water, came upon the imp, who was goggling fearfully, gasping, grunting, and hugging his foot. The poor creature was suffering, and although it cost an effort to overcome her repugnance,

Starting point is 07:48:03 she went to his help. He had alighted on a thorn as he leaped from a tree. She withdrew the thorn and bound healing leaves upon the wound, a service that he acknowledged in the most frightening grins and gibbering. Indeed, he went through such antics in his joy that maid was like to faint from dread. Yet he had a voice that was almost music, was a voice she had often heard in the pines, and had never understood till now. He said, The daughter of the white people is good.

Starting point is 07:48:35 She shall never come to harm in the forest. The green people of the wood will watch her when she rambles by the water. If she sleeps, they will shadow her face and sing drowsy songs in the branches. They will drive away the snake as it comes near, and they will whisper comfort if she has sorrow. this and more, if the white maid suffers from forgetfulness, she shall bring her lover back of the spell I put upon this water. The fright of the girl had passed, and a blush appeared. Her eyes fell under the gaze of the elf.

Starting point is 07:49:10 He chuckled, as in delight, at his own shrewdness, for he had guessed her secret. She loved an adventurer's fellow of St. Mary's, who that very day told her he had resolved to be a sailor, that he might see the wonders of the deep, and strange countries, and wrested treasure from the enemies of his king. She could not consent to this, even if the treasure were that of the king himself. Beyond all fame and riches, she held himself. Loguchi plucked red berries from a bush that overhung the water, and cast them into the middle of the stream, muttering strange words and waving his arms. The stream boiled, and a little whirlpooled.

Starting point is 07:49:52 appeared, and the berries were drawn down, and the surface was still again. Make him drink of this, whispered the sprite, and with abound he disappeared in the wood. That night, while the moon was rising, and balmy odors breathed from the forest, the lovers walked beside the branch of the sweet water. It was to be their last walk together. Tears brimmed from the girl's eyes, and the young man was silent and thoughtful. When they had reached the place, but they had been used to rest, during their rambles, the girl dipped a gourd into the stream, and gave it to her lover. He entered it at a draught.

Starting point is 07:50:33 Refilled it, he gave it to her. She too drank from it, and he did not go to sea, and the girl was a happy bride soon after. Luguchi disappeared, but his spell still lives, and they who drink of the charmed flood will never leave the country. of the sweet water. End of Section 90. Read by Greg Giordano, Newport Ritchie, Florida. Section 91 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1.

Starting point is 07:51:12 This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Nancy Hart In Hart County, Georgia preserves the name and fame of a heroine who truly be said to have flourished during the revolution. Nancy Hart was not one of those willowy silts with hair of sunbeams, violet eyes, and a voice of music that are heroines of popular fiction. On the contrary, she was nearly six feet high, red-faced, red-haired, cross-eyed, big-fisted, stern of speech incontinence,

Starting point is 07:51:49 she walked with a man's stride and woe betide the unhappy white who disagreed with her. Two virtues made her admired in all the countryside, her cooking and her patriotism. Whether or not they knew as much about her loyalty as they did of her skill, it was unfortunate for a certain party of Tories that they presumed on both of these qualities, for in one of their forays they came to Nancy's cabin when it was time to eat, and rather forcibly suggested that she might prepare a dinner for them. She allowed that she might, and did. It was a good one also. good beyond expectation. They resigned themselves wholly to the joy of it

Starting point is 07:52:28 and stacked their loaded guns in a corner without further thought of using them. These unbidden guests were eating and roistering, passing a bottle too that they carried for just such occasions, when their hostess pretending an errand in the corner where the arms had been placed, caught up one of the muskets and cried, You are prisoners.

Starting point is 07:52:48 I will kill the first that stirs. Not believing the sincerity of this, threat, one of the company sprang up and ran toward her, extending his hands as if to seize his gun. He fell dead, on the incident with a charge of buckshot in his heart. And before his companions could rise, Nancy had a second weapon in her grasp and was prepared to deal death to any other rash one. Her little son had meanwhile scampered to the quarters of a colonial troop, not too far away, and to the captain of that command, Mrs. Hart was pleased to deliver six burly allies of King George,

Starting point is 07:53:22 who had been a sore vexation to her neighborhood. End of Section 91. Read by Debbie Talley, San Antonio, Texas, April 21st, 2020. Section 92 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a LibraVox recording. All Liberbox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visitlibavox.org. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1.

Starting point is 07:53:57 by Charles M. Skinner. The Sells of Fort Marion Everyone who goes to St. Augustine, Florida, visits Fort Marion, the Spanish castle that is stoutest built, and so best preserved of the relics of the place. And viewing its dismal vaults by torchlight, the tourist half believes the tale of strangers rescued at the last gasp and overcome by the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Starting point is 07:54:26 Several of these vaults were prisons without a doubt. Structurally, they have no part in the defensive plan, hence they could not be casemates, and it is rumored that one or two had openings, like those of the morrow of Havana, whence objects could be shunted into the moat, that the ebbing tide might carry them to sea. In one of these abysms,

Starting point is 07:54:50 which had been walled up, but was discovered by a prying soldier after the lapse of at least a century, were found two crumbling skeletons in chains, and across the space of time comes the whisper of their meaning. For one, when it walked the earth, had been the Donia Doris, and the other, a young captain of artillery.

Starting point is 07:55:13 If you would know the resting place of the third and dominant figure in the tragedy, you must seek through the churches of Spain for a handsome tomb sculptured, with the arms of a proud family, and bearing a list of titles and honors on the tablet. That is where the commandant of St. Augustine lies buried. His wife and rival became ashes here in the forgotten dungeon of Fort Marion. It is the old story.

Starting point is 07:55:43 Rightly or wrongly, the commandant believed the Donio Dolores faithless, and to the Spaniard, infidelity in woman, is the gravest of offenses. After long espionage, the elder officer had fixed on Captain Manuel as her guilty companion. Not a shade of difference in his bearing toward either of the suspects marked his distrust or his resolve, except that possibly he was more affable toward his subordinate, and his deference to his wife was more obvious in company. She could have had no fear of his discovery when she went to his office, obedient to his summons. never was her dark beauty more affecting, her nobility and grace more consummate.

Starting point is 07:56:31 For a moment, after they had been left alone together, the general regarded her with frank admiration. He even made a step toward her, and she smiled graciously, as if she had expected to be taken into his arms. But he checked himself, and, gazing fixedly into her eyes, spoke in a tone and in words that drove all color from her cheeks. and caused her eyes to start like those of a hunted animal. I know your story, and will spare your telling it. Since your heart is no longer mine, I will not claim your obedience. You shall be with your lover tonight, and henceforth. Almost fainting to her knees, the woman would still have spoken,

Starting point is 07:57:14 by her husband, by a stern gesture, imposed silence. Do not add falsehood in words to faithlessness indeed, he commanded. As in shame you have lived, in shame you shall die. There was no escape. The guard was set. The gates of the fort were closed. You have chosen between us, the veteran continued.

Starting point is 07:57:39 Abide then by your choice. And say your prayers, for by this time tomorrow you will be in heaven, or hell, beyond need of them. Go to your chamber. You will soon be called. Hardly had she gained the privacy of her room and flung herself upon her bed in an agony of remorse and terror when Captain Manuel entered the general's office to turn over his charge as officer of the day. The general made no answer to his report, and under his keen and steady gaze, the young officer grew confused. After a time, the elder said, You have never made a confidant of me in your love affairs, Captain.

Starting point is 07:58:20 "'What love affairs?' stammered the young man. "'I know your secret,' declared the commandant. "'I insist that you make your meaning clear,' demanded the captain. "'I shall do so presently, but we will not discuss it, "'enough that you are a thief of honour, a betrayer and a scoundrel. "'I reduce you to the ranks. Your sword, sir.' Captain Manuel started with rage and astonishment. He trembled in his eagerness to harm.

Starting point is 07:58:52 You lie, he shouted, and as for my sword I will plant it in your heart before I will surrender it to any foe, especially to one of my own country. Dirting forward, he aimed a blow with his fist at the face of the general. Draw and fight! he commanded, or I will kill you unarmed. But Sergeant Kalikstow was close at hand. He was a sturdy fellow, and he had the young officer at a disadvantage because he attacked him from the back.

Starting point is 07:59:20 He caught the captain's descending arm. The captain tried to draw his sword. The sergeant wrenched his wrist and his arm fell, crippled at his side. This is well, exclaimed the commandant, in a tense, low tone, with teeth gleaming through his briseled mustache and beard. You add mutiny to dishonor. The way is now clear to punishment. In me, you see the authority of Spain.

Starting point is 07:59:46 You attack that authority. You shall die, not as a soldier, but as a traitor. Not even the satisfaction of friendly tears shall be given to you. None but one will know your tomb. The time and way of your death may be guessed by those who open your tomb hereafter. In the small hours that night two figures, bound and muffled, helpless in the grasp of Vakaliksto and his men are taken across the court from the officer's quarters

Starting point is 08:00:20 to an arched entrance of the case-banks. If they pause before the chaplain's cell, it is only for a moment. A solid door opens into the chamber without air or light, a door immovable from the inside. The two figures disappear into the gloom, then as heard the sound of hammers, closing rivets, the armorer withdraws, and the cell is empty, save for these two and the

Starting point is 08:00:50 commandant, the latter looking at them by the light of a pine knot in his hand. He waits till the cadenced step of the departing squad has echoed to silence down the corridors, then steps forward and removes the muffles from their heads and the gags from their mouths. God's curse upon you, cries the captain. The commandant, does not change color nor change his attitude. As he looks on them for the last time, a dark smile wrinkles his cheeks. Good night to both. Unpleasant sleep is his parting.

Starting point is 08:01:25 The door clangs. A key grates in the lock, and there is silence. End of Section 92. Read by Brianna Childs. April 18th, 2012. Section 93 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain.

Starting point is 08:01:59 For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Read by Chuck Williamson. American Myths and Legends Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner. The Colusa Hatchie She-Man Along the Kaluasahatchi in Florida, they tell of a queer fellow known as the She-Man. It is believed that the death of his wife had unbalanced him, for shortly after the event, he appeared in her clothing. The hunters and settlers had never seen such a freak, and were disposed to make fun of him. But a look generally quieted them, the She-Man's eyes being black and lowering, while his hands were,

Starting point is 08:02:46 broad and sinewy. At first he may have worn a woman's dress for no better reason, that that he was far from settlements where coats and trousers were sold. Myers' village being 50 miles down the river, but he grew accustomed to his garb, old and tattered though it was, held to his thin frame by a dried snake-skin, and he wore it until his last day. His housekeeping was not a feminine nicety. His home was a cabin of slabs. His bed, a heap of raw cotton. His chair a cypress knee. His dishes were gourds. His fire burned on a flat stone, and he lived on fish and corn. In a pool, not far away, lived his pet alligator, devil, who obeyed his master like a dog, and relaxed. And, on him to supply food when times were hard in the swamp. Devil and he had been friends for many years. The man had raised the gator from infancy. Some time before this poor, daft creature had settled in his clearing beside the Colusa Hatchie, he had quarreled with a man of pride and property, one Morgan,

Starting point is 08:04:03 who claimed descent from the pirate of that name. But after withdrawing to the wilderness, he supposed he had seen the last of this neighbor. This was not to be. For some years later, while hunting in the wood, he came face to face with Morgan. The old pirate plet had warmed within him on a chance to gain some wealth he had not earned, and after his robbery,

Starting point is 08:04:28 he had fled to a part of the state where he was not known, for he did not care to trust his money in banks or industries, and had brought it with him, in a chest. The she-man knew nothing of all this, and forgetting his quarrel, greeted his old enemy cheerily, and asked him to supper at his house. Visitors were few in those parts, and he was eager for company. Morgan was affable. He chatted with the settler, his wife, and his boy, Jimmy, and asked the latter to go fire-hunting with him that night, promising to pay him well. Well. The lad consented. Not returning at the expected hour, his mother took her knife and pistol,

Starting point is 08:05:18 for defense against wild animals, and went out in the starlight to look him up, while the father took another path. He discovered no fresh trail, so he resolved to bring his wife back, lest she should penetrate too deeply into the wood and be unable to find her way out. At dawn, he was a literally stumbled upon her, lying as one dead on the forest floor. She breathed, but that was all. By an exhausting effort, he carried her back to their home. Home? No, their house was a smoldering ruin. A little before the woman died, for the sight she saw that night was a fatal stroke. She recovered her power of speech. She had seen her boy. She had seen her boy. helping Morgan to carry a chest from a boat on the river to the bank.

Starting point is 08:06:14 A pit had been dug for it. As Jimmy stooped to press it more securely into place, Morgan had passed behind him, drew a dagger, and stabbed the boy in the back. Jimmy sank into the hole, limp and dead. Did the villain wish to kill his only witness, or did he hold the superstition of his pirate ancestor? that stolen treasure was safest under guard of the dead. The woman fell to the earth in a catalypsy,

Starting point is 08:06:47 while Morgan filled the grave, concealed it with brush, and not knowing that his crime had been seen, hurried away to apply the torch to the house, for if the lad's parents lived, they might make fexing searches and inquiries. After the death of his wife and son, the subtler, who from that time forth began to be known as the she-man, built a cabin near the ashes of his former home and bided his time. Though he did not know exactly where it had been hidden,

Starting point is 08:07:24 he felt sure that if Morgan lived, he would one day return for his money. And he was right. Years went by, but they brought the murderer at last. He arrived in secret, And following the river shores for a time, guided by certain marks, he came to the foot of a stout pine, where, after looking cautiously about him, he began to dig. Presently, he threw out a human bone. It fell at the feet of a figure that made him start with astonishment and dread, a lank, brown, bearded man, and a torn gown belted with snake-skin, glaring at him from the shadow of a sunbonnet.

Starting point is 08:08:11 In God's name, what are you? Gasped Morgan. Don't call on God. Call on the devil, for he will take you. I'm Jim Baines. Morgan dropped his spade. His face turned ashen, and he fell to his knees. With a hoarse yell, the she-man leaped upon him.

Starting point is 08:08:36 He was like a beast for a thirst for blood, lifting and dragging the murderer, who seemed to be paralyzed with terror. He reached the pool where his sinister-looking pet was lying. Here, devil, he called. And as the great alligator opened his jaws, Morgan was hurled into the water. His revenge accomplished, Baines died shortly after, and the treasure is anybody's for the taking.

Starting point is 08:09:06 End of Section 93. Section 94 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Read by Chuck Williamson. American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. By Charles M. Skinner.

Starting point is 08:09:42 The Blood Rose They say you can find the real blood rose or Grant Rose, only in the western part of Jefferson County, Florida, and that all attempts at transplanting or raising it from slips of the original stock have failed. It is a strong plant with light, glossy green leaves, but it flourishes only within five miles of the scene of the tragedy that named it. The flowers have incurving petals, of the color of arterial blood.

Starting point is 08:10:15 The odor they give off is sickly and unpleasant, and old residents of the county insist that the dews which drip from them has a cast of pink. John and Ellie Grant built a house near the Ocella River in 1834, and in the next year, a child was born to them. The seminoles of that region had become uneasy,

Starting point is 08:10:39 but the settlers felt no alarm, for they were sure the government would persuade the Indians to peace, either by fresh promises, made to break, or by a great slaughter, before they could take the war path. Fatal coincidence. John Grant left his home on a September evening to ride to town, which was a long way off, with a promise to return next day. He could not keep that promise.

Starting point is 08:11:07 For six miles from his home he fell into an ambush, of the Seminoles and was shot. His scalp was torn off and his body flung into the river. Then the Red Men marched silently to the house. The hunting dog lying outside, sniffed and whined. The anxious mother roused and listened. There was a loud yell in a rush of many feet. The woman raised a loose, wide board in the floor, and with her baby and her arms, dropped through, into the cellar and escaped into the woods, which were soon lighted by the glare of her burning cabin. The seminoles were quick to find her means in way of flight, and ere long, she and her infant had shared the fate of John Grant. A few years later, the blood rose appeared on the spot that the

Starting point is 08:12:04 mother and the baby had died with their blood. End of Section 94. Section 95 of American Myths and Legends, Volume 1. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Read by Chuck Williamson, American Myths and Legends, Volume 1, by Charles M. Skinner. St. Mary's Paradise

Starting point is 08:12:45 St. Mary's River, which partly separates Georgia from Florida, rises in a great swamp, which in a rainy season becomes almost a lake. The creeks maintained the existence there of a large space of high and fertile ground, which was an earthly paradise. It was peopled by a race superior to their own, whose men were strong and bold, and the women the fairest in the world. This land is defended against the approach of the unfit

Starting point is 08:13:18 by labyrinthine streams and inlets, expanses of quaking bog, malarial mists, and entangling woods. Creek hunters, who had been lured far from their homes in the chase of game, reported that they had seen the island. But on every attempt to gain its shores, it seemed to move farther and farther across the swamp,

Starting point is 08:13:45 while the paths and openings they followed invariably led them back to their tracks. Here were birds of sweet song and brilliant plumage, great flowers opened their riches of color and perfume to butterflies that rivaled them in gorgeousness. The rocks like the Laxas de Muzikave, the Orinoco, gave out music. Game was plenty in the wood. Fruits were to be had by the picking and clear cold fountains flowed with health, giving assurance of life to all that drank from them. This may have been the land to which the good

Starting point is 08:14:24 were admitted after death, a land where they were so happy that lamentations for them were wrong. Some of the southern Indians would weep at the first sight of a European, believing him to be one of their friends returned from the land of souls. Unless his visit were a short one, it would seem as though it were the exile had the better cause for tears. End of Section 95. End of American Myths and Legends,

Starting point is 08:14:58 Volume 1, by Charles M. Skinner.

Classic Audiobook Collection - American Myths and Legends, Volume 1 by Charles M. Skinner ~ Full Audiobook [folklore]

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