Post 1 - Definition of Folklore

 

Definition of Folklore

 

This is a blog about folklore. The tales come from a maritime community on the Chesapeake Bay, your community probably has some.  Searching them out can be a lot of fun.  If you do not know what folklore is, I will give you a couple of definitions.

 

folk-lore (fok’lor) n.  Definition # 1. The traditions, beliefs, customs, sayings, stories, etc. preserved among the common people.  Definition # 2. You start with a scrap of truth, and then you improve on it.

 Definition # 1 would be what you find if you look into a dictionary or if you take a class on folklore.  Definition # 2 is what you would learn if you go straight to the storytellers who have carried on the tradition of the area through their oral history that they pass along to anyone who cares to sit and listen to their faded recollections and their vivid imaginations.

The author tells these stories the way he heard them, imitating the way they were told to him at the store by the head of the creek near where he grew up, the store where the local Chesapeake watermen gathered at night to relate their experiences of the day and to entertain each other.

This is a book of stories about a way of life that once was, but is no more, and will never be again.  Right now, this way of life exists only in museums, and between the covers of a few books and in the memories of old men who lived during that time.  The old men are dying off, so I will race to record my memories before I go to join my friends.    

Be warned before you begin to read these stories.  I won’t sacrifice my memories of that way of life, or the passion of the people who told these stories, merely for the rules of good writing or for historical accuracy.

I won’t follow the rules of good writing, or any rules at all.  I’ll just tell the stories the way those old men would have told them as they sat around the stove during a cold winter evening.  Don’t become overly concerned about their historical accuracy, either.  That did not bother the old men who told them to me.  Anything they did not remember, they made up.  That’s the way folklore is, and that’s the way I will tell it.  A folklore teller would never allow the facts to get in the way of a good story.

Following many of these stories will be a short description of the scrap of truth behind the tale.  A few of the stories are factual, such as The Turtle Hunter, about a boy who caught turtles to pay his tuition to college and went on to become president of a major university, and Wood Made Alive, about a couple of brothers who gave up crabbing and oystering because they loved to carve duck decoys, and they went on to become recognized as pioneers in a major form of art. 

I will write those stories, not the way some folklorist researcher would write them, but rather I will tell them the way they were told to me by the watermen who knew these men and experienced the events.   I believe you will enjoy them more if I do, because I have never yet met a folklorist who could tell a good story.

Do not try to tie any of these stories to any particular person.  Frequently, one of my stories will be made up of several stories I combined, as frequently happens with folklore.   If you think you see somebody you know in one of these stories, look at it again, but look at it through the eyes of somebody sitting on a bench at the store beside a creek, listening to an old man telling his stories to entertain those around him, stories that are the combination of many tales he has heard about the men who live and work on the creek. 

These stories are the ‘traditions … preserved among the common people’ and I hope you enjoy them.  They are merely the wandering of my old and sometimes inaccurate mind.  I have no store by a creek as a place to tell them, so as your read them, pretend you are on a porch bench at the store, overlooking the water and listening to an old storyteller carrying on his nonsense about the way life that once existed on this small, tidal creek surrounded by marshes and pine trees, one of many on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay.

 

Glenn Lawson

The Storyteller

Post 2 - The Turtle Hunter

The Turtle Hunter

 

 

            The old storyteller was sitting on the side porch of the store, looking out across the creek and enjoying the breeze blowing in from the southwest. 

“How you doing today?” I said.

“Just sittin’ here, thinkin’ about the things I’ve seen here,” he said, “and the people who grew up here.”

“Such as?”

“You probably think nothin’ important happened here, or nobody important ever came up on this creek.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You were thinkin’ it, though.”

“How do you know what I was thinking.”

“That’s what everybody thinks, everybody who doesn’t know.”

“So, who important came from this creek?” I asked.

“The University of Maryland football team won last Saturday,” he said. “ I watch ‘em every time they’re on TV. They’re having a good season this year.   ”

“I suppose they are, but you didn’t answer my question.  What does that have to do with who important grew up on this creek?”

“I’m gettin’ around to it,” he said.  “They’re called the Terrapins, you know.”

“What?”

“The University of Maryland football team is called the Terps, that’s short for terrapins.”

“I suppose it is, but what does that have to do with it?”

“I’m gettin’ around to it.  Do you know why they’re called the Terrapins?”

“No, I don’t.  I’ve always thought that was a strange name for a football team.  They’re in a football conference with an eagle, and a ram, and a tiger and a pack of wolves.  Doesn’t strike much fear in an opponent to play against a team called Terrapins.  That’s a small turtle, isn’t it?”

“That’s what it is.  A terrapin is a small turtle.”

“Why would any school, especially a big university like that, name its football team after a little turtle?”

“It started right here on this creek,” the old storyteller said.  “I’m gettin’ around to it.”

I knew he was.  His stories were unpredictable, you could never tell what he was getting around to until he got there.

“Started here on this creek?” I said, careful to show enough interest so he would keep the story going.  “The University of Maryland football team named the Terrapins started here on this creek?”

“It did,” he said, and he pointed out across to the other side, where marsh grass grew from the edge of the water to a row of myrtle bushes that marked where the land stood above the high tide line, and pine trees rose behind the bushes, showing that the land there was even higher.

“See those pine trees, that’s where Byrdtown is.  Byrd spelled with a ‘y’ and not an ‘i’, not like a bird that flies, like some people spell it,” he said. 

“The road sign says Birdtown, spelled with an ‘i’ like birds that fly,” I said.

“That sign’s wrong, they didn’t know how to spell it ‘cause they’d never heard this story.  There was a family over there named Byrd,” he said.  My grandmother was a Byrd.  Her people lived over there, in Byrdtown, that’s where she was born.”

“I believe you,” I said.  “So the sign is spelled wrong, what does that have to do with naming a football team after a turtle?”

“I’m gettin’ around to it.”

I decided to not interrupt him again, so he could ‘get around to it.’

“There was a boy lived over in Byrdtown, this was before my time, mind you, my grandmother told me about it, he was her cousin, and everybody called him ‘Curly,’ called him that because of his hair.  He had a lot of it, and it was curly.  Just about everybody on this creek has a nickname given to ‘em.  Their parents give ‘em a name when they’re born, but that’s temporary.  Their real name is given to ‘em later, somethin’ that fits better than the name their parents gave ‘em, and that new name sticks.  That’s the name people around here know ‘em by.  So this boy was called by the name of ‘Curly,’ that’s what people here called him.”

I nodded to show I was listening.

“Well, Curly was a good crabber, the men in his family were watermen, and they’re all good crabbers, you know.  Curly was a good athlete, as well, played every sport and was good at ‘em all, and not only that, he was smart.  Not only was he smart about catchin’ crabs and turtles and things like that, he was book smart.  Did real good in school.”

I nodded again.

“Back in those days, people around here didn’t value an education.  Don’t need an education to catch crabs or turtles, you know, so they didn’t value schoolin’ at all.  Most of ‘em went to school only long as the law required, then they quit and went to crabbin’ and catchin’ turtles, so they could make some money.”

I nodded again.

“Not Curly.  He liked school, and he went all the way through school in town until he walked up on the stage to get his diploma.  Rare thing, that was, for a boy who grew up around here, especially a boy from Byrdtown, where all the men were watermen, started catchin’ crabs and turtles soon as they were old enough to take out a skiff, and that’s all they ever thought about doin.’ Rare for one of ‘em to get an education.”
            I nodded.

“Not Curly.  He decided that he would go on to college.  Nobody from here ever went to college in those days, but Curly did.  He had a problem, though.  He had to make some money to pay the tuition.  Watermen like his family don’t make enough money to send a boy to college.”

I nodded.  He seemed to be going somewhere with this, and he might get to the story pretty soon, if I didn’t interrupt him.

“Curly lived at home and worked all that summer on the water to make enough money for tuition.  He did the same as other watermen were doin’ back then in the summer, he caught crabs and turtles, and he especially liked turtles.   He was good at catchin’ them.  A man could make a livin’ those days by catchin’ turtles, if he stuck with it all day, every day.  Well, now, Curly wanted that college education, so he stuck with it.  He’d hunt along the edge of the creek in his little skiff from the time the sun came up, and he’d catch turtles with his long handled net until they got to be scarce in the water, and then he’d poke up in the marshes where they had gone to hide.  He was the most determined turtle hunter on the creek.”

I was beginning to see a possible connection.  I nodded for the old storyteller to keep going.

“When summer ended and time came to go back to school, Curly hadn’t spent any of the money he made catchin’ turtles, he’d saved up a bundle, so he took it and went off to a little college on the other side of the Bay.  He was a good student and a good enough athlete they named him captain of the football team.  Bein’ on a team was good for him, they gave the athletes their meals free of charge, and that kept down his expenses.  And when school ended in the spring, Curly came back to Byrdtown, and he took out his little skiff on this creek and started catchin’ turtles again, savin’ up all the money he made so he could pay for next year’s tuition.  He did that until he graduated, worked every summer catchin’ turtles here on this creek and spent the rest of the year studyin’ at college until he walked up on the stage there to get his diploma.

“When he finished, the school offered him a job helpin’ coach the football team.  He liked the school, and the idea of stayin’ there sounded right smart better than anything else he could find. 

“He was a good coach, but he was more than that.  He was also a good salesman, always sellin’ the school every chance he got.  He came up with the idea that the school, bein’ close to Washin’ton, D.C. like it was, could get some of that grant money the federal government was always passing out for research, so he went after it.  His football team was winnin’ games, and that got his foot in a lot of doors, so he became a top notch peddler for the college, talkin’ to congressmen and the like about sendin’ some of that research money to his school.  It was just a few miles up the road from D.C., you know, so he could pass out tickets and the congressmen could go see football games, and that helped.”

I nodded.

“He did so well gettin’ research money that became a part of his job, in addition to coachin’.  He was probably the only college football coach in the country whose main job wasn’t coachin’, it was gettin’ research grants, and he was really good at it.  So good that the school grew by leaps and bounds, built libraries and laboratories and increased the faculty with top notch researchers by usin’ that federal grant money he was bringin’ in.

“Then the day came that the school needed a new president, and they started lookin’ in the normal ways, like all schools do, but somebody said they had a good leader right there at the school, somebody who would do a bang-up job as president just as he had done at everything else.  So they asked Curly, the football coach, the waterman’s boy from Byrdtown, to be the new president, and he did that the same way he did everything, he did it so well that he grew that little college into one of the major research universities in the world with all the money he was bringin’ in by givin’ away those tickets for the games his football team was playin’.  The school grew so big it built a new football stadium, and they named it after him, and they named the team after the way he earned his way through college.  When you hear the sports announcers on TV tellin’ that a football game is being played at Byrd Field, and the home team is called the Terps, think of Curly Byrd, the boy from the other side of this creek who earned his way to college by catchin’ those little turtles, and then he became the college president who grew that small school into a leading university.”

“That’s a good story,” I said.

“I told it just the way my grandmother told me,” the old storyteller said.  “He was her cousin, so she knew a lot about it.”

“So somebody important did come from this creek, after all.”

“Yes, but he’s not the only one.  Another man who lived by this creek about the same time also became famous.”

I settled back on the bench, ready for his next story.  I knew it was coming, I could see it in the way a grin spread out across his face like happened when he had thought of another good one to tell.

But then a waterman came up from his boat, and the old storyteller turned his attention to the newcomer.  I’d have to wait another day to hear that story.

 

Author’s note:

            Behind most folklore, there’s a scrap of truth, you know.  I didn’t do a lot of research on this story, matter of fact, I didn’t do any at all.  I just told it mostly the way it was told to me, but there is some truth behind it.  What I know for sure is that Clifton ‘Curly’ Byrd was from Byrdtown on the other side of the creek, from a family of watermen like my people were, and he was my grandmother’s cousin, and he made his way through college by catching turtles in the summer from the waters and marshes around the creek where I grew up, and he became coach at that college, and he was eventually named president of that little college, and while he was president, it grew to become the gigantic University of Maryland, and their football teams are called the Terps, and they play at a stadium named Byrd field after him.  I didn’t have to do any research to find that out.  I learned most of the story at the store by the creek and from my grandmother, and that’s all the research that went into this story.  Have to be careful about research, anyway, you know.  Any storyteller will tell you real quick that you can’t let a lot of facts get into the way of a good story.

            I hope you enjoyed this wandering through the past with me.

 

            Glenn Lawson

Post 3 - Wood Made Alive

Wood Made Alive

 

            The old storyteller was sitting on the side porch of the store again, enjoying the breeze like he did every afternoon while he was waiting for his friends, waiting for the watermen to come in from their work out on the waters of the Bay.

            “The other day,” I said, “you told me about the turtle hunter who became president of a big university, and you said another man on this creek about that same time became famous.”

            “I did,” the old storyteller said, “The other man was a barber.”

            “A famous barber?” I said.  “I never heard of a famous barber.”

            “He was a barber, and he cut my hair when I was a little boy growing up here on the creek, but that’s not why he became famous.  He also made ducks.”

            “He became famous making ducks?”

            “Yep, that’s what made him famous, and his brother, too.  They both made ducks.”

            He pulled a small block of wood from his pocket, and a knife from another pocket, and he opened the knife and began whittling at the wood.

            “They were carvers,” he said, “both of ‘em were wood carvers, and they made duck decoys for the hunters that lived here by the creek.

“Lem did all of his work at home.  He had a shop for makin’ ducks.  Steve carried blocks of wood in his pocket.  Many a time I’ve seen him sit here at the store and carve a duck head while he was talkin’.  Didn’t take him hardly and time at all. 

“That’s what I’m carvin,’ a duck head, but I’ll need a lot more time than Steve.  I’ll need at least a week, if I finish it at all.

“The hunters around here, they were ‘pot hunters.’  That’s what we called the men here on the creek who hunted for ducks durin’ the winter, when the crabs have all buried in the mud and the weather’s too bad for goin’ out on their little boats to catch oysters.

            “Pot hunters are a lot different from sport hunters, the people who come from the big city and hunt just for the fun of it.  Pot hunters did it to put food on the table.  Well, these barbers made ducks in their spare time, and a barber by this creek has lots of spare time.  All his customers spend six days a week out on their boats, so Lem and Steve did most of their barberin’ late in the day, about sunset, after the men have come in from work.  Since they couldn’t cut hair durin’ most of the day, they had to find another way to bring in a little money, so they made ducks, decoys for the pot hunters to use when the weather was too bad for ‘em to work on the water.  A pot hunter will go out in the marsh when the weather’s bad to kill a few ducks so the family will have somethin’ to eat.”

            “So they became famous for carving decoys their neighbors used when they went hunting,” I said.  “That doesn’t seem to be something that would make a person famous.”

            “Their ducks were special, and lots of people began to notice, so customers came long distances to buy them, but not to use as decoys.  Many bought ‘em as decorations for the house.  Lem and Steve made some especially good for that, called ‘em ‘mantle piece birds.’  Charged extra for ‘em.”

“I’ve heard some of those ducks looked almost as good as stuffed ducks.”

“Better,” the old storyteller said.  “A stuffed duck is a dead duck.  A Ward duck was wood made alive.” 

The old storyteller held up the block of wood and turned it around.  It was becoming rounded, but it was a long way from looking like a duck head.

            “When Lem was born, he had a crippled hand.  His father knew that the boy would never be able to work on the water with a hand like that, takes two good hands to work on a boat.  Sometimes takes one hand to hang on in bad weather while you’re workin’ with the other, so a man can’t get by on the water with only one good hand.  Lem’s father knew he had to train the boy to do somethin’ besides work on a boat.  He decided that barberin’ was the way to go, so he built a little barber shop beside the house, and he learned barberin’ so he could teach this boy.  Now this father was already makin’ decoys, and they were pretty good, so he kept makin’ ‘em for somethin’ to do when nobody was at the barber shop for him to cut their hair, so he taught Lem to make decoys as well.

            “Well, Lem really got interested in this decoy makin’, so interested that he was determined to make better decoys than anybody else on the creek.  You see, the other decoy makers could crab or fish or catch oysters, but Lem couldn’t do that, so he had to sell his decoys to bring in money, and the way to do that was to make better decoys than anybody else was makin’ and he was determined that he would do that.

            “When Lem was growin’up he hunted a lot, he brought home a lot of ducks to put in the pot, and when he was out huntin’ he didn’t just go to kill ducks, he spent a lot of time studyin’ those ducks.  He studied how they looked sittin’ in the water, and studied ‘em right after he killed ‘em as well, said they changed color quick after they died and he wanted their livin’ color, not their dead color.  Sometimes a flock of ducks would pitch in his decoys, and he would sit there in the blind, just watchin’ ‘em to see how they acted.  Other men on the creek claimed he was crazy, he’d sit there with ducks in front of him and just look at ‘em instead of shoot ‘em, but he wanted his decoys to look as natural as he could possibly make ‘em, so he had to know how ducks really looked, especially what they looked like on the water, ‘cause that’s what a decoy is supposed to look like.  It’s supposed to look like a duck that’s sittin’ on the water, ‘cause that’s what a decoy does, it sits on the water.

            “Well now, Lem gained a reputation for makin’ decoys that were better than anybody else’s, they were more natural, so he was gettin’ all the decoy business he could handle.  He was sellin’ decoys as fast as he could make ‘em, so if you wanted him to make a dozen decoys for you, he would put your name on his list, and he always sold his ducks accordin’ to the list.  You might have to wait to get a dozen decoys from Lem, you had to wait ‘til your name made it to the top of the list.  Lem had more orders for ducks than he could fill, so the wait might be pretty long.

            “Steve was Lem’s younger brother.  He liked to carve too, and he could make more money at that than at catchin’ crabs, so he dropped out from bein’ a full time waterman, and he became a barber like Lem, and he carved ducks, too.  Steve became a really good carver, and he was faster at it than Lem, but Lem was the better painter, so they went into business together, Steve carvin’ and Lem paintin’ what Steve had carved.  They were spendin’ a lot more time makin’ ducks than they were cuttin’ hair, and that became a problem.  Lem’s wife, her name was Thelma, she thought carvin’ was just foolin’ around. 

 “Now Lem was sellin’ a lot of ducks, and haircuts were only fifteen cents, so Lem was makin’ a lot more money with his ducks than by cuttin’ hair, but Telma wouldn’t let up on him.  She told him that he should spend more time doin’ useful things like cuttin’ hair, ‘cause barberin’ was real work, but carvin’ was just a waste of time.  She stayed on Lem’s back about spendin’ so much time just foolin’ around, and since the barber shop was right beside the house, she was over there a lot, botherin’ him with things she wanted him to do, so Lem decided a change had to be made. 

Lem let Steve have that shop next to the house, the shop their father had built.  They had been workin’ there together, but Lem rented a small shop about a mile away, next to a grocery store.  Lem’s wife wouldn’t get on Steve about makin’ ducks, ‘cause she wasn’t his wife, and the store was too far away for her to bother Lem, ‘cause she was too fat to walk that distance, so the brothers kept their partnership goin’ with Steve doin’ the carvin’ beside the house and Lem doin’ the paintin’ next to the grocery store.  They became known as the Ward Brothers, and their reputation began to spread.

“The local hunters all knew them, of course, but a lot of sport hunters were now comin’ their way, hunters from Baltimore and from all parts of Pennsylvania, and they saw the decoys the local watermen were usin’ and wanted some like ‘em.  Those sport hunters would take their Ward decoys home with ‘em and they’d brag about ‘em, and pretty soon lots more hunters were comin’ here to the creek, just to buy Ward Brothers decoys.  Not only hunters would come, some people were gettin’ into collectin’ decoys, called it ‘wildfowl art’, and they’d pay more for art than they would for a wooden bird you’d set out in the water and shoot full of buckshot if the ducks got too close to ‘em.

“Lem decided that they needed to go after that art business, so he and Steve made some birds that looked better than just regular decoys.  They called ‘em ‘mantlepiece birds,’ they were different than regular decoys cause they were not meant to shoot over.  They really looked good.

“One of their collectors from Pennsylvania told Lem and Steve they should enter some of their birds in the big wildfowl art show in New York City,   He thought they could win a prize, so they entered it, and he drove here to the creek and picked them up and he took them and some of their ducks to the contest.  They came back with a whole basket full of blue ribbons.  The judges up there had never seen decoys like theirs before.  You see, the judges had made up a bunch of rules about how to judge the best decoys and the other carvers were all makin’ their ducks accordin’ to the rules, so they all pretty much looked alike, but Lem and Steve didn’t know the rules.  They only knew what real ducks looked like and that’s the way they made theirs.  The difference was plain to see, so the judges began to judge all the ducks in the show by how they compared to the Ward ducks rather than how they compared to the rules, and the Ward Brothers became the new standard for makin’ ducks.  The value of their ducks went through the ceiling.

“The other carvers were makin’ decoys, but Lem and Steve were makin’ the wood come alive,” The old storyteller said.  “That’s a big difference.  Some people claim the Ward Brothers were the pioneers of a new wildfowl art style, and who am I to dispute that?”

A couple of watermen came up the steps, so I’d have to wait until another day to learn more about these carvers.

 

Author’s note:

Like other folklore, this tale has a scrap of truth in it.

 I did not have to do any research to write this story, I lived it.  Just like ‘The Turtle Hunter’, I wrote it from my memory and from the stories I heard at the store by the head of the creek.  As a boy, I’d walk through the field behind the house where I grew up, staying on the path along the crests of the ditch banks to keep from getting my feet wet in the lowlands that separated the houses of our community beside the creek, and I’d go to Steve Ward’s barber shop on the road behind ours to get my hair cut.  I can still remember it, a carpet of cedar shavings covered the floor and Steve’s latest birds would be on display, waiting to be picked up by the customer at the top of the list nailed to the wall behind the barber chair.

            People can’t imagine how important duck making was when I was young.  Steve told me that he and Lem had made more than twenty thousand ducks in their career, all carved by hand. We can be sure that will never happen again. 

And I’ll never be able to adequately describe this way of life that I experienced when I was growing up, but I’m doing the best I can, and I’m trying to record as much as I can while I still can.  Most of the old story tellers are now gone, so I feel a responsibility to pass on what I saw and what I learned from them before I go to join them, because I now have a lot more years behind me than in front of me. 

 

Glenn Lawson

 

The Ducks Bathroom

 

 

            “You were telling me how the Ward brothers’ ducks became known as wildfowl art,” I said, “and collectors began buying them, and their value went up.”

            ”Yes sir,” the old storyteller said, “those ducks that Lem and Steve made had value like real money.  In fact, Lem used ‘em for money, he’d trade a few for something he needed when he didn’t have the money to pay for it, and that was often, like the time he built the ducks bathroom.

“The ducks bathroom?” I questioned.

“Yeah, Lem didn’t have the money to pay for it.  The only money Lem and Steve ever had was in their pockets.  They didn’t have bank accounts, didn’t believe in banks.

            “They’d sell a few ducks and put the money in their pockets, and then they’d buy what they needed, and after they had everything they needed, they’d give the rest of the money away.  They didn’t need to keep it, ‘cause all they had to do was make another few ducks and they’d have plenty more money.  Lem was especially generous.  He was always lookin’ around for somebody who really needed enough to pay a doctor bill or patch their roof, and he’d reach down into his pocket and take out the money and hand it to them, but they weren’t supposed to tell anybody.

            “In spite of all the help they were givin’ to the poor, a lot of people around here questioned if they were Christians.  People around here are very religious, and they have their own way of judgin’ if others are good enough.  Lem and Steve, you see, weren’t workin’ for their livin,’ that’s what these people thought.  A man around here’s supposed to go out on his boat six days a week and catch crabs or oysters, and the Ward brothers weren’t doin’ that, so they weren’t workin.’  That means they couldn’t be Christian, not on this creek. 

            “Didn’t matter that Jesus told a man he lacked only one thing, he needed to sell what he had and give it to the poor.  That was the standard Jesus set, but it wasn’t good enough for people around here.  A man needed to catch crabs and oysters, or they wouldn’t associate with him.

            “So Lem and Steve spent a lot of lonely hours.  Lem wrote on the bottom of a duck how much the isolation hurt him.  I remember the exact words.

 

            To be an artist is to hurt in silence,

            To hear harsh words from loose tongues,
            To feel the pangs of hunger for understanding,
            To sit alone in the long, lonesome hours when evening comes.
 

           "In spite of all the good they were doin,’ the neighbors never forgave ‘em for not meetin’ the community standard.   Never associated with ‘em, 'cept the men who came here to the store to sit and rest after a day on the boat.  Steve was usually waitin' for 'em to come in.

            “Lem and Steve never held it against anybody, they kept doin’ the same as they had been doin.’  They kept makin’ their ducks, and they kept givin’ their money to the people who needed it.

            “Then, Thelma decided that she wanted indoor plumbin’ like some of her neighbors had.  She didn’t want to keep goin’ outside to pump water and haul it to the kitchen in a bucket, and most of all, she wanted an indoor bathroom so she wouldn’t have to walk in the rain to the outhouse by the edge of the woods.

            “Lem asked the neighborhood carpenter how much it would cost, the carpenter said, ‘a lot of money,’ because he didn’t know how to estimate a job.  Lem knew he had a problem.  He’d never save up enough to pay for it, however much it would cost, ‘cause whenever he had any money in his pocket, he’d run across somebody who needed it and he’d give it away.  He had to find a way to pay for it without savin’ money.

            “Lem was sellin’ a lot of mantle piece birds to collectors.  A doctor from Baltimore had told Lem that whenever he had a bird that was especially good to call, so Lem made an especially good duck for him. 

            “When the doctor came to pick it up, he asked how much Lem wanted for it.  He had enough cash in his pocket to pay for it, the doctor knew that Lem dealt only in cash.

            “When the doctor held out the money to pay for it, Lem told him to put it back in his pocket and keep up with how much he owed.  Lem said he’d tell him when he needed it.   Lem went right to the carpenter and told him to start work.

            “Every couple of weeks, Lem would have a duck ready.  Every time, the doctor brought cash, and every time, Lem asked how much he owed and told him to put it back in his pocket.  After a few months, the doctor came to pick up his duck and Lem asked how much he owed, and the doctor told him.  Lem said, ‘That’s enough,’ and he took the money and he went to the carpenter and paid him.

            “We call that ‘the ducks bathroom,’ ‘cause Lem paid for it with ducks.

            “Years later, Thelma needed surgery.  The same doctor told Lem he could pay for it with ducks.  The doctor paid the hospital bill, and Lem paid him for that with ducks. 

 

 

Author’s note:

            The scrap of truth behind this story is that Ida, Lem Ward’s daughter, told me how her father saved the money for the bathroom her mother wanted, and how he paid for the surgery she needed in a Baltimore hospital.  I feel truly blessed to have known such people, to have heard so many stories about them at the store, and to have been the person Ida chose to help her write his biography.

 

            Glenn Lawson

 

 

 

The Ducks Retirement Fund

 

 

            “You were telling me how the Ward brothers used their ducks like money,” I said to the old storyteller as I stepped onto the porch overlooking the creek.  He was slicing thin strips from the piece of wood in his hand, and it was beginning to resemble the head of a duck, maybe.

            “You told me they took only cash when they sold a duck, and they gave most of it away to their poor neighbors.  Did they ever put any away so they could retire?”

“Lem never thought about the future, ‘cept he thought about the next duck he would make.  Makin’ ducks was all that was ever on his mind.  I remember hearin’ somebody ask, ‘What’s the best duck you ever made?’  ‘The next one,’ Lem told him.

            “Lem was an artist, and all he thought about was his art, and how to make it better.  That’s what put him at the forefront of wildfowl artists.  While others were chasin’ him, tryin’ to make somethin’ as good as what he had made, he was busy makin’ somethin’ better.

            “Steve, he did try to think about the future.  He worried about Ida, Lem’s daughter.  The Wards were a close family, the brothers both lived in the house that belonged to Travis.  After he died, Ida quit work and moved back to the house to take care of her mother, who was sufferin’ from a lot of illness, and to take care of her daddy and Steve.

            “Steve had married, but his wife couldn’t stand all that togetherness, so she moved out.  Ida ran the house and kept them fed, while Lem and Steve made their ducks to bring in the money.

            “Steve worried about what would happen to Ida when he and Lem became too old to make ducks anymore, and he came up with a plan.  He knew that their ducks were better than any others he had seen, and he believed that someday they would be recognized as art and would be worth a lot of money.

            “So, without tellin’ anybody, not even Lem, Steve began puttin’ ducks away.  Every few weeks he’d carry a finished duck up into the attic, signed and dated by him and Lem.  They were makin’ so many ducks Lem never missed one every few weeks.  Steve didn’t understand finances, but he believed those ducks would someday become valuable, so Ida’s retirement fund grew until it almost filled the attic.

            “Steve’s eyesight went bad and he was afraid he’d chop off his hand with his hatchet, so he quit carvin.’  Then, Lem had a stroke, so they had no income and no money in the bank, but they had friends.  Some of these friends had established an organization to promote wildfowl art, and had named it The Ward Brothers Foundation.  Ida always found enough money to pay the bills and to take care of Lem and Steve.  Their friends had obviously stepped in to help when they needed it, but the left hand never knew what the right hand was doin.’  Nobody knows who was helpin.’

            “Steve’s health was failin’ fast, and he knew his time was short.  He told Ida to look in the attic, he had put somethin’ up there to keep her after he was gone.   Ida looked, and she called one of their friends at the foundation, he called a wildfowl art appraiser.  That attic held a history of the development of wildfowl art, decoys that showed the evolution of the craft with dates on them. 

“Ida had her retirement fund, and it all came from ducks.”

 

Author’s note:

            The scrap of truth behind this story is that Steve Ward once told me he always believed the ducks he and Lem were making would someday become valuable, and that he had been putting some away in the attic for many years.  Another scrap of truth is that a friend of the Wards, a prominent member of the Ward Brothers Foundation , arranged for the sale of the ducks in the attic.  I believe the ducks were moved to become the possession of the Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art in Salisbury, Maryland, they may still be there.  The Ward museum is a magical place to visit, and a major force in promoting wildfowl art in America.  It hosts an annual contest to select the outstanding wildfowl art created during the previous year, and the winners of every class are on display.  This is not a museum devoted to dead things, it is a splendid example of ‘wood made alive.’  I recommend you visit it and witness for yourself the evolution of the American wildfowl art movement.  Included is an exhibit that shows the importance of Lem and Steve Ward in the formation of this truly American form of Art.  To learn more about the Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art, use Google to search for ‘wildfowl art museum salisbury’ and it will lead you to the museum website.  You will be impressed.

            Thank you for allowing me to share with you my folklore tales about two wildfowl artists I knew from the time of my childhood on this little creek, and later came to be my friends even though many years separated our ages.

 

Glenn Lawson

 

Post 4- Three-Quarters Cannon

Three-Quarters Cannon

 

            The old storyteller was sitting on the porch when I walked into the store.

            “I’ve heard about the big guns watermen used to hunt,” I said.  “Does anybody around here have one?”

            “Not now,” the old storyteller said.  “Three-Quarters used to.”

            “Three-Quarters?” I questioned.

            “Yeah, Three-Quarters had one.”

            “Is that somebody’s name?”

            “Yep, that’s his name.  Three-Quarters Curlew.”

            “How did he get a name like that?”

            “If you knew the Curlews, you wouldn’t have to ask that question.  The Curlews, you see, live on the lowest rung of the social ladder in this community.  Rarely will anybody marry a Curlew ‘cept another Curlew.  Three of his four grandparents were Curlews, that’s why he’s called Three-Quarters.”

            “I suppose that makes sense,” I said.

            “There’s a whole colony of ‘em on the other side of the creek.  Well now, when Three-Quarters married, he married another Curlew, of course, and they had a son.   I remember the evenin’ Three-Quarters came here to the store and asked for help.”

            “What kind of help?”

            “He needed help to name the boy.  Well, all the best mathematical minds here at the store tried to figure it out, couldn’t do it, so somebody called a teacher at the school in town and told him the problem.  That teacher gave the boy his name, he’s Seven-Eights.”

            “I know you made that up.”

            “It’s the truth,” the storekeeper said.

            “I was asking about the big gun,” I said.  “What happened to it?”

            “That’s a long story.”

            “By the grin on the storyteller’s face, I could see it was coming, so I sat down to listen.”

            “Those big guns were illegal,” he said.  “Three-Quarters hunted with it at night so he wouldn’t be caught, and that’s illegal too, but worse than that, he fired it every Saturday night and that’s when he got in trouble.”

            “Why did he fire it every Saturday night?”

            “Just for the fun of it.”

            “Just for the fun of it?”

            “Yeah, Saturday was payday.  Watermen catch crabs all week and bring ‘em to the shanty.  The shantyman keeps a tally and pays them Saturday, after the dealer in town pays him.  Most watermen pay their bills with that money, then give the wife most of the rest to keep the house for the week,   Not Three-Quarters.  He’d go straight to town and buy some Sneaky Pete, that’s moonshine the bootlegger in town sells.  Then he’d go home with his Sneaky Pete and wait by the ditch bank near the willow tree in his back yard, drinkin’ his Sneaky Pete until his friends came, and then he’d bring out his pack of cards and they’d gamble ‘till late at night.

            “Well, Three-Quarters always lost, he wasn’t very good at cards after the Sneaky Pete, and then he’d go back to his out buildin’ and drag out his big gun.  Those things were big, really big.  Three-Quarters had the biggest I ever saw.  He called it his cannon.  It was a muzzle-loader, and he poured a pound of powder in it for a shot.  That’s a lot of powder.

“That gun went off with a thunderous roar, and it lit up the sky like a flash of lightnin’.   It’d wake up everybody about midnight, and it would crack plaster and break window glass all the way from the creek to the high ground where the pine trees grow.  It would bounce the lamp chimneys off the top shelf here at the store, the store keeper had to put them in boxes and move them down to the floor.  After Three-Quarters fired his cannon, you could hear him cacklin’ all the way to the other end of the community.  He was havin’ great fun.”

            “That sounds like it was quite a big problem.”

            “It was, so the people in the community went to the shantyman and asked him what to do about it. “

“The shantyman?  Why did they go to him?

“He’s the one everybody on the creek went to when they had a problem.  The shantyman is the one they depend on for their money, and they depend on him for makin’ any decisions regardin’ the community.”

            “What did he tell them?”

            “He said that Three-Quarters would never give up his gun, he insisted it was his constitutional right to keep it, and no man or no law could make him give it up.”

            “So what did they do?”

            “The shantyman thought about it, and he knew that Three-Quarters didn’t fear the law, so he told them that they needed to take him to the church and get him saved, and then tell him it was a sin to get drunk on Saturday night and fire that gun, and that God would punish him if he did it again.  Surely Three-Quarters feared God.

            “So that’s what they decided to do.  When he came into the store that night, the men were ready for him.  They told him that getting drunk on Saturday night and firin’ that big gun was a sin, and that he needed to get saved from his sins.

            “Well now, Three-Quarters saw it differently.  He told ‘em he didn’t want to get saved from his sins.  He said that if it wasn’t for his sins, he wouldn’t have no fun at all.

            “So that plan didn’t work.  The next day they went back to the shantyman and told him what happened.  He thought about it a bit, and he said they’d have to convince him that God would punish him for his sins when he died, but first, they’d have to convince him that he was goin’ to die.  Three-Quarters, you see, never thought very far ahead, he had never considered that someday he would die.

            “So they came up with a new plan.  One of the men had an uncle who might be able to help.  The next evening after dark, after all the men were gathered at the store to play dominos, and Three-Quarters was there with them since it wasn’t a Saturday, this long, black hearse pulled up in front of the door and stopped.  The men all watched as a tall man wearing a black suit unwound his long legs and stepped out, and he put this tall, black, stovepipe hat on his head and walked up the steps into the store.  He went straight to Three-Quarters, and he looked directly into his eyes, and he said, ‘Are you Mister Three-Quarters Curlew?”

            “That I am.  What’cha want?”

            “I need for you to lie down on this bench,” the stranger said, and the other men on the bench moved to make room.  Three-Quarters laid down on the bench, and the stranger stretched out his legs and folded his arms across his chest, and then he got out a measuring tape, and he asked one of the men to hold it at the top of Three-Quarters’ head.  He stretched the tape to the bottoms of his shoes, and he took a little black notebook from his pocket, and he wrote something in it.

            “He thanked Three-Quarters and he said that was all he needed, and he walked out the door and got into the black hearse and drove off.

            “Three-Quarters sat up.  ‘What was that all about?’ he said.

            “That’s the undertaker, he’s measuring you for your coffin.”

            “Why would he do that?”

            “Because you’re goin’ to die.”

            “I ain’t goin’ to die.”

            “Sure you are. Everybody dies, sooner or later, and he knows you’re goin’ to be sooner.”

            “How does he know that?”

            “That’s his job.  He’s an undertaker, you know.  He has to plan for things like that.  He’s got to make your coffin, and that takes time.  He has to get ready, and you need to get ready, too.”

            “Three-Quarters thought about it for a few minutes.”

            “Are you sure he knows?”

“That’s his job.”

“Three-Quarters got up and left the store.”

            “The next evening, soon as he came into the store he asked, ‘How do I get ready to die?’”

            “You go to church, that’s what you do, and the preacher will tell you how.  Every Sunday night, there’s a fire-and-brimstone preacher at the Pentecostal Church, he knows all about that, and he’ll tell you.  You need to go there this Sunday night.”

            “So Three-Quarters did.  He saw a couple of the other watermen sitting about half way down to the front, and he joined ‘em.  They slid toward the middle, and he sat on the end.  The preacher started tellin’ about the time when Jesus would come.  He said there’d be a loud noise like thunder, louder than a thousand shouts, and then the stars would fall from the heavens like fire, and then Jesus would come, and everybody had better get ready for that.  Then he got into all the punishments God had in mind for sinners, and everybody needed to get saved or they would spend eternity, and that’s a long time, sitting smack dab in the middle of a lake of fire.

            “Well now, that scared Three-Quarters so much, he dived right under the pew in front of him.  The men dragged him out, with him screaming that he didn’t want to be sent to that lake of fire, so the men told him that he needed to get saved or it was sure to happen, and they led him to the front of the church, where the preacher was waiting.

            “That’s the night Three-Quarters got saved, and then he didn’t know what to do.  See, he hadn’t never been saved before, but he was wantin’ to be ready when Jesus comes, and not be sent to that lake of fire.

            “The next night, when he came to the store, he asked the men what he should do now that he was saved, so they began to tell him.

            “The men belonged to different churches. The Baptist said that he needed to quit lying, and quit selling undersized crabs, and he needed to get dunked under the water, and he also needed to quit drinking the Sneaky Pete he bought in town every time he got a little money in his pocket.  He also needed to take that money home every Saturday after he got paid for his crabs, and he needed to give it to his wife so she could buy food for the house and shoes for his kids.  The Methodist agreed with most of that, except he said that Three-Quarters didn’t need to get dunked under the water, a sprinkling was good enough.  The Episcopalian didn’t agree with much of it, not much at all.  He said that Three-Quarters didn’t need to stop drinking his Sneaky Pete altogether, moderation was good enough.  Moderation in all things, that’s the key.

            “One thing they did agree on, though, they all agreed that he needed to stop firin’ his cannon every Saturday night.

            “So Three-Quarters went home, and he poured out his gunpowder and pitched out the big ball of cotton he used to make the wad for his cannon, because without them he couldn’t fire it.   As he understood it, firing the cannon was the problem, that was his big sin.  All that week, he made out pretty well with the things they told him he was supposed to do, and not do.  He was ready for Jesus to come.

“That is, he made out pretty well until Saturday, that’s when he got paid for his crabs.  He put his money in his pocket, and he started walking along the ditch bank toward his house.  Well now, that ditch bank is high above the marsh, from it you can see forever.  You can see to the horizon in every direction, nothing in the way of sight.

Three-Quarters stopped about half way home, and he looked to the North and to the East, and he didn’t see Jesus comin’.  He looked to the South and to the West, and he still didn’t see Jesus comin’, and he said to himself, ‘Jesus ain’t comin’ on a Saturday.  Nobody starts nothing on a Saturday, and he turned around and walked to town and bought his bottle of Sneaky Pete.  He sat on the ditch bank behind the house with his old buddies, way down there near the big willow tree, and they drank their Sneaky Pete and played poker by the light of a lantern until way after dark.

“Well now, Seven-Eights knew that his father had poured out the powder, and he missed the thought of firing the big gun that night, so he had gone to the hardware store in town and bought a pound of gunpowder.  He dragged the big gun out from under the tool shed while the men were playin’ poker, and he propped it up against a tree, and he poured his powder down the barrel.  He rammed it down with a rod, like he had seen his father do, and then he went to look for the cotton to make the wad to hold the powder down.  The cotton was gone, so he went to the trash barrel behind the store to see if he could find something that would do as a wad, and he dug out a piece of paper with fat meat scraps wrapped up in it.  The storekeeper had been trimming a ham that day, and he had thrown the fat trimmings in the trash.  The boy took that paper with the fat meat and he rammed it down the barrel for a wad.

“He propped the gun up against a tree limb, so it was pointed out with a clear view of the sky, and he picked up the old paddle his father used to fire it, and he slammed to paddle down on the long, metal trigger.  The gun fired with a tremendous roar, and flames erupted from the barrel like from a volcano, and the wad shot out.  The flames ignited the paper wad, and the ball of glowing fat meat arched high up over the roof of the store and into the dark sky above the willow tree.

“Well now, Three-quarters was laying against the ditch bank half drunk and half asleep, and he heard the roar like thunder, as loud as a thousand shouts, and he looked up.  The glowin’ ball rose up in the sky straight above him, and it exploded, and it filled the heavens with flyin’, flamin’ fat meat.  It looked for sure like the stars were falling.

“My God,” he shouted, “Jesus is comin’ on a Saturday night.”

“Well now, he had already figured out that his big sin was firing his cannon.  He ran to the shantyman’s house, and he banged on the door, and he asked the shantyman to keep the gun for him so God would not find him with it and would not know he was the one who had fired it.

“When he brought in his crabs the next Monday, the shantyman made Three-Quarters an offer.  He offered to let Three-Quarters have the old outboard motor had wanted, he would take the cannon in trade for it.  Three-Quarters wouldn’t agree to givin’ up the cannon for good, so he offered to buy the old outboard for fifty dollars, and the shantyman could keep the cannon for security until he saved the money.  The shantyman knew that Three-Quarters would never save up fifty dollars at one time, so he agreed, and that’s what happened to the last big gun on this creek.”

 

Author’s note:

            The scrap of truth behind this story is that my father owned one of those big guns.  When he wasn’t using it, he kept it standing in the stairwell, it was too long to stand against any other wall in the house.  He was an outlaw hunter at night, as well as an oyster pirate.  I can remember my mother begging him to not go out on his boat after dark, she didn’t want him to work illegally.  He went out anyway, and later that night, we would hear his big gun go off, miles away down near the Virginia line.  The geese my father killed, he sold to the wealthy sportsmen who came to the hunting club on Watts Island, in Virginia.  They would buy the geese and pose with them for photos, and take them home to the big city to prove they were good hunters.

 

            Glenn Lawson

Storyteller