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You, with the Storyteller eyes - a poem by Jen D. Rafanan - http://featherinabeautifulworld.blogspot.com Hey there, you, with the storyteller eyes...won't you tell me a tale or two? Capture my mind, along with my soul. I'm rather intrigued by you. Hey there, you, with the storyteller eyes. Let's live in the moment and fly to places we create...unchartered lands, discovered by just you and I. Hey there, you, with the storyteller eyes. It's fun getting lost with you. Unbounded adventure lies just ahead...I'm glad that you're up for it too. Hey there, you, with the storyteller eyes. It's been amazing! We should do it again. No worries here, just whenever is good. We can deal with the details then. |
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“Uncle Mart” Moody (far right) at Camp Redside, Tupper Lake “Uncle Mart” Adirondack Memories, by Jon Kopp Once upon a time, between the civil war and the end of that century there was a tall, angular, old gentleman by the name of Martin Van Buren Moody, who lived with the love of his life, Minerva, (Minervie to him) in a little cabin on the shore of Tupper’s Lake. He was nature’s gentleman, trustworthy and free from guile, sought out by famous presidents, scholars, and poets who wished to shed the burdens of the industrial age for a brief respite in nature’s bosom. He guided them back in time, to a simpler life. He nurtured them with trout and venison and filled their heads with such stories, that they were delighted to honor him as “Uncle Mart” |
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At his front door yard was the arm of “Big Tupper”, in the rear was a garden plot which spread from the little ravine up and over the hill top, where its margins were defined by the forest. He raised vegetables and sold them to the summer campers. Often, they found him in his garden, working the hoe. If you looked close, you might notice a curious characteristic feature in his attire, the way he tucked the bottom of his trouser legs into the tops of his heavy, gray woolen socks. "How true the Scriptures be!" he exclaimed one morning as he pounded the back of his hoe against an unoffending cobble. "They say that a man shall get his living by the sweat of his brow. Now, in that th’ar garden, two weeds come up to the sprout from a single seed.” "If you could only come out here early in the morning," he continued, " and lay down alongside one of those rows of potatoes, when they begun to blow out, you’d hear them say; lay long, lay long -- for you see there ain't room enough for 'em to grow in," and he swung his hoe handle around to direct attention to his great economy of space within the plot for the possession of which he has been fighting against Mother Nature and the forest for a generation. "I tried to raise cucumbers." he said, "but the vines grew so fast that they wore the cucumbers out draggin' 'em over the stones." ********************************************************* "Bin in the Post Office?" he quipped, "I used to be Arthur's guide (president Chester A Arthur) and he appointed me Postmaster, an' I've bin ever since. Funny thing, too, but it was that run, long for seventeen years, before any Government official came to see the office. Finally, a man in Washington thought he wanted to see what the North Woods was like, and bein’ a Post Office Inspector, he concluded that it was a good time to come up to Moody's. When he got here, I turned everythin’ over to him and went on with my gardening. He got through the business of ‘bout ‘leven years and then took a rest. The fishin’ happened to be purty good. When he finally was through he said the United States Government owed me just 16 cents. Somehow or other I put in a little too much of my own money sometime in makin' change and never missed it." ********************************************************* "I joined the Methodist Church seven years ago, and since that time I have been tellin' only the truth. There was a time when I could tell just as big a story as the other fellow, but I ain't as spry as I was once. My imagination ain't what it was once, neither." ********************************************************* "Oh say, did ya hear? A sportsman gave me a rubber boat. He told me I would find it at Baker's dock in the Sar’nac River, and sure enough it was there when I arrived. I got it into the water, loaded in my pack basket and started out. It rowed hard. Other guides came along and went right by me. I began to think of the old days when I could row a boat with the best of them. And the more I thought of it the more certain I was that my day was past. I put more strength into them oars just in memory of the days when I was a good man than I ever did into oars before, but, the boat did not go any faster. I was pretty blue when this feller and that feller ran right ahead of me. Finally I got up to the landing to the camp on Miller Pond and stood up to step ashore, when zip! That boat went out from under me. I forgot to untie it from Baker's dock." ********************************************************* "I had a favorite hound, a bitch I took with me whenever I took to the woods for a little camp meat. I took her this one time, just before she was due to have pups. I was a little nervous about her, I didn’t want her to get over tired in her weekend state, but, after some hesitation we took to the hunt. It twarnt long she caught a scent and was off like a shot. After a few hours I returned to camp, she had disappeared, out a ear shot, so I waited, I was a bit unnerved to say the least, but I didn’t want to go home without out her. At last I heard her, then I saw her coming down the trail, yelp’in and a howl’in and driving a deer, and behind her were six pups, each one driving a deer of their own. Yup! Quite a dog that one." ********************************************************* "Once I met up with old bruin and she chased me and gave me the worsting of my life"........ (lengthy pause)........."Well!!!, What happened asked the listener.. "What happened then...well....What could I do' I backed agin' the tree and died like a dog." ********************************************************* "It was a blame cold day," he said, "and the lines froze up stiffer then fence wire. Just as fast I pulled them in, and my fingers got so damn frosted I couldn't bait the hooks, but, the fish was thicker and hungrier in flies in June. So I just took a piece of bait and held it over one of the holes. Every time a fish jumped to get it, I'd kick him out on the ice. I tell you sir, I kicked out more 'n four hundred pounds of pick'rel that morning. Yaas, 'twas a lot, I know, but then it was a cold day; I just stacked 'em up solid like cordwood.” ********************************************************* “Well friend Radford, after looking over your provisions of your new bill for the protection of black bear and listening to the objections of some of the timorous farmers in this section, I think I have solved the difficulty in a way that will be satisfactory to all involved. I first caught on to the wrinkle about 1870, that year I took a lumber job about four miles back in the woods from Tupper Lake. In the Spring after the job was done, we moved out of camp on the snow, but were unable to haul out our duffle so we left a small load behind. Fearing the roads might break up I went back within a few days to pick up the remainder. Now, we used maple syrup for our pancakes, which we kept in 25 gallon kegs. These we left near a brook on breaking camp. The syrup had been all used up, but a very little and this streaked around the bottom and inner sides of the kegs. The hoops around the top of the kegs being loose, I had driven some long nails to hold them on. On arriving to the camp I heard some very strange noise in the clearing where we cut our winter’s firewood. After loading up, I remembered the kegs, went done to the brook for them and found them gone. Still hearing the noise I went out into the woodlot. On arriving the first thing to do was sit on a stump and laugh, for I swear, if there weren’t two bears, with each a syrup keg on his head, trying to get clear. Bears love sweet above all things. They had found the kegs, and in trying to get every drop of syrup, had stuck their heads so far down, that the points of nails stuck behind their ears and they could not get the kegs off. When I got there, they were trying to whack them against the stumps, but missed every time being completely blindfolded from the kegs. I ran back, got some ropes and tied there legs, then cut the hoops on the kegs and I had to fine bears. Now, why won’t this experience serve farmers who are afraid of your bill for the protection of Bruin, just let them set a few syrup kegs around the sheep pastures and look them over each morning and tie up the bears as I did, then put them aside in safe enclosures. By the time of the next presidential election the farmers will have a large quantity of fine bears for sale. Then if the price of wool goes down, the can get independently rich selling syrup fed bears. ********************************************************* "We had a cat one time that beat all the cats you ever heard of. Minervie and I both loved her and made a great pet of her, but she begun to get old and it made us sad. We put up with about everything she did, just because we loved her, until she begun to have fits. And such fits -- never heard of anything to compare with 'em. We'd been thnkin' about killin' her and those fits settled it. Minervie and I discussed the various ways of killin’ cats. You see, we wanted to make sure of the job, and yet we wanted to do it in the humanist way. It was finally agreed that I should cut her head off and throw her in the lake. Minervie wouldn't help and I had to do it all. I took the pieces in the boat and rowed down to the foot of the lake, where I dropped in the head. Then I rowed up to Bog River Falls, where I threw in the body, all weighted down with stones. When I got home I told Minervie I thought I had done a good job and she agreed with me. But what do you suppose? Along toward mornin' I heard a noise at the door that sounded just like the old cat wantin' to come in. When I opened the- door there she was, to be sure-our old pet cat carryin' her head in her mouth." ********************************************************* "Speakin’’bout catamounts," said he, "one time I discovered the tracks of a catamount near Bog River Falls and followed them back into the woods for a long distance. I was carryin' a double-barreled, muzzle-loadin' shotgun, a purty old gun, but a good 'un. I was follerin' that trail when I slipped and come down, breakin’ the gun at the stock. It wasn't any good any more, so I threw it away, but I was determined to have that catamount, and as I had a good big knife I hung to the trail. Finally, after three or four miles, the trail begun to get fresher every step. I kept watchin' and discovered the catamount up in the rocks, just a little higher’n my head. I looked the catamount squar' in the eye and he looked at me. I concluded that I was more’n a match for him and got a good brace and made a lunge. Just as I started, that catamount leaped straight at me, but I had such a start and had such a grip on my knife that my arm went clear through the catamount and burled itself way up above the elbow in a log. Then I had to wait until a friend of mine came along and sawed the log in two. ********************************************************* "Yes, that was funny, but I've seen other things just as funny. Why, there was a time up here when rabbits were so awful thick that you had to let the bars down in order to get a dog into a lot. ********************************************************* "Rain? Why, I've seen it rain awful in these mountains. Talk about it rainin' so hard that water stood on the peaked roof of a house! Why, that wasn't in it to a rainstorm we had here one night. I thought it was a cloudburst, but it was only a shower. Minervie got frightened and I thought I'd see how hard it was rainin', so I knocked both heads out of a barrel, and it actually rained so hard through the bung that the water couldn't get out the two ends. ********************************************************* "Arthur killed a buck on Symonds's Pond that time, and it was one of the purtiest I ever saw. A few days later I had Arthur and Fullerton in a boat and Arthur said he wanted to kill a deer with a revolver, a six-shooter that he carried. We waited for some time before the dogs put a deer into the water, and then after some hard rowin’ I got the boat in position for a good shot. The deer was swimmin’ an’ Arthur shot an’ shot, an’ shot until he used up all the charges without hitting the deer. "‘You're .no marksman,’ says I. ‘I c’u’d killed him at the first shot.’ "‘Bet you $5 you can’t’ said Arthur, a little riled. "‘I'll take your bet,’ says I. Then I took the pistol, placed it on the seat, and rowed up to the deer. Then I grabbed the deer, by the ear, shoved the pistol down inside its ear, and fired. 'Twas the only way to do with a little twenty-two, ********************************************************* "About the middle of the afternoon, one day thirty-nine people appeared as if they had dropped from the clouds and made application for my four little rooms. They had journeyed many miles from the ports of entry on Lake Champlain, were tired, hungry, and helpless." "In the midst of all this confusion, I saw Arthur and a man named William A. Fullerton of New York, comin’ up the lake in a row boat. Arthur had been here before, but I'd never seen Fullerton. They pulled their boat out of the water and Arthur, satchel in hand, started toward the house. When he saw me he called out." “ ‘Hello.. “Uncle Mart”, Keepin' hotel?’ "I told him what the trouble was and he said" ' I'll fix 'em.' "The floors of the house were made of wide pine boards. There were people sittin’ ‘round on the floor because we hadn't chairs enough for ‘em, and they took up about all the space there was. Arthur saw one of those wide boards and says: “ ‘Is this board spoken for to-night? ' " ‘No, guess not,’ said I. “ 'Then I'll take it,' he said, and he stretched himself out on one board, while Fullerton dropped on to another. Then you’d ought to’ve seen them other folks scramble for boards. It was like stakin’ out a claim. Once they squatted they wouldn't move. "Well, Minervie ‘n I put up eight tents, usin’ sheets and bedspreads and everything we could. Fixed 'em up in sort of a half circle; started a big fire in front: made bunks for the women to sleep on and threw straw on the ground for the men. Then we hunted up Arthur. I rigged up a bed out of my spruce poles and rope, and Arthur and Fullerton slept on it for sixteen days. Arthur said it was the best bed he ever had and wouldn't take none other. ********************************************************* T'aint no place colder than Tupper's Lake. Why, one morn'n I started for the barn with a pail of boil'n water and damn, if it didn't freeze by the time I shut the door behind me, by golly it froze so fast the ice was actually hot. ********************************************************* One day in February Mart was hunting deer. While creeping around a high and narrow ledge, he slipped into a huge snowdrift. “How was I to get out”? Mart would ask ( as you sat there dumbfounded). “Well, I wondered and thought, and thought and wondered. Finally I had to walk home three miles, get a shovel and dig myself out. ********************************************************* “One afternoon last season, I was out in the woods when I saw five partridges, settln' in a row on the limb of a tree. I didn't have a gun with me; so I pulled out my hunting-knife, took aim, and let her go. That danged knife split the limb so nice that all five birds were caught by the toes. That wa'nt all, the knife went skimming across the brook along side the tree and killed a bear that happened to be loitering on the other side. While I was wadin' across the brook to get the bear, I caught my pants so full of trout that a button busted off, flew forty rod, and killed a fox. I suppose you might call some of that 'Adirondack luck'.” ********************************************************* Once, I actually missed a shot at a deer. I was so disgusted I wrapped the barrel around the trunk of an ol' hardwood tree into a twisted letter S. I took of with the gun slung over my arm when all a sud'n I spied a big buck browsing at the side of a mountain. I raised the gun an took a shot but forgot I had disabled the weapon.... “Well, yes, I missed the buck, but I didn't do so bad. The shot out of that twisted barrel went three times around the mountain and killed two bears and a woodchuck. I mentioned the woodchuck to keep the story accurate.” ********************************************************* After hearing some of my stories one evening, two young hunters decided to try to beat me at my own game. Was in the days when "Jackin" deer with a light at night was legal. The next mornin' after their hunt I asked em 'Well, Boys, where's the deer?' 'Well Mart, we had a terrifying experience. You know that place down at the foot of the lake, where the big hemlock hangs over the water?' "Eyah, Eyah" Well we were paddlin' along close to shore, where we thought we heard a deer browsin' among'st the lilypads. We slipped along, opened the light and I drew a bead on a fine buck's neck, but just before I could fire a wild cat screamed right over our heads in the trees. We were so confused that neither of us could shoot, and the buck lit out. Did ya' ever hear of anythin' like that. Well.... I finished my flapjack....laid down my knife......and turned to Minervie..... What did tell ya' Minervie. I was down at that very spot a fornit' ago, an' when I was right under that same tree, I seed the biggest dang buck I ever seen. I levelled on the feller and was all ready to unhitch, when that blamed cat let out a screech and jumped right into the bow of the boat. The light fell offn' my head but that didn't bother me none. I just reached out and poked the cat into the water. Then I lit up the jack and shot the deer, but I told Minervie at the time and I says, 'someday that there cat will frustrate some of the boys. Have another flapjack. ********************************************************* “Adirondack Luck” twas with me on this one. I was in my guideboat, chopping away at a big tree that was obscuring my sight of deer. "After all this careful planning the dang tree didn’t fall as I expected, it fell right across the front end of the boat, throwin’ me and the dog out and turnin’ the boat end for end in the air. While I was floating in the air, I see the good old boat land in the water, right side up. I give myself a flip, and the next minute I landed on my proper seat, slick's a mink. Kind of shaked up, I started rowin' for home. When I got half-way, I heard the dog barkin’ – I’d clean forgot about him, it sounded if it came from the sky. I looked up and I saw a speck about the size of a fly. It come closer and closer getting’ bigger and bigger until I saw, b’jeepers, t’was my dog. I thought quick, sculled the oars a bit and the dog landed right smack on the seat he always rides on. *********************************************************
"The fact is boys, that in these mountains you have to think fast, and then
it may not do you any good. There was that day on Ampersand Mountain when a
couple of bears chased me. I run up a ravine that was just wide enough for
one bear; thought I'd fight 'em one at a time. Just as I was ready to turn
'round and take care of them, I see another bear comln' for me from the
other side of the ravine. Yep, you got to think fast in the mountains.” ********************************************************* "I once had a herd of 20 registered Guernsey cows in the corral down by the lake. Morning after morning I'd notice that some intruder had milked them dry. So one night I took my shotgun and went down to the corral close to the lake. I was hid real good and waited as the hours 'drug on. "About midnight I heard a little splash down by the shore, and I peeked out, expecting to see somebody come out of a boat and milk them cows. Do you know what I saw? Well, I was frustrated. A bunch of fish come up out of the water, flipped up to the cows' teats, and sucked them dry. That was too much for me - when a fish will come out of water to swipe milk. I sold the cows, and if you boys will ketch some of them fish tomorrow mornin’, you'd be doin' me a real favor." ********************************************************* "I was out shootin' ducks on Tupper's Lake lake with Hi, an enchantin' day when you can see into the depths of the sky and lake. Suddenly a flock went skimmin' by. It so unerved me that I dropped my old fashion powderhorn over the side of the guideboat. Bein' an excellent diver, Hi volunteered to fetch it for me. I said go ahead. He jumped over and down he went. I waited and waited but he never cum up. Wa'll I peered in the water and what d'ya supposed I seen. ........I saw that cuss down there at the bottom of the lake, pourin' powder from my horn to his'n." ********************************************************* The wilderness unfolded to him its mysteries and made him wise with a wisdom nowhere written in books, his grave made under the pines where the childhood he played. The sound of the wind and wave, which lulled him to sleep as a boy, swells the selfsame cadences over his grave. Tradition will prolong his virtue and fame. |
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