The Woods Were Tossing With Jewels
By Marie St. John
林中有宝石在跳动(有删节)
玛丽·圣·约翰
1899年,爸爸决定带领全家穿过艾沃格拉德那片蛮荒的湿地,在靠海边的荒岛上安家落户。那年我5岁,我们全家住在佛罗里达州的棕榈村。爸爸是想开垦那个荒岛,但更深层的原因是想让我们感受他成长的那种方式。他15岁时是玛丽卡一带的牛仔,这些大牧场与当时尚未开发的艾沃格拉德湿地北端相连。爸爸一生都喜欢吃那种用篝火烤制的玉米饼;用只加一点盐的烫面玉米面,擀平烤出的又脆又可口的薄饼。
爸爸的一生很有些传奇色彩。内战中他失去了父亲和一个兄弟。祖父的小木屋位于南卡罗来纳州的查尔斯顿,他附近的农场恰好位于谢尔曼将军的行军路线上。祖母只好带上8岁的爸爸逃到佛罗里达州的昆西。在那儿念完初中后,爸爸就在祖父一个朋友的农场里当起了牛仔。爸爸30岁时,当上了本郡的行政长官,这在当时是个不错的差事,他手下的辖区范围很大。后来,这个郡被划分为六到八个郡。
对许多人来说,佛罗里达南部不是一个吸引人的地方,那儿有很多蚊子、豹子、鳄鱼,到处都是湿地和沼泽地。可正是这些特征,像希腊神话里海妖那诱人动听的歌声一样,吸引着爸爸。
7月4日前后,爸爸着手制作一辆带篷的四轮马车。那年秋天,我们动身出发,进入到这片荒地。这之前我们在棕榈村住了已有一年多,我的外祖父哈里森一家就住在那儿。他们是在内战后在那儿落户的,都是受人爱戴的好人。我们家在马纳提河边,是一座两层的木结构房子,非常舒适。周围有槲树、番石榴,还有长叶松,它们的树枝从树干的低处伸出,形成树荫,成为天然的牛棚鸡舍。外祖父是一个乡村医生,他为全郡的人看病,他们给他鸡蛋、火腿和时令蔬菜作为回报。这是一种田园生活,我们和亲戚们住得很近,享受着小镇生活所能给予我们的舒适和安全。但父亲是一个很有进取心的人,他知道位于佛罗里达州西南海岸,尚未开发的万岛群岛土壤肥沃,适于耕种,而且有充足的猎物作为食物来源。
我永远不会忘记我们动身的那一天。每当我们要动身到某地,我们总是会早早起床。爸爸催促我们说:“我们可不能等到天黑。”我告别了我的玩具娃娃,没想到这将是我跟她们的最后一别。最后当我们都坐到了马车里——爸爸、妈妈和更小的孩子坐在前面,布巴、哈尔和我坐在后面——爸爸拉动缰绳,我们就出发了。我异常兴奋,以至于我的胃翻江倒海。尽管有很多让人高兴的理由,我却开始哭起来。“她怎么了?”爸爸问,以为巴布把我惹哭了。“我怕天就要黑了,”我解释道,心想如果天真的黑了,会有什么样的灾难降临到我们头上。
几个星期来,对这次冒险的计划使大家非常兴奋、充满期待。无论是在吃晚饭时,还是晚上在门廊里,爸爸都会给我们描述这次旅行将多么精彩有趣。甚至有的时候我们已经上床准备睡觉了,隔着打开的房门,爸爸还在继续他的描述。他的描述果真没有言过其实,这次旅行的记忆影响着我的一生。
马车的底部装有一个宽大的抽屉,可以滑动,还有把手等,能从马车的后部拉出来。在这个又深又宽敞的盒子里装满了我们宿营的装备和食品。宿营的装备包括一个大帐篷、每人一张轻便的折叠床、折叠椅和一张桌子。我们的野外炊具是一个很重的黑铁锅。一个三条腿的大水壶,可以坐到火上烧水。还有荷兰炖锅、锡杯、餐具、碗等。羊毛毯、床单、枕头,还有其他的被褥都卷在一张帆布里用绳子扎起来;这个“大垫子”正好放在车里,成了我们三个坐在后面的小家伙的大座椅。
我们期待路上会有很多的猎物和野果,但还是带上了充足的食物储备——好几个可装50磅猪油的罐子里装满面粉、涂了油的香肠、咖啡、猪油、糖蜜、谷麦面、大米、糖和盐,另外还有两个火腿、一卷奶酪、几坛水果和果酱,还给马准备了好几袋燕麦。爸爸的工具箱就更壮观了:除了各种各样的农具,还有几杆猎枪和火药,还为家里每个成员准备了钓鱼用具。
我真希望你能亲眼目睹那些密林深处孤零零的小商店,我们有时在那里停下来,补充食物储备。小店里的商品五花八门,从犁刀到棉线线轴应有尽有。偶尔在商店旁边会有一个铁匠铺,所以我们的红棕马戴夫,也能一直钉着舒服的马掌。
出发后的第三天以及以后的日子里,我们都在佛罗里达无人居住的荒野中穿行。有的时候为了让爸爸和男孩子们能捕到松鼠或鹌鹑当晚饭,我们很早就收起了帐篷。无论什么时候,只要走到能钓鱼的好地方,我们立即安营扎寨,当天就不再赶路。有一个这样的地方是一条从一片很大的柏树丛沼泽地的一眼泉中流出来的清澈的小河。水里的水草就像绿色的丝带,不断地伸展开来,野兰花一簇一簇地挂满乐儿枝头。爸爸给我们每人一根渔杆,因为我们有6个人在钓鱼,鱼又很多,几分钟的功夫就能钓到许多鱼。作为特别的款待,爸爸有时会切出棕榈树果实的芯儿,妈妈就把它放到黑铁壶里慢慢地煮。一路上,这样的树丛很多,我们好像一直在这种棕榈树的树丛中或在其附近穿行。
有一天,我病了,发着高烧。当时我们在阿卡迪亚附近,但要到达那里还很远。于是爸爸为我们搭好帐篷,然后独自骑马赶到小镇请来了医生。我们只好在帐篷里住了几天,直到我痊愈。后来我们继续赶路到了阿卡迪亚的一个路口旁的旅店。那是一个两层的木屋,也就是一座大房子一样的大小。直到我恢复体力我们才离开旅馆继续赶路。
我们离开阿卡迪亚时,望着那里尘土飞扬的街道、自由放养的牛群、马厩和屋外的厕所,它简直就是一个大都市。以后一年多的时间里我们再也没看到这样的城市。很快,我们满眼看到的是令人惊奇的景象:小溪和河流发过水的河岸高地上,到处生长着一丛丛硕大的乔叶栎;在肥沃的丘地上长满绿色的蕨类植物;乔叶栎粗壮的枝干上也覆盖着蕨类植物,附生的凤梨科植物盛开着。红雀、唐那雀和色彩斑斓的鸠鸟在小路上飞来飞去,让孩子觉得就像是宝石在树林中跳动。
在那不勒斯,我们卖掉了马和车,买了一条小船,一条带船舱的单桅船。我们在马卡逗留了几日,之后南下驶向大沼泽地城和楚克拉什奇;一个是靠岸码头,另一个是泥滩。最后我们来到埃德加·沃森的地盘,一个位于查塔姆河旁的甘蔗园。
沃森是一个臭名昭著的亡命徒。佛罗里达南部的每个警察都了解他的奸诈和狡猾。他把自己隔绝在这偏远的沼泽地,因为没有哪个地方欢迎他。尽管警察会时不时地例行公事,试图逮捕他,但似乎找不到他违法的具体证据。
然而,他的传奇故事还在继续。本地的白人像害怕响尾蛇一样惧怕他,而印第安人和黑人则不得不受他的控制和剥削。为了填饱肚子,他们就去为他工作
——砍甘蔗,但是他从不按约定好的数目付钱。如果有人反抗,据说他当场就会除掉他。我听说有一次飓风把海湾中的水刮走,海底露出无数具人的尸骨。第二天海湾又被水覆没,一切又恢复如常。
这个残忍的人有一个生病的妻子,他非常爱她,给她养50只猫作为宠物。当然,我们停靠在甘蔗园的那天,我对这些猫很感兴趣。我记得沃森先生把我抱在膝盖上,让我挑一个送给我。他看起来像是一位最好的绅士。
爸爸诚惶诚恐地跟沃森商定从迈尔斯堡运来盖房子所需的材料:一些木材、盖屋顶的材料和其他盖房子需要的东西。我们需要自己动手盖房子,还需要朋友们的帮助。像其他住在这偏僻地方的人们一样,我们需要依赖沃森的大船。除此之外,这里没有其他办法把我们的农副产品定期运到市场。沃森在佛罗里达这一地区的恶霸行为与我们在后来所遭受的某些执法者、法律骗子,甚至一些地方官员们的无耻行径毫无二致。
当天我们离开沃森的地盘,驶向我们的目的地。我们的第一家将在叫做高坡礁的小岛上,是由隔板搭成的简陋小屋。我们需要沿河上行20英里,进入一个广阔的海湾,然后穿行在星罗棋布的数百个小岛之间形成的像隧道一样的蜿蜒曲折的一条小溪才能到达。这些小岛大部分挨得很近,那条小溪常常被红树林遮住。
我们在日落时分到达高坡礁,在那里要一直住到建在附近岛上的大房子盖好。小岛上有一个简陋的木屋,算不上很好的居住地,唯一的近邻是住在30英里外的杀人犯沃森。尽管如此,我们还是搬进折叠床,用帆布行李卷当椅子。我记得有一个简陋的桌子,还有一条凳子。还有,也是最重要的,我们做饭的炉子。
这座小岛实际上是一片沼泽地,覆盖着厚厚的绿色植物。在我们全家人的悉心照顾下,好像突然之间,冒出一个生机勃勃的花园。每天我们的餐桌上都有各种各样的蔬菜,还有各种野外和海物。我们随时都能吃上新鲜的鹿肉和野鸭肉。我们划船到离家不远的地方钓红鲈和甲鱼。在房前的小河边爸爸建了一个打猎的隐蔽处所,每天爸爸就在那儿放上几枪,总会从每天清晨吵醒我们的成千的野鸭中,带回10多只,用洋苏叶裹上蒸熟后,成为我们餐桌上的佳肴。那年冬天,妈妈把从鸭子身上拔下来的鸭毛都保存下来,最终做了一床鸭绒被。
那年冬天,我们游泳去远处的岛屿,拾到很多海蚌用来做饼陷和杂烩汤。沿着海潮退去后的小溪拾到的牡蛎都像人的脚那么大。
爸爸去哪儿都带着全家人,除了去猎鹿。这时我就会为自己不是男孩儿而哭鼻子。我8岁和11岁的哥哥都是神枪手,总是跟着爸爸。他们三个去打猎,从来没有空手而归的时候。即使是讲究美食的国王理查德也不可能像我们一样一日三餐吃着如此丰盛的野味。
到了春天,我们的二层楼的房子建好了。爸爸把它建在称作谢瓦利埃之地的老宅的位置上。它原来的主人是叫那个名字的法国人。他曾经种下的番石榴和鳄梨,现在已经长成大树。房子建在海边的高坡地上,坐落在树丛中,看起来又安全又结实。
我们的新家不仅安全牢固,还给我们带来了无尽的乐趣。我们有床睡,有椅子坐。然而,我们来来回回好几次才从高坡礁搬回所有的东西。我得到允许参与到这激动人心的搬迁过程中。有一次我们沿着小溪回旧房子,穿过隧道般的红树林时,被一群群扑腾而过的鸭子撞到。男孩儿们用桨自卫时把它们击落,这就成了我们的晚餐。
我们刚搬进新家后,爸爸和7个男孩子就在我们肥沃、宽敞的小岛上种上西红柿。西红柿越长越大,我们的家庭也日益壮大。祖母搬来和我们一起住,还有
爸爸的弟弟,约翰叔叔,也移居过来,住在我家和沃森的甘蔗园之间。
我们的新家真的是一个快乐的天堂,但是这里也总是有活儿要干。每天一大早和下午晚些时候,我和奥尔就跟着妈妈去菜园。新鲜的蔬菜吃起来好香呀!我们用关爱的双手精心照料它们,花上好几个小时为它们除草。我们抽水,用桶装满,抬过来给幼苗浇水。我们的回报是满满一捧的甜菜、小萝卜、大头菜等等,带回家做午饭和晚饭,再加上野生食物,每顿饭都令人难忘。我们的高地周围生长着野生的棉豆,棉豆的藤蔓爬到高高的树上,我们得把它们拽下来才能摘到豆子(也知道它们在一周后还会爬上去)。饭后甜点是松脆饼和长在后院的野生香蕉。
那年夏天的一天,突然所有的工作都停下来。从来都没有时间理我的大哥布巴把我带到外面,他制作了高跷,还教我如何使用。深深嵌入地里的贝壳像是铺过的路面。天下过雨,由于有贝壳而渗不下去的雨水形成一个一个的小水坑。我们开始玩踩水坑的游戏。踩在高跷上的我和哥哥布巴一样高。哈尔出来了,很快两个哥哥也都踩在自己的高跷上了。奥尔还小,不会使用高跷,但他很羡慕地跟着我们走来走去。除了阳光下,到处都是讨厌的蚊子,于是我们4个孩子在夏天的阳光下踩着高跷晚了一整天。尽管烈日当头,我们却很高兴不用在屋里上课;平时每天的这个时候,无论天晴还是下雨,妈妈都要给我们上课。
下午晚些时候祖母叫我们进屋。她告诉我们有了小妹妹。当时我们在厨房,当爸爸把这个小东西抱到厨房时,我还以为她是一个躺在枕头上、戴着卷曲假发的玩具娃娃。我用手摸摸它的脸颊,看她是不是一个娃娃,她居然动了!
“噢,爸爸,我想要她,他一定要她,请让我抱抱,行吗?”当时爸爸就把她交给了我。我们,我和这个妹妹,一起住了很长时间,我们之间有很深的感情。当我把那个小小的、漂亮的婴儿抱到怀里时,那时我感到最骄傲的时刻。爸爸和奶奶让她平平安安地降生。我们给她取名叫珍妮。
不久妈妈又回到菜园,还有爸爸种的西红柿,我们很快就有农产品需要运往市场。按照和沃森的约定,我们用他的船运输。很快麻烦就来了。甘蔗园派人送来爸爸应得的一份钱,但数目少得可怜。爸爸告诉那人回去转告沃森他欠我们的数目,并转告他,爸爸会亲自去取。那个可怜的信差吓坏了,恳求爸爸别把事情闹大了。“他会杀了你,马丁先生。这就是他算账的方式。没有人敢和埃德加·沃森说理,并且还能活着谈论这事。”
第二天爸爸去找沃森,由哈尔和布巴陪同。当他们的船停在船坞时,爸爸告诉他俩在船里坐稳,做好准备,他一个人进了沃森的房子。透过大大的纱窗,沃森的整个客厅一览无余。那是一个军械库,墙边立着一排一排的枪。爸爸没带一杆枪。
接下来的争论男孩儿们看得一清二楚。当沃森的声音越来越刺耳时,他们也许想到了船底下的骷髅。接着沃森开始向立着枪的墙边退去,爸爸仍毫不让步,坚持要自己的钱,沃森的手伸向一支枪。在这千钧一发之际,我沃森的脸上突然露出了笑容。从他站着的位置,他看见船里的两个男孩,每人手里都举着一支上好了子弹的来复枪,正瞄准这个威胁着他们爸爸的人。
“看,”沃森对爸爸说,但爸爸以为他在耍花招想让自己转身。沃森明白了,从放枪的地方走开,指向小船。爸爸朝儿子咧嘴笑了,甚至对沃森也笑了一下。
“你以为他们在想我会杀了你,是吗,吉姆?”沃森问爸爸。
“你以为你会有机会吗?”爸爸回敬道。
这个从未还过债的人把钱还给了爸爸,还跟着爸爸走到船坞看个究竟。他看
到的是两个若无其事的男孩儿正在驱赶蚊子,旁边放着枪。
那天晚上睡觉时爸爸给了两个男孩一人一个特别的拥抱,还吻了他们。在那个年代,在南方,男人之间亲吻是很普遍的习俗。我很高兴在我们家一直保留着这个习惯,还有其他的许多习惯。今天在我的子孙身上,我仍能看到我父亲所拥有的无尽的勇气和爱心。是他和妈妈养育我们的方式使我们彼此关爱。也许正是这种关爱,才使我们在世纪之交,在万岛群岛上度过了美好的时光。
——摘自金贞实主编《现代大学英语标准同步辅导·精读6》
【附英文原文】
The Woods Were Tossing With Jewels
A Childhood in the Florida Wilderness
By Marie St. John, written for her son, Tom, and edited and illustrated by her daughter, Charlotte St. John Evans
In 1899 when I was five years old and living in Palmetto, Florida, my father decided to take his family through the wilds of the Everglades and stake a claim on an offshore island. His purpose was to farm this island but behind this was his wish to give us a taste of the way he grew up. He had been a cowboy in the Myakka area when he was fifteen years old. These ranchlands overlapped the north end of the Everglades at a time when it was unexplored. As long as he lived, papa liked his corn bread made campfire style with boiling water and salt only, and flattened out into a brittle, tasty cracker.
His life was a series of adventures. He had lost a father and a brother in the Civil War. His father’s carriage house in Charleston, South Carolina, and his nearby plantation were in the line of Sherman’s march. His widow took her eightyear-old son, my father, and fled to Quincy, Florida. When Papa finished school at the academy there, he went to work as a cowboy on a ranch in Myakka for a friend of his dead father’s. By age thirty, he was a county sheriff, no mean job in those days, and his territory was wide ranging. The county he served was later split up into six or eight counties.
South Florida was uninviting to many because of the mosquitoes, panthers, crocodiles, swamps, and wetlands. But these marks of wild country called to my father like the legendary siren song.
He started building a covered wagon around the fourth of July and we went into the wilderness with him in the fall. We had made our home in Palmetto for a year or so where my mother’s gentle folks, th e Harrisons, had settled following the Civil War. Our comfortable
two-story frame house on the Manatee River was set about with live oaks, guavas, and long-leafed pine that branched out from the foot of the tree to shelter our cow and provide a roost for the chickens. My grandfather was the town doctor. He doctored the entire county and was paid in eggs and ham and vegetables when they were in season. It was an idyllic life, and we lived close to our family and to the comforts and safety a small town could afford. But Papa was a man of enterprise; he realized that the untouched Ten Thousand Islands off the southwest coast of the state were rich in soil for crops and in game for food.
I will never forget the day we started. As always when we were to go anywhe re, we rose early. Papa hurried us, saying, “We don’t want the day to catch us.” I told my dolls good-bye without knowing that I would never see them again. When at last we were in the covered wagon with papa, mama, and the baby on the front seat and Bubba, Hal, and me in the back, my father lifted the reins and we were off. My stomach turned over, I was that excited.
Despite the fact that there was so much to be happy about, I began to whimper. “What’s the matter with her?” papa asked, thinking Bubba was t easing me. “I’m afraid day’s going to catch us,”
I explained, wondering what great disaster might befall us if it did.
We had been keyed up for this adventure by weeks of planning. Around the supper table and again on the porch at night, papa described the wonders and pleasures this trip held. Even after we had gone to bed, the talk sometimes would continue through the open doors between our rooms. His descriptions were not exaggerated. The memories of this trip have colored my life.
The covered wagon had a wide drawer that would slide under the body of the wagon, handle and all, so it could be pulled out from the rear. In this deep and roomy box was packed our camping equipment and food supplies. The camping outfit consisted of a huge tent, a folding cot apiece, folding chairs, and a table. Our outdoor cookware was of heavy black iron. One big kettle stood up on three long legs to sit over a fire. There were dutch ovens, tin cups, cutlery, and bowls. The blankets, sheets, pillows, and other bedding was rolled in a canvas and tightly strapped. This “cushion” was fitted into the body of the wagon and served as a seat for the three of us who rode in back.
We looked forward to plentiful game and wild fruit on the road, but took ample provisions—fifty-pound lard cans full of flour, oiled sausage, coffee, lard, molasses, grits, rice, sugar, and salt. And there were two hams, a wheel of cheese, jars of fruit and jelly, and sacks of oats for the horse. Papa’s box of tools was most impressive to look at. He had every kind of implement for hand farming, plus guns and ammunition for hunting, and fishing tackle for each member of the family.
I wish I could make you see the little stores, all alone, way off in the backwoods where we would stop to replenish our food stock from time to time. They were stocked with everything from plowshares to spools of cotton thread. Occasionally a blacksmith’s shed would adjoin the store, so Dave, our big bay horse, was kept in comfortable shoes.
The first day out is as vivid to me today as it was then. We took a deeply rutted wagon trail through thick woods, across prairies, and right across ponds and creeks where the water was shallow. Each time we forded water, the horse and our hunting dogs took a long drink and we children would hop down out of the wagon and walk across, splashing each other and cooling down. Off and on all day, we jumped out and walked behind the wagon with the dogs to stretch our legs.
That first night we stopped in a pine forest. Chiggers can’t tolerate turpentine, so we were free of this small pest. The thick ground of straw was sweet to inhale. Added to this was the smell of mama’s cooking ham and coffee. While mama and I fixed supper, papa and the boys pitched the tent. Then it was to bed inside a cozy tent where we could drift off listening to night sounds.
The second morning, like so many to come, I woke up smelling bacon. It was dark, still night, but time to get started. The morning did not turn bright; the sky was overcast all day. By early afternoon the rain came in torrents. Papa knew a man out there in this sparsely settled backwoods and was able to find his house. We drove up to his gate. Dogs met dogs and there were dogfights. This brought the man’s family out on the. porch. They peeked at us as though we wer e creatures from another world. As soon as the man recognized papa, we were made welcome. Dave was fed and given a dry stable to sleep in. The man’s wife asked us to eat with them. Mama told Hal and Bubba to get food from the wagon and she spread it on the table. This was a treat for these people, but we liked their boiled greens and fried pork equally well. The rain and wind sounded like wild horses on the tin roof, but we were warm and dry. All that night, mama sat up, going
from one to the other of her family to keep the bedbugs from devouring us, a hazard of the Florida backwoods of those days.
The rain stopped and we were on our way at dawn. Mama kept her fingers crossed with the hope that none of the little bedfellows had elected to go with us.
This third day out, and the days to come, found us in the unsettled wilds of Florida. Sometimes we would strike camp early enough for papa and the boys to shoot fox squirrels or quail for supper. No matter what time of day we came to a good fishing place, we would stay for the rest of the day. One such place was a white-clear stream that ran out of a spring in a vast cypress swamp. Its underwater grasses looked like green ribbons constantly unrolling, and the trees held thick sprays of wild orchids. Papa had given each of us a pole, and what with six of us fishing and the fish so plentiful, we usually had a catch in a matter of minutes. As an added treat papa sometimes would cut the heart out of a cabbage palmetto, and mama would cook it, slowly, in the black kettle. There was no shortage of these groves. Always, it seems, we were in or near a grove of cabbage palmettos.
One day I got sick and had a high fever. We were near Arcadia but still too far to drive on. So papa pitched camp and went on into town on horseback and brought a doctor back with him. We had to stay in camp for several days until I was well. Then we drove on to a small crossroads and stopped at a hotel, a two-story frame building no larger than a big house, until I was strong enough to resume the journey.
As we drove off, Arcadia with its dirt streets and free-roaming cattle, its barns and outhouses, looked like a metropolis. We were not to see such a city again for over a year. Soon enough our eyes were bugging at the size of the oak trees that grew in clusters wherever the earth rose up from the flood plains of the creeks and rivers. These lush hammocks were green with ferns. The burly arms of the oaks were hairy with fern and blooming bromeliads. Redbirds, tanagers, and painted buntings flew back and forth across the trail, leaving a child with the impression that the woods were tossing with jewels.
One bright morning we came to a wide river, the Caloosahatchee, at Alva. Alva was a dot on the road marked by the fact that it had a ferry. This ferry was a huge, flat barge that had to be poled. The river was swift and deep and Dave balked, but papa led him onto the ferry and we were soon on the other bank, driving off to Esterr. Esterr was a commune of Koreshians, folks who believed that they were living
inside the earth like the figures in a paperweight. Their leader, Silverhorn, taught the communist manifesto but, at the same time, claimed to be a reincarnation of Jesus. This Messiah had accepted the possessions of his followers. They appeared to be his slaves, and indeed, they did worship him. He instructed them that when he died he would be resurrected (but he wasn’t, a fact that came to our notice many years later). He had so ordered his commune that the men, women, and children lived in three separate dormitories. The children were cared for by people who did nothing else. Everyone had his or her duties to perform and there was no idleness.
Despite the order and industry, both of which my parents admired, they were stunned by the fact that children were taken away from their parents at so early an age. We stopped here for several days, and Silverhorn invited papa to join his sect. To tease us, papa said he had signed up with them. I was relieved to learn that we were leaving the next day with our family intact.
At Naples we sold the horse and wagon and bought a boat, a sloop with a cabin. Loading our things into this craft, we boldly set sail into the rollicking gulf. Things went well until, just off of Cape Romano, we encountered a squall. We headed out to sea, which frightened my landlubber mother, and I at once sensed her fear. Papa had to shout above the wind and rain so that the boys could hear his orders. When mama and I from inside the cabin heard him yell, “Let her rip,” we thought the end had come. He hastened to see what all the screaming was about and assured us that there was no danger. Just the same, I have always looked back on that event as one of the narrowest escapes I ever had!
We made port at Marco, a landing pier and little else, where we were met by people who knew papa and who gave us a grand welcome. In fact, it seemed that everyone knew papa everywhere we went. He was a small man with immense vitality. His curly red hair was worn longish in the style of the day. His sharp blue eyes were a constant clue to his wit and charm. I was quick to own up to being Jim Martin’s daughter.
We visited a few days at Marco and then sailed south for Everglades City and Chucoluskee, one a landing pier, the other a mud bank. Finally we came to Edgar W atson’s place, a sugar plantation on the Chatham River.
Watson was an infamous outlaw. Every lawman in southern Florida was acquainted with his treachery and cunning. He had
secluded himself in this remote area of the Everglades because he was not welcome elsewhere; from time to time he was halfheartedly sought for trial, though few crimes seemed to lead directly to his door. The legend persisted, however. The native whites feared him as you would a rattlesnake, but the Indians and black people were susceptible to his manipulations. Frequently hungry, they would go to work for him, cutting cane. He rarely paid the money agreed upon, and if a worker rebelled, Watson was said to execute him on the spot.
I heard that countless human skeletons were left bare in his bayou once when a hurricane blew the water out. The bayou filled the next day, and it was business as usual.
This merciless man had an invalid wife whom he adored. He kept fifty cats for her to pet; of course, I was intrigued with them the day we docked at the sugar plantation. I remember Mr. Watson taking me on his knee and telling me to pick one out for my own. He seemed the kindest of men.
Not without trepidation, papa made arrangements with Watson to bring lumber, roofing, and other materials needed from Fort Myers to build our house, which we would do with our own hands and the help of friends. Like other people in this lost place, we were dependent on Watson’s big boat, which made regular runs to and fro. We felt this dependency even more after we settled and commenced to farm. There was no other way to get our produce to market on a steady basis. The strangle hold Watson had over this section of Florida was not dissimilar to the unscrupulous activities of certain lawmen, other legal crooks, and even governors that our state was to suffer through its history.
We left Watson’s that same day for our destination. This first home was to be a weather-boarded shack on a small island called Gopher Key. It was twenty miles further up the river, then out into an expansive bay and through a creek that wound like a tunnel among the hundreds of islands offshore. Some of these islands were so close together that this creek often was shaded over by mangroves.
It was sundown when we arrived at Gopher Key, where we would stay until the big house was built on a neighboring island. There was the little shack, not the most gracious of living quarters, and there was a murderer for our nearest and only neighbor, about thirty miles away. Nevertheless, we moved in with our folding cots for beds and our canvas seats for chairs. I do remember a crude table, with a long bench to sit on. There was also, and most important, a cookstove.
The island was virtually a hammock. It was covered with thick green growth. There sprung to life, in no time it seems, a splendid garden under the care and interest of our entire family. We had a variety of vegetables on the table each day. These were supplemented with every kind of wild game and seafood. We had fresh venison and wild turkey any time we wanted it. We fished for sheepshead and snapper by rowing a few yards from the house. Daily, right in front of the house, papa fired the shotgun several times from behind the blind he had built on the edge of our stream, and of the thousands of ducks that quacked us awake at dawn he would bring in a dozen or more to be smothered in sage. My mother saved the down we plucked from the ducks that winter, and there was eventually enough to make a feather bed.
On our swimming excursions that winter to the outer islands, we gathered clams for fritters and chowder. The oysters we got along the sides of the clear tidal creeks were as big as a man’s foot.
Papa took his family wherever he went except when he went deer hunting. This is when I wept because I was not a boy. My big brothers, aged eight and eleven, were crack shots with a rifle and always accompanied him. The three of them never failed in the hunt. King Richard in his gluttony never sat at a table more sumptuous than ours was three times a day.
Our l ist of providers grew when papa’s young nephews and cousins migrated to join him. These five boys had lived with us off and on all their lives. They slept with my brothers in the tent until, with their help, we finished our big house. There were several weeks when the building activity was intense. During this time it was up to my mother, my baby brother, and myself to supply meat for the table. Thus we often caught fish or dug mussels. Once, after a nice catch of sheepshead, mama remarked on how prettily they had browned. Hal, who was the first to taste one, said happily, “The fish down here sure are sweet!” They were to his liking, but mama sadly discovered she had used sugar instead of salt on them.
During this same period, this sweet-toothed boy stayed home from the building site to take us farther afield for the day’s catch. Hal took our small bateau into a deep, clear channel no wider than a creek and stopped in the shade of the overhanging mangroves so we could fish. Suddenly he turned white and pointed down through the water. We looked, and protruding from beneath the boat was a huge fishtail,
waving rhythmically. Then we looked on the other side of the boat and saw the body and head of a giant sawfish. Slowly and silently we eased the boat away and reached home, still shaken. One flip of that powerful tail and the tiny boat would have capsized like a toy. My little brother, Orr, who had not yet learned to swim, could have been caught in the current and carried out to sea.
Papa returned to the spot with his rifle and killed the fish. We still have the saw, with a picture painted on it by a young teacher who boarded with us years later. Papa cooked the flesh outdoors for the hounds and extracted the oil, which he bottled for use on guns and boots.
Orr came home safely that time, but I almost lost my little brother on Gopher Key. Frequently he was put in my charge, and to further ensure our safety, my parents asked us to play in a part of the yard that was surrounded by tall, slender cacti that kept the panthers away. But once Orr wandered out and down to the creek. When I missed him and ran to get him, I saw he was being stalked by an alligator who had come up behind him and was opening his mouth. The alligator, although large enough to take us both for hors
d’oeuvres, was surprised by my running feet and backed away. I took Orr’s hand and fairly jerked him through the air to get him back to the house. The gator literally got its hide tanned by papa.
These frights were soon forgotten because Christmas was approaching. This meant a big box was coming all the way from Palmetto. My grandmother packed something for everyone in this wonderful box; for me there was a small doll. She was made of china and as straight as a little post. She stood no taller than a woman’s hand, but I loved her at once. Through the years, some eighty of them, I’ve kept her safe and unbroken. Grandma sent me a storybook, too, which I memorized from cover to cover. These two gifts meant much to me because we had received word that our home in Palmetto had burned to the ground and that only the piano and parlor furniture had been saved. I had lost the large family of beautiful dolls I had left there.
Of all that happened to us on Gopher Key, I remember one thing the best. Every night, mama read to us until bedtime. Everybody in the family and any visitors gathered around to hear Dickens, Thackeray, and the Bible. During that first year, mama read our entire set of Dickens, and I remember much of it.
Our new, two-story house was finished that spring. Papa had built it on an old homesite known as the Chevalier place. The original settler had been a Frenchman by that name. He had planted guava and avocado pears, and they were now huge trees. The site had a nice gradient up from the sea; the big house in the trees looked safe and sturdy.
Our new home was more than safe; it was a joy. We had beds to sleep in and chairs to sit on. It took many trips, however, to bring all our things from Gopher Key. I was allowed to go on these exciting hauls. Once as we entered the long creek that led to the old place through a tunnel of mangroves, we were hit by a flock of ducks flying through. In self-defense the boys batted them down with oars, and there was our supper.
As soon as we got moved in, papa and the seven boys planted a crop of tomatoes on our large, fertile island. The tomatoes grew enormous, and our family kept growing, too. Papa’s mother came to live with us, and his brother, my Uncle John, migrated down and was living between our place and the Watson plantation.
I’ll never forget the morning I looked out my bedroom window and saw Uncle John walking up from the landing. The night before, I had overheard papa and the boys talking about a manatee they had seen that day. I had asked what a manatee looked like, and from their description of it I got the idea it was a man covered with hair. Seeing Uncle John for the first time with a full beard, I yelled to my father, “Oh, papa, here comes the manatee!’ All in all he got an excited welcome. With the two brothers reunited, the family felt the need for some real celebration. Thus we took picnic trips.
One of these special excursions for Uncle John was, of course, to the outside beaches, the islands that fronted on the gulf. They afforded beautiful swimming all year, and once a year yielded sea turtle eggs in the hundreds. We usually took no more than half a cache, a practice, which if it had been continued through all these years, would not have depleted the turtle population. For fun we sometimes would sail out on calm moonlit nights and anchor just to watch the hundreds of female turtles coming and going about their business. They were monstrous creatures but cumbersome and harmless as long as you didn’t get near that traplike mouth. We children hopped up on their rough backs for short, bumpy rides into the water, where we were dumped. Often we found as many as five hundred eggs buried in the sand; a tenth of that number made enough soup for our big family, and how delicious it was!
Once, as a special treat, papa took us all miles and miles up our creek into the heart of the Everglades. The creek opened out into sunlit bi.ys dotted with white sand bars and edged with green islands. On one we found a deserted Indian house made of palmettos. Everywhere there were alligators and other wild creatures, untroubled by our presence. This trip took us through some dark, sluggish swamps where the water scarcely moved and we were forced to pole the boat. The orchids here were the largest and most flamboyant we had seen. As we came out into a bay, we saw thousands and thousands of white herons, snowy egrets, pink ibis, curlews, blue Johns, and flamingos. They constantly rose, circled, and landed in arcs of color and long lines of sweeping movement. We put the boat in the shade and watched for an hour.
It was here that we came upon a pelican colony. There were hundreds of young ones, as it was the nesting season. We caught one of these babies, fully grown in size, and took it home for a pet. It became an awful nuisance, chasing us to be fed every time it saw any of us.
Our new home was indeed a haven of pleasure. But there was work, too, as always. Early in the mornings and late in the afternoons, Orr and I would go with mama to the garden. How lovely the fresh vegetables did taste. We cared for them with loving hands, pulling weeds by the hour and watering the young plants with buckets of water we pumped and carried. Our reward was to gather armloads of beets, radishes, turnips, et cetera, to take to the house for lunch and supper. The meals were made more memorable with the wild food. Wild butter beans grew on the edge of our hammock. The vines climbed so high up into the trees that we would have to pull them down to get the beans (knowing they’d be back up the next week). For dessert we had ladyfingers, wild bananas that grew in our back yard.
Suddenly, sometime that summer, a day came when all work ceased. My oldest brother, Bubba, always too busy for me, took me outside and made stilts and taught me how to use them. The
hard-packed shell was like pavement. It had rained, and water stood in little basins where the shell soil held it. We made a game of walking across these pools, with me as tall as Bubba on my stilts. Hal came out, and soon both big boys were on stilts of their own. Orr was too small to walk on them but he followed us around admiringly. The mosquitoes were bad everywhere except in the sunshine, so we four children spent the entire day out in the summer sun walking on stilts. Despite the unrelenting heat, we were happy to be let off from our
hours of school indoors, sessions which our mother kept every day, rain or shine.
Late in the afternoon our grandmother called us in. She told us we had a new baby sister. When papa brought the tiny mite into the kitchen where we were, I thought it was a doll lying there on the pillow, a doll with a curly wig. I touched its cheek to see if it was a doll, and it moved!
“Oh, papa, I want it, I’ve got to have it, please, can I have it, papa?” Then and there he gave me that baby for my very own. We have lived a long time, this sister and I, and there has always been a precious bond between us. I have never been more proud than at the moment I took that tiny, beautiful baby into my arms. My father and grandmother had delivered her without mishap. We named her Janey.
Mama was out in the garden again in no time, and what with papa’s field of tomatoes, we soon had produce to send to market. We shipped, as contracted, with Edgar Watson. Immediately trouble arose. A messenger came from the sugar plantation bringing papa a ridiculously small sum of money for his part. Papa told this man to go back and tell Watson how much was still owed, and that he, papa, would be coming for it. The poor messenger was terrified and begged papa to let the matter drop. “He’ll just shoot you, Mr. Martin. That’s the way he settles an account. No one argues with Edgar Watson and lives to talk about it.”
The next day papa went to see Watson. Hal and Bubba accompanied him. When they drew up to the dock in their boat, papa told the b oys to sit tight while he went in the house. Watson’s whole living room could be seen through a wide screen. It was an armory; the walls were lined with guns. Papa did not carry a gun.
In the argument that followed the boys could see everything. Perhaps they thought of the skeletons under their boat as Watson became more and more strident. Then came a moment when Watson started backing toward his wall of guns. Papa was unrelenting; he demanded his money, and Watson’s arm rose toward a pistol. At the height of this tense moment a smile broke on Watson’s face. From where he stood he could see the two boys in the boat fifty feet away, each with a rifle held in small, capable hands and a bead drawn on the man who threatened their father.
“Look,” Watson told papa, but papa thought it was a trick to make him turn around. Watson understood and moved away from the
guns and pointed to the boat. Papa grinned at his sons and even smiled at Edgar Watson.
“Do you suppose they thought I’d shoot you, Jim?” Watson asked.
“Do you suppose you’d have had the chance?” papa sent back.
This man who never paid his debts paid my father and walked with him to the landing to get a closer look. All he saw were two nonchalant little boys sitting with their guns beside them, slapping mosquitoes.
That night papa gave each of the boys a special hug and kiss at bedtime. Kissing between Southern men was a general practice in those days. I am glad to say that this practice as well as others continues in our family. Today I can see in my grandsons and
great-grandson some of those qualities of courage and caring that my father had in such abundance. It was his and my mother’s way of caring for us that made us all caring of one another. Perhaps this caring is the key to those wonderful times we had in the Ten Thousand Islands when the century took its turn.
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