Mackinac and Lake StoriesCatherwood, Mary Hartwell
General
Mackinac and Lake Stories
Catherwood, Mary Hartwell
Mackinac Island (Mich. : Island) -- Fiction; Michigan -- Fiction; United States -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
I am to steer betwixt the east side of Round Island and Boblo. When we
come into the shadow of Boblo we are chill with damp, far worse than
the clear sharp air that blows from Canada. I lope beside the traino,
and not take my eyes off the course to Cheboygan, except that I see
the islands look blue, and darkness stretching before its time. The
sweat drop off my face, yet I feel that wind through my wool clothes,
and am glad of the shelter between Boblo and Round Island, for the
strait outside will be the worst.
There is an Indian burying-ground on open land above the beach on that
side of Round Island. I look up when the thick woods are pass, for the
sunset ought to show there. But what I see is a skeleton like it is
sliding down hill from the graveyard to the beach. It does not move.
The earth is wash from it, and it hangs staring at me.
I cannot tell how that make me feel! I laugh, for it is funny; but I
am ashame, like my father is expose and Mamselle Rosalin can see him.
If I do not cover him again I am disgrace. I think I will wait till
some other day when I can get back from Cheboygan; for what will she
say if I stop the traino when we have such a long journey, and it is
so near night, and the strait almost ready to move? So I crack the
whip, but something pull, pull! I cannot go on! I say to myself, “The
ground is froze; how can I cover up that skeleton without any shovel,
or even a hatchet to break the earth?”
But something pull, pull, so I am oblige to stop, and the dogs turn
in without one word and drag the sledge up the beach of Round Island.
“What is the matter?” says Mamselle Rosalin. She is out of the sledge
as soon as it stops.
I not know what to answer, but tell her I have to cut a stick to mend
my whip-handle. I think I will cut a stick and rake some earth over
the skeleton to cover it, and come another day with a shovel and dig a
new grave. The dogs lie down and pant, and she looks through me with
her big eyes like she beg me to hurry.
But there is no danger she will see the skeleton. We both look back
to Mackinac. The island have its hump up against the north, and the
village in its lap around the bay, and the Mission eastward near the
cliff; but all seem to be moving! We run along the beach of Round
Island, and then we see the channel between that and Boblo is moving
too, and the ice is like wet loaf-sugar, grinding as it floats.
We hear some roars away off, like cannon when the Americans come to
the island. My head swims. I cross myself and know why something pull,
pull, to make me bring the traino to the beach, and I am oblige to
that skeleton who slide down hill to warn me.
When we have seen Mackinac, we walk to the other side and look south
and southeast towards Cheboygan. All is the same. The ice is moving
out of the strait.
“We are strand on this island!” says Mamselle Rosalin. “Oh, what
shall we do?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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