Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1886-03-18
CHAPTER iii.


All Eastport was astir next morning to sea
the Ann Mary Ann off Eastport's single
long wharf was crowded with relatives and
friends of those departing relatives is the
most proper term, for this was long settled
community, dating its first planting but
twenty years after the landing at Plymouth.
The names of the first settlers were still the
predominant ones, both in our village and
the towns" we called the exclusively
agricultural villages few miles back in the
country. Eastport was the harbor for these.
their commercial city on a very small scale.
Every old family could trace some degree of
consanguinity more or less remote with
every other family through marriage. per-
haps, in this century or the one preceding.
1t was no idle throng upon that wharf, at
tracted by mere curiosity. There were fathers
and mothers, sisters and brothers, aunts and
uncleS, first, second and third cousins, grand
fathers and grandmothers, sweethearts and
wives. The sailing of whaler with score
of townspeople on board was no new thing
but the mission of those leaving in this case
was different, and the seventy on board rep
resented, as to life and enterprise, the very
elite of the place, myself excepted.
had shipped before the mast, and coming
on board about nine in the morning, dressed
in my best, had been Immediately bounced
upon by Mr. Pell, our second mate, and or
desed to take off them buds and turn to in
my working toggery.' So l buried my broad
cloth suit in my chest, babe it adieu, and
making my appearance on deck in white duck
trousers and a flaming red flannel shirt, was
ordered by Mr.. Pell to catch the ships pig
roaming then at viii about decks, and ''clap
him in his penn
A.. Ba1I
ened man, with one eye and hand and arm
tanned by exposure to tropic suns to the
color of mahogany. He seemed all bones
working bones, and the one impossible thing
for Mr.. Pell to do while awake, was to sit
still, and the next impossibility with him was
to allow others to sit still, if it was in his
power to prevent them.
Mr.. Pell belonged to one of our second
class families. There were first and second
class families in and about Eastport, and
certain unnamed, untalked distinction al
ways existed between them, and had so done
for generations. More than one of the older
families could produce well attested evidences
of lineage with the aristocracy of the mother
land, and no change of fortune or station
could ever rid them of certain bearing saw
oring of blood and pedigree. They might go
before the mast, serve as boat steerers learn
the trade of cooper the principal mechanical
calling of the place. but the manner ever
chung to them.
Now Mr.. Pell was not enc of these He
prided himself ON being common mana
very common man. Anything in the least
degree bespeaking putin on airs as Mr.
Pell expressed it, was very repugnant to him.
The Pells had always lived in an implanted
frame house on the back street. and in
their sandy back yard pig weed" seemed to
grow more luxuriantly than elsewhere The
shore Pells fshed and dug CLAIMS for living.
The sea Pells would rise to the position of
second mate, seldom any higher. As boys
the Pells learned almost in their infancy to
chew tobacco. At the district school they
received the hardest whippings with the
most unconcern.
This was Sam Pell, second mate of the Ann
Mary Ann, and / was one of the ancient
house of Holders, scampering under his
orders after an obstinate pig, and all this in
full view of various members of the proud
Holder family-and not only the Holders.
but the Talmadges, the Osbornes, the Wester-
bees, the Hillyers, the Carys, the Wickhams
and the Rysams caught the brute at last
by the hind legs, which he worked to and fro