Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-10-07
espondence Of THE EVENING Stan.

4 10 hARRIAGE-HOW THE COD 'COofS WE'RE
/ TAKEN INTO THE FoLD-FAMfLIAR NAMES AMI
! PECULIAR EXPRESSIONS OF NANTUcKERs
| Correspondence Of THE EVENING STAR
] SIAscONsET NANTUCKET ISLAND, MASS, Sept
| o. lSS9-Last week | met at the depot Capn
| Tim Fitzgerald, of the yacht Peggy Swain oil
| Nantucket. Many summer visitors were taking
J their leave. "Isn't it extraordinary" SAL he
''that the strangers leave the island whin the
finest weather begins? September is our incest
month. and by the same token it Is this year
| barrin' the August shtorm which tuck us In Sep.
| TENDER, though it was wind gale without any
rain" Cap'n Tins GRANDMOTHER was an Irish
man" but leaving out his bulls, he was right. 70,
in this bright and beautiful but funny little city
unfoded from an old hamlet of fshermens cot.
tages, the first autumn month is the most de.
lightful of the year.. The waters on Nantucke,
shoals are still warm and the prevailing south.
east winds receive heat from them and from the
Gull stream, now but thirty miles off 'Sconset
beach,
From the hotels nearly all the guests have
gone. BY the Both the doors will close upon the
last departing visitor. MANY cottagers linger.
and 1t will be the middle Of October before the
last family will 20 to their home on the CONT
nent. don't mean to a home in Europe. but
the continent" as understood 10y Nantuckers
America Is to them the continent"
THE ISOLATED ISLANDERs.
While on the subject let me tell of some of the
peculiarities of Nantucket speech. Bear in
mind the island is forty miles from the nearest
steamer landing on Cape Cod and sixty miles
from New Bedford. Until fifteen years ago in
tercourse between the island and the continent
was inirequent. The islanders even today see
out little OF tine world except as the world comes
TO them, 1900 strong. each season between
May and October. Books they have. and in OBJ
taiiiin3 knowledge from those perennial fount-
aims they acquire the use Of words equa to the
range of our most Intelligent communities; but
the speech they hear, except dur ng the pres
ence OF the visitors in summer, is that which
they have heard from infancy. Remember also
that the island was settled late in the nth CEN
fury, and that from the beginning. by force of
circumstances, its men followed the waters. As
the whale fishery developed the interests Of the
island became more anu more identified with
the ocean, and the large portion OF its men were
on shipboard fully three-fourtbs of their active
careers. Iheirs was the talk Of the ship. Their
simIlitudes were drawn from their vocation and
its surroundings aud from them their wives
and children learned the same methods of
speech. To the stranger many of the express
si0ns he hears In conversation are odd. and
sometimes they are unintelligible. unless the
surroundings and context will help him to
''1sh out the meaning.
PECULIAR EXPRESSIONS
was told the other day that q certain man
on the island vino is in perpetual trouble In his
affairs was always runnn atOul OF himself"
(which way are you heading?" was the ques-
ton asked me by old Capt Folger, as he met
me in his box wagon In the outskirts of the vii
lage going TO the town" The carpenter who
framed house for stranger asked him whether
he would have the joists run fore and aft or
'thwartships." By stranger Is meant visitor
to the island; but those who remain long enough
to get acquainted come to be known as of
ISLANDERS" went a few days since with lady
to Nauwinet in team" team" in New
England is a horse and wagon. and the wagon
Is as much component part vi the team as the
horse The team was run by Capt. Baxter, long
since retired from active service on a whale
ship. and now at eghty-fiye years he is still
about and during the season carries parties
about the town and over the island. .'How do
get in!" the lady asked him; the wagon is
too nigh" Get IN asterD." said the captain.
He pulled out the tailboard and the lady climbed
in rs one would in an omnibus. but not so
easily. by any means. After We had started the
captain said to her. Miss, won't YOU SHIFT to
the windward little?" She did as requested
after learning where the ''Rindward" was. But
even then he was not satisfied for in few min
utes he asked her to get up while he moved her
seat a little further aft" On dark night a
'ScOnset woman. when driving from the town in
thick fog, got OFF the road into the moors and
1t was tull half hour before she got back into
the Travelled way. When relating the circum-
stance she said that she had lost her 'reck onin'
in comm out" | bought an old Connecticut
clock in the town and the bric-a-brac dealer
told NE that he had lashed the pendulum to
the side OF the case, 50 that it wouldn't get
adriIt-' or Clergyman who had been connected
with various denominations aud had died rit-
ual;st an old whaling captain said that IF he
hadn't peaked his oars so quick he'd have boxed
the compass of savin' grace by j'inin the Catho-
lies" young woman who had accented a
position as seamstress, when asked to do some
work In the family, declined saying that she
didn't ship Tor that kind of work" The butcher
and grocer and gardener do not deliver the
commodities you have ordered-they LAND"
them at your porch" and on Nantucket the
.'pOrch" Is the kitchen, though sometimes it is
called the ''cook room" Bring the skein
taut," said Nantucket girl to me when was
holding the worsted for her to wind in ball.
fisherman told me that once, when fishing on
Tuckurnuck shoals, he fopnd drowned man in
the water. ''W as lie on the bottOm!" mo; he
was floating on even keel" AS write this an
old whaling master tells me that Gibbs horse
got scared this morning on the beach and kicked
his owner ION the hand and stove it all to
pieces"
RICH IN PRIDE OF ANCESTRY.
The Nantucket man is rich In his pride of
ancestry, even If he subsists on quohaugs and
clans and herring and pollock and picks I'D
hundred dollars or so by doing odd Jobs to
purchase groceries and clothing to carry him
through the year. Time was when the Corners
from Cape Cod were known in derision as
'coofs." and every effort was made to bring
them to realizing sense of their ignoble line
age. This continued until the blood OF the island
patrican and that OF the cape pebian mingled
in the offspring of matrimonial alliances between
the two, which came about thus: 1t was the
pride of young men OF Nantucket to hunt and
kill whales in the hope that they might become
sea kings in time themselves and they were at
sea three-fourths OF their lives In early man
hood. The other fourth was hardly sufficient
as general thing, TO inaugurate and carry on
courtship to its fruition In marriage. The
/ '.coofs" We're eminentiy practical. They saw
their opportunity and made the best of ID by
Offering themselves available timber ready
hewn into shape for active service In home hus-
! bandship, and the girls, rather than take their
chances with returning Nantucket bows, ac-
cepted the ''coofs" for better or for worse. But
| the supply OF matrimonial timber from Cape
| Cod Is exhausted aud husbands for Nantucket
women are more difficult to obtain than ever
The last enumeration of Inhabitants shows
nearly ], 800 females to less than loo males on
the island. Probably no such disproportion
between the sexes exists in any old settled
community in this country. IL was caused by
the decadence OF the principal industry of the
! island, for about 1915 the whale fishery de-
| clined and many OF the sailors sought EMPLOY.
ment In the merchant marine. Some, with
/ those engaged In other industries connected
| with the whale fishery, started in 1S49f to the
number OF near 1000, for the gold fields Of Cali.
II III nNa nd I.N.r. ~