Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-06-22
TWO NEW YORK BoHEsIrANs.
How an Artist and q Literary Man
Spend Their Summers.


Spend Their Summers.
TIE ARTTsr rors EELs, DI0s eANDwoRNs, AND
CATCHES CRABS IN JERSEY AND MAKES MONEY!
AT 1.-THE AUTHOR LIVES IN A TENEMENT AND
JoTs DOWN HIS ODD ExPERIEScEs.
| Correspondents Of TIE EVENING srAa
NEW YoRx, June Il.
Next week my friend Ochre McDaub win
make his annual summer break for the coun-
try. His name isn't exactly Ochre McDanb, to
be frank with you, but as he made me promise
not to reveal his true name in this story, Ochre
McDaub will answer as well as any name in or
out OF Burke's peerage. Ochre McDaub is q
painter-does bits Of seashore mostly. and does
them well. He doesn't paint the waves DASH
ing high upon cliff, shipwrecks and storms
and such like. His studies are of quieter
themes; perhaps stretch of sandy beach, with
| sturdy fishermen hauling in the seine at high
tide; maybe a huge, rickety reel where the net
| Is hanging to dry, with picturesque fisher
man hut IN the background. Sometimes he
paints waterfalls and quiet hooks in the woods
as natural as nature.
| McDaub's pictures are well praised. are al
| ways well hung at the exhibition, and the
artist ought to be rich man, but he isn't He
don't know how to sell bis paintings, for one
| thing, and 1t Is so well known that he will
cept the first offer made him for one of his
works that the dealers-skinfints that they
are-always keep him in financial trouble by
paying paltry sum down for a picture which
| he is to finish at his leisure. Therefore McDaub
| Is always working on dead hoss," and there
fore and consequently he is always busted"
No, not always.
When he goes to the country for the summer
with buxom Mrs. McDaub and his we'll grown
| son of sixteen McDaub makes money, and when
| he comes back to town in the fall he has quite
| snug sum laid by, some sketches that will
work over into good paintings. and the color of
| fellow artists where he picks up such sketches
! OF quaint scenery or how he makes the money
| he brings home with him, but
Well, was cruising along the Jersey shore
OF the lower bay one summer, and happened
| to discover a creek had never been up. /
poked the boats nose into the mouth Of the
| creek, which was protected by a wooden break
| water, and began leisurely floating upstream
| on the last of the flood. Out upon the break
water which was nearly submerged by the
high tide, bare-legged, athletic man was
| walking, occasionally striking rapidly into the
water with long-handed spear. Behind the
| man walked woman with her skirts rolled
well up and quite guiltless of stockings. who,
every time the man made strike opened a big
| bag, into which he put horseshoe crab.
| hoated up to within five yards of them before
| i was discovered, and then the woman saw me
| first and pulled pin somewhere that let her
skirts down with a run. The man looked up
| quickly, and we recognized each other. 1t was
| Ochre McDaub. After we had exchanged greet
| ings, and he had recovered partially from
| strange sort of embarrassment that at first
possessed him upon seeing me, said: "Ochre,
what in the world do you want of those horri-
| bic horseshoe crabs?"
"Pigs and ducks eat EN-" he repled
''Do you keep pigs and ducks down here?"
"No; but farmers do who live close by 1 can
sell all the hoseshoes can catch at IS cents q
hundred"
To make a long story short, Ochre McDaub
lives all summer, with wife and son, upon
house-boat, anchored in a Jersey creek near
where it empties into the big bay. He has but
| two rooms to his domcile. little furniture, and
no painting materials. He makes his living
out OF what nature has spread about him in the
| waters, and pretty good living too. On
every high tide he catches from 80 to 100 horse
shoe crabs, and when there are two high tides
during daylight in one day he makes nearly
two dollars a day by this work. The farmers
| come after the crabs themselves. and the market
has never yet been glutted. On every low tide
during the hours Of daylightMr McDaub takes
| spade down to the beach, near where the marsh
grass grows, and digs in the sand close to low
water mark. He throws up spadeful after
spadeful of sand, and his wife and son scatter
it and search it carefully for sandworms, White
| sandworms are the finest kind of bait for many
species OF fish in the waters around New York
and sell at 20 cents dozen retail in Washing
ton market. Red sandworms retail at IL cents
dozen. The New York dealers in bait got all
years until Ochre McDaub discovered that the
biggest and iveliest sandworms in the world
could be dug on the Jersey shore. Now every
night he and Rupert row up the creek to the
railroad station and ship to the markets from
six to ten dozen worms, or double the quantity
when there are two low tides a day, on which
they net from IS cents to dollar day. Com
ing back in the row-boat every night, they stop
half way to the house-boat to set their eel-pots,
which McDaub himself made out Of laths, with
stocking" at the end Of each pot As soon
as it is daylight there is another row up the
creek, the cells are taken out, packed and
shipped on an early train at the railroad sta
ton. They are worth Wholesale six cents a
pound, and 1t is poor morning for eels when
McDaub ships less than 20 pounds.
With all his hard work down at waackaack
pronounced Waycake), which is the name of
this almost unknown creek, Ochre McDaub
gets time for tramps about the country, which
| is singulariy rich in artistic material, and by
autumn his sketch-book is filed with studies
that will work up into paintings of considera-
BILE value 1t is a fortunate thing for him that
Mrs. McDaub enjoys this half savage sort of
life, and have her own word for it that she
goes back to town in October with keen re-
greet: As for the son, he just dotes on spear
ing horshoes and potting eels The McDaubs
are very sensitive about anybody's knowing Of
their summer life, however, and it was only
after much urging that I got permission to
write about it, and then only in q way which ia
pretty sure to conceal their identity in case
some friends should read the story.
A literary friend Of mine who has been "down
uponhis luck" for some time has got nearly to
the bottom Of it this week by allowing muscular
rheumatism to get grip upon him. He has
been living in the front room and bedroom of
tenementhouse fat in Q bachelor way, and
when the rheumatism got him he amused him
self by keeping q journal of his daily expert
ences, and every night he mailed his journal to
me-, Many portions Of it are interesting read
ing, and venture to give a few extracts which
will illustrate life in the tenement districts.
"Never saw 80 many youngsters in one city
square" reads one paragraph, ''as there are in
this street. All the same age, nine to eleven
years, and equipped with lungs that would
work steam fog-horn. Counted eighty of 'em
this afternoon at 4 O'Clock from my window,
and all Of 'em yelling. Yesterday afternoon it
rained, and ] thought the kids would 90 IN
doors and leave me in quiet long enough to do
some writing. Not they. They perched in
doorways and under awnings and howled louder
than ever. And they don't get put to bed till
after 10 at night. This must be peculiarly
fertile neighborhood for the infant industry"
"As soon az the brats quiet down q little an
itinerant gutter-band strikes up. The bands
are worse than the kids ALI the tune you can
distinguish is the 'oom-poom-poom' Of the