The Blue Herring Mystery (6 page)

“That’s a fyke,” Dolan said. “We use it to get ourselves a mess of fish in Miller’s Brook. I been dryin’ it out.”

“How does it work?” Bobby asked eagerly. “Would you mind showing me?”

“Well, I got a minute before we start sprayin’,” Dolan said, and he started for the wide doors of the big barn. Inside, he pointed at the twenty-foot wings on each side of the hoop and said, “We put the top hoop upright in the water in the middle of the stream, so that the water flows down through it. Then we stretch out them two wings, one on each side, so they reach clear across the brook. We anchor the bottom on the bed of the stream and fasten the top to each bank, so no fish can get downstream. So, naturally, they swim out into the middle of the stream and go into the hoop. But, you see, inside the hoop is another kind of net, the bag net, that narrows down to what we call a ‘cod’ — and only a couple of fish can get through that at a time. There they are, stuck inside the long bag net and no way to get out, unless they got enough sense to swim back through the little cod, and I ain’t ever see one yet that had enough sense. The second hoop down is to keep the net open and give the fish a place to swim around in, until we’re ready to come get ’em.”

“Well, I’ll be darned!” Bobby exclaimed. “That certainly is a beauty.” He took a deep breath and said, “How does that net over there work?” and he pointed at the one Djuna had called a scapping net.

“Ain’t got time to put that together and show you now,” Dolan said with a good-natured grin. “Some other time. We got to get a-sprayin’. See you again, boys,” and he was gone.

Bobby looked wistfully at the scapping net and Djuna said, “I told you Mr. Boots will tell us all about it. Let’s go in and see the harpoons and Captain Jason’s logbook.”

“Okay,” said Bobby and they raced up the driveway to Aunt Candy’s kitchen door.

Djuna knocked on the door and Aunt Candy called, “Come in, boys, come in.” They were no sooner inside the door than Aunt Candy said, “What about a piece of chocolate cake and a nice cool glass of milk?”

Djuna and Bobby glanced at each other and both their mouths began to water. They had thought, a little over two hours ago, after finishing their pancakes, that they would never be able to eat anything again. Now they both nodded eagerly, while Djuna said, “Aunt Candy, this is my friend Bobby Herrick, from Florida.”

“How are you, Bobby?” Aunt Candy asked, and disappeared into the pantry. She came back in a couple of minutes with a huge chocolate cake under glass and a pitcher of cool milk.

While she was cutting them each a piece of cake and pouring them a glass of milk Djuna said, “Professor Kloop was here when we came but he couldn’t wait.” He watched Aunt Candy carefully as he said it and didn’t miss the rather peculiar expression that flitted across her face as she turned quickly toward him.

“Th’ one who’s startin’ a museum down tu Cap’n Jonas’s old home?” she asked. “What’d
he
want?”

“He wants to borrow your harpoons and whale lances for his museum, I think,” Djuna said.

“Well, I dunno as I’d have no objection,” said Aunt Candy. “He seems like a pretty nice young feller.”

“Oh, you know him, do you, Aunt Candy?” asked Djuna. “I thought —”

Aunt Candy’s glance flitted over Djuna’s face for an instant and for a moment she seemed confused before she said, slowly, “Why, yes, I met up with him down tu Doc Perry’s drugstore. But prob’ly he wouldn’t remember it.”

Somehow Djuna had the feeling that Aunt Candy was not telling the whole truth. He munched on his cake silently as he remembered that Kloop had told him that he had never had the pleasure of meeting Aunt Candy. And yet, Kloop had come out of Aunt Candy’s house and seemed perfectly at home when he did it, although he had seemed a little stealthy. And Djuna had the impression that after he had turned his head, so that Kloop wouldn’t know he had seen him come out of the house, then out of the corner of his eye he had seen Kloop lock the door and stick the key in his pocket!

He was still deep in reverie when Aunt Candy said, “Sumpin’ you young fellers got on your minds?”

“Oh, yes, Aunt Candy,” Djuna said. “I brought Bobby over to show him Captain Jonas’s harpoons and lances, and that logbook you showed me yesterday, if you don’t mind.”

“Course I don’ mind,” said Aunt Candy. “Finish up y’r cake an’ come along.”

“Oh, thanks, Aunt Candy!” said Bobby. He shoved the large piece of cake that remained into his mouth, washed it down with his last swallow of milk, and jumped to his feet.

“‘And God created great whales!’” he said.

Both Aunt Candy and Djuna stared at him in astonishment.

“I remember,” Aunt Candy said wrinkling her forehead. “That’s from th’ Bible.”

“Sure,” Bobby said, not noticing their astonishment. “From Genesis, first book of the Old Testament.”

“You’re pretty much o’ a Bible reader, ain’t ye, Bobby?” Aunt Candy asked, admiringly.

“Jeepers, yes,” Bobby said. “My father started reading it to me when I was just a kid and after a while I got so I liked it and started reading it myself.”

“W’al, I swan!” Aunt Candy said, and she heaved her large bulk out of the kitchen chair and headed for the living room where the harpoons and lances were kept. “C’mon,” she added and mumbled, “I guess wonders’ll never cease!”

T
HERE WERE
embers still burning in the wide stone fireplace in the front room as Aunt Candy led the way into it with the two boys right on her heels.

“Put a little kindlin’ an’ a couple o’ logs on the fire, Djuna,” Aunt Candy said. “It’s chilly in here. You know how to do it?”

“Oh, sure,” Djuna said, and he busied himself with the fire while Bobby stood in the middle of the room and surveyed the array of sharp-pointed blades of rusty steel with undisguised admiration and interest.

“Them short ones be harpoons,” Aunt Candy said to Bobby, pointing, “an’ that longest one, that’s a whalin’ lance. And that there one is what they call a waif-pole,” and she told Bobby the same things she had told Djuna the day before.

As the kindling in the fireplace began to catch, Djuna joined them and Aunt Candy said, “W’al, I got work to do, boys. Look at them all yuh want but leave ’em alone. Don’ take ’em down.” She crossed the room to the old seachest, lifted the lid, and took out the oilskin-covered logbook she had shown Djuna the day before. “When yuh git through lookin’ at them yuh can look at this. Now I gotta be gittin’ about my work.”

“Thanks, Aunt Candy!” they said in unison as she disappeared into the kitchen.

“Golly, aren’t they something!” Bobby said. “They’d be swell for Professor Kloop’s museum.”

“Well,” Djuna said, thoughtfully, “I guess Aunt Candy is going to lend them to him. They really should be down there, because that’s where Captain Jonas lived. He built this place, too, but he died before he could move into it.”

“Let’s look through the logbook,” Bobby said when he had finished feasting his eyes on the harpoons and lances.

“Sure,” said Djuna, and they took the old book over to the old horsehair couch and sat down side by side. Slowly they leafed through it, studying the misspelled Words that were stained and blotted.

“His spelling is almost as bad as yours,” Djuna commented with a perfectly straight face.

“Says you,” Bobby replied without looking at him.

“He must have read the Bible a good deal, too,” Bobby said, “the way he refers to it in his log all the time.”

“Aunt Candy told me yesterday that the Bible was all he did read,” Djuna told him. “There’s a page somewhere about here that I saw yesterday that kind of puzzled me. Here it is.” He pointed and they both read the entry written there:
All trade-goods on board, all my investmint, delivrd to Chief. Recd 2 butiful littl baskits of sweet gras and palm frons. Chapter 13, Verse 46
.

The entry ended there.

“Jiminy Crimps!” Bobby gasped, “I wonder what was in the baskets? He says he gave all his investment for them. They must have been something pretty valuable.”

“That’s what I was wondering,” said Djuna.

“The next page is missing,” Bobby said. “Maybe it’s in the back.” He flipped the pages over and looked in the back as Djuna told him what Aunt Candy had told him the day before.

“Aunt Candy told me that page was torn out by accident, but she didn’t say what happened to it,” Djuna said. He didn’t tell Bobby how angry Aunt Candy had looked as she told him about the page.

“Oh,” Bobby said.

They went on leafing through the book until they came to the end of the voyage. They both sighed and speculated on the romance of having sailed aboard a whaler in the days of Captain Jonas.

In a moment Bobby rose to inspect the weapons on the walls again while Djuna kept leafing through the empty pages in the back of the book.

Suddenly Djuna stiffened, like a bird dog coming to point, as he read a single entry far back in the book. It was this:
Calld at 550 Broad Way. Let go one anchor. Mde good bargn. I think. Am holding best bower in case of squalls
.

Djuna took the stub of pencil and the little notebook he always carried from one of his pockets and jotted down the entry. Bobby was too busy looking at the whaling implements on the walls to notice what he was doing. After that Djuna turned back to the page before the one that had been torn out and jotted down “Chapter 13 Verse 46.” He put the notebook and pencil back in his pocket and closed the oilskin-covered log just as Aunt Candy came back into the room.

“W’al, boys,” she said. “How’re yuh comin’ along?” She sat down in one of the old rockers beside the fireplace and heaved a great sigh of relief. “Been on my feet since break of day,” she said.

“Say, Aunt Candy,” Bobby said with excitement in his voice. “I wonder what was in the two little baskets that Captain Jonas got from some chief for all his trade-goods? You know where it says —”

“Yes, I know,” Aunt Candy interrupted. “An’ he writ down a chapter an’ a verse fr’m th’ Bible after it. We all h’ve spec’lated on thet for years, but nobody knows. There
was
a story that he brung back a fortune in pearls fr’m th’ Saouth Seas — but nobody ever saw ’em.”

“Pearls!” Bobby said, and his voice was even more excited now. “Maybe he hid them some place!”

“W’al, iffen he did, he done a good job,” she said shortly. “I never put no stock in’t myself,” she finished.

They let the matter rest there while Bobby went on studying the harpoons. After a few moments he swung around and his mind was on an entirely different subject as he flung a question at Aunt Candy.

“Have you ever done any scapping, Aunt Candy?” he asked. “Dolan showed us a scapping net out in the barn but he didn’t have time to —”

“Heve
I
ever done any scappin’?” Aunt Candy mimicked as she nodded her head up and down and then wrinkled her brow. “Sonny,” she went on after a minute, “f’r nigh on to thutty years I was th’ fust one down to th’ scappin’ grounds when th’ herrin’ begin to run!”

“Then you know all about it!” Bobby said.

“About as much’s any human bein’ knows,” said Aunt Candy. “At least I did. I ain’t done no scappin’ now in ten years excep’ on Scappin’ Day. I’ll go every year on Scappin’ Day even iffen my boys have to carry me!”

“When’s that?” Djuna asked.

“W’al, this year it’s next Th’rsday,” said Aunt Candy. She stared at Djuna for a moment and said, “Didn’t y’h know thet, Djuna?”

“I’m afraid not,” Djuna confessed, miserably. “You see, Miss Annie doesn’t care anything about it and I’ve never been scapping.”

“W’al,” Aunt Candy snapped, “it’s time y’ started! There ain’t nothin’ in the world more thrillin’ th’n to see them blue-backed herrin’ comin’ up Sepasco Kill t’ spawn. At high tide, that’s th’ bes’ time f’r scappin’, hordes of ’em come up the Kill with th’r silver bellies flashin’ — sometimes they fill the Kill from shore to shore and yuh can scoop ’em out with y’r hands — and they climb th’ rapids t’ git into calm water, where they spawn.”

“Where’s Sepasco Kill?” Djuna asked, eagerly.

“It’s right above Brookville, t’ th’ north,” Aunt Candy said scornfully. “Yuh ought-a know that, too, Djuna.”

“I thought that was Miller’s Brook,” Djuna said.

“W’al, it ain’t,” Aunt Candy snapped again. “It’s time y’h learned somethin’ about th’ streams ’round here, Djuna. You —”

“Jeepers, I’m sorry, Aunt Candy,” Djuna said unhappily, “I —”

“Th’ Sepasco Kill comes roarin’ out o’ the hills about a mile east o’ th’ Fed’ral Highway — where it runs straight north from Brookville,” Aunt Candy interrupted. “Miller’s Brook flows into it, and then it becomes Sepasco Kill until it goes into the North River.”

“Where’d it get its name?” Bobby asked.

“Sepasco is th’ name of the Indians that used t’ live ’round here, years ago. An’ ‘kill’ is Dutch for creek,” Aunt Candy told him.

“Do they have Scapping Day every year?” Bobby asked.

“Ev’ry year!” Aunt Candy said. “They pick a day when the tide is full, ’bout two weeks after th’ herrin’ start runnin’, when the run is at its peak. Ev’ryone fr’m all over th’ countryside comes. It ain’t so much now as it used t’ be, but, as I said, I’m a-goin’ ev’ry year ’til I die, iffen my boys have to carry me!”

“What do you do with the herring after you get ’em?” Bobby asked.

“W’al,” said Aunt Candy, “yuh put ’em down in brine, first. Then, you marinate ’em, or smoke ’em, or chop ’em up for Solomon Grundy — that’s a dish with onions an’ a lot of herbs in it. Iffen you want to, you c’n dry ’em after you smoke ’em and you’ve got what we used to call red herrin’, only people don’ eat that much, any more.”

“
Where
do they scap on the Sepasco Kill, Aunt Candy?” Djuna asked.

“You know where it goes under the bridge, about two mile north o’ Brookville — the Federal Highway bridge?” Aunt Candy asked.

“Yes,” said Djuna. “I do know that.”

“Just a little east of that bridge,” said Aunt Candy. “There’s a pebble beach on one side o’ the Kill — you take a dirt road down to it jest before you reach th’ bridge. You c’n drive almost down t’ th’ beach.”