Sea-Faring Fourth of July Tale

In view of the fact that Independence Day is approaching, I have a sea tale for you.  The original was written by sea captain Charles H Barnard, whose adventures are chronicled in Marooned: The Sufferings and Adventures of Captain Charles H. Barnard.  It is a highly readable, intelligent, and often comical story of his sealing voyage south during the War of 1812.  Upon reaching the Falkland Islands, he finds a shipwrecked group of English men and women.  Offering to save them, even though his native America is at war with their country, he nevertheless has his ship seized from him. Marooned with four other men, the English sail off with Captain Barnard’s ship.  He lives two years on the islands, and eventually makes his way to Peru, Juan Fernández Islands, the Galapagos, Hawaii, China, around Cape Horn, the island of St. Helena’s in the middle of the South Atlantic, then finally after four years, comes home to New York.

The book is a good survival adventure and seafaring romp through the early 1800’s, and spares us wordiness in order to get to the action.  One of the places his visits is Juan Fernández Islands, where Alexander Selkirk was himself marooned, upon whom the book Robinson Crusoe is based.  By the early 1800’s they are controlled by the Spanish, and much more frequented than when Mr. Selkirk was their inhabitant.  In fact the sealers are so populous there that the Spanish send boats to chase them off.

Here’s a selection about a Fourth of July celebration undertaken by some sealers there, and the Spanish efforts to arrest them:

At the time to which I allude, it was usual for eight or ten sealing vessels to have gangs on this island; and besides these, there were generally others, to the number of one hundred and fifty, who remained constantly on the island.  Some of these men had deserted, and others had been discharged from different sealing ships; the latter of whom were desperate characters: they would barter their seal skins for rum and other articles, deemed by them necessary to their comfort and enjoyment; which was effected with the officers of the different ships that occasionally stopped here. 

The Spanish Guarda Costas [Coast Guard] frequently cruised round the island, ran close in the different landings, sent their boasts ashore with armed crews, who had orders to make prisoners of all persons they found on the island, and burn every hut, skin, and implement used by the sealers.  So extremely sensitive were they to the most trifling occurrence relative to their possessions in this part of the world, that they would rather the island should be sunk in the ocean, than that it should afford even a temporary residence to any who were not subjects of his most puissant and Catholic majesty.

At the time period referred to, there were perhaps an hundred men, including lopers (or those who had left their ships), collected on the north-west plains to celebrate the Fourth of July, with great glee and ceremony, and the American flag proudly waved from an elevated staff over this part of his most Catholic majesty’s territory.  They had constructed thirteen large rope-yarn wads, containing a quantity of powder in the center, which on exploding, which is effected by means of a fuse or slow match, causes a report louder than a six pounder: there were arranged in order of firing.

The song, toast, and glass were following in rapid succession when twelve o’clock arrived; at that moment the match was applied to one of the wads, which exploded just as a Spanish Guarda Costa was coming round the head or boundary of the plain.  After the proper interval, another was fired.  The surprise and consternation of the Spanish captain was indescribable; here he saw American colors flying, a large body of men, one thousand at least, according to his estimation, assembled; and formidable battery mounted with a large number of heavy cannon.  Hi piously crossed himself, gravely believed it to be the work of the devil.  At this moment another report rent the air, for the Yankee tars determined not to suspend their sports until compelled by superior force.  Off went another wad. 

This was too much; for the fortitude of the Spanish hero failed him; if he remained a moment longer he should be sunk before he could repeat his credo, by this tremendous and destructive fire.  So he put up helm, stretched out all canvas, and gallantly ran for it; and when at the distance of a league, bravely rounded too, and returned the fire; and then proceeded direct to Valparaiso, where he arrived before he had entirely recovered the effects of his fright.

To the governor he repaired immediately, and gave a true and particular account of all he had actually seen and heard—the imminent dangers he had so heroically encountered and miraculously escaped from; for which his patron saint was loaded with praises, and his shrine most brilliantly illuminated.  The gallant captain was highly complimented for his courage and tactics in effecting his retreat from such a vast superiority of force.  All now was bustle, confusion, and military preparation at Valparaiso.  The best soldiers, and the most experienced and approved officers, were selected to go on this chivalrous expedition, of breaking up so formidable and threatening a settlement, and bring the daring castoffs in chains to the feet of the Viceroy.  The captain of the Guarda Costa accompanied the train, and began already to fancy himself a knight of the golden fleece, as a reward for preserving this part of the territories of his royal master.

In due time they arrived at the expected scene of action, and each officer swore to rival the martial exploits of Don Gonsalvo, the hero of Granada.  Detachments were landed to the eastward and westward of the plain, without being obstructed by any movements of the enemy.  The Spaniards threw out reconnoitering parties, and advanced with due military caution, and finally their advanced parties were thrown forward until they met in the center of the pain.  No battery, showering a storm of iron death, had opposed the; they saw no encampment filled with warriors, whose arms glittered in the sunbeams.  All they found, were a few miserable huts and wayworn mariners, for the lopers had effectually concealed themselves.  The Spaniards were confounded, and suspected some stratagem; they crossed themselves more frequently than usual.  They however made prisoners of the few sealers there, and a thousand inquiries were put to them concerning the large encampment, and the great battery with its heavy cannon.  Their answers were, that they knew of none, nor ever had heard of any.  “Diavalo,” exclaimed the infuriated captain, “did I not see the thousand men, the colors, the big cannon that you had liked to sink my ship with?”  They explained; this only added to his irritation, and the Spaniards concluded that he was deranged.  The troops were re-embarked, and sailed for Valparaiso, carrying their prisoners with them.  As for the captain of the Guarda Costa, he has not as yet been able to decide whether he was enchanted or not, and thus ended this ignus fatuus expedition.

Browns Point Lighthouse Keeper's Wife Annie Tells Her Story

This summer there will be a cemetery tour at in Tacoma, and I portray the ghost of Annie Brown, the wife of the lighthouse keeper at Browns Point.  There are always way more stories than time to tell them, and I am going to have to cut the following script down by probably two-thirds.  But I thought blog readers might enjoy the whole thing.  Picture the graveyard on a shadowy afternoon. Approaching from the shade of a giant rhododendron is a woman dressed as if it were the 1930's.  Here's what she says:

I’m Annie Louise Wayson Brown, wife of Oscar Vernon Brown, the lighthouse keeper at Browns Point.  I was born in Port Townsend in 1869, the daughter of James Wayson, who was a captain in the US Revenue service, which later became the US Coast Guard.  In those days, Papa would intercept ships which sought to bypass the customs house in Port Townsend. So I consider myself sprung from a seafaring family.

Most girls married, but I didn’t, at first.  I loved sewing and worked as a dressmaker before I even finished school, but Papa suggested that I try my hand at bookkeeping.  I was accepted at the Collegiate Institute in Olympia and after I graduated, got a very good job as a bookkeeper working for a fish company. Papa was right, it paid decidedly more than dressmaking.

I was 30 years old before I met my future husband, Oscar.  At the time, he was stationed at the Dungeness lighthouse.  Prior to that he’d been out at the tiny island of Tatoosh off the NW tip of the Olympic Peninsula.  He had stories of shipwrecks and rescues from that remote, windy, rainy site.  Oscar was an accomplished musician and sang me songs while playing the piano.  He could also play the trombone, cornet, and harp. 

Soon after I met him, Oscar was transferred away to teeny Smith Island at the eastern end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, some ways west of Whidbey Island.  We were able to keep up our friendship by letter.  In those days, lighthouse tenders brought mail, food, fuel, and oftentimes even water to the far flung lighthouses, in fact they been doing it on the West Coast since 1840.  When Oscar proposed, I accepted, and we were married in 1902 when I was 34 and he was 35. 

      

Immediately I was swept away to the tiny Smith Island. When we were there, the lighthouse was 200 feet from the cliffs, but I’m told the cliffs eventually eroded away and the lighthouse fell into the water.  We were only there a year, then we were sent to the brand new Point Brown lighthouse across Commencement Bay from Tacoma.  It was already named Point Brown, so wasn’t named after us, but eventually it became Browns Point, which I believe had something to do with everyone’s fondness for Oscar. 

 

Annie and Oscar on Smith Island 1902

The lighthouse tender Heather brought us to Point Brown one cloudy day, Oct. 26, 1903, as there were no roads out there.  We were rowed ashore, but they lowered our pedigree Jersey cow over the side by sling and she was meant to swim in.  The poor thing got frightened and started swimming the wrong way, out into the bay, mooing piteously.  Her name was Timber, as she had been calved in the woods, and I stood on the shore, atop great driftwood logs, screaming, “Timber, Timber!” as if I were a deranged logger.  By this time the horse was lowered over the side.  I worried he’d swim after her, but he started toward me.  Timber saw him and tried to alter her course.  Although she possessed an udder, she hadn’t a rudder.  Some little Indian children appeared, running up the beach wondering who this woman was who could call sea monsters out of the deep, for by this time the cow had kelp trailing from her right horn, and from the left dangled a jellyfish.  Eventually, with her mooing and me calling, like star-cross operatic lovers, she made it ashore. They unloaded our furniture with less drama, including Oscar’s piano, which had to sit out under a tarpaulin for several days until we could get people over from Tacoma to help us move it into the house.

Oscar immediately set to work building a stable and chicken coop.  We laid an oriental carpet in the parlor and dining room, laid planks down the muddy swamp to the beach, plowed in front of the house and put up fences for the horse and cow.  We planted potatoes, rhubarb, onions, and lettuce.  There was no well, we had a water tank that collected rainwater up in back of the house.  Oscar eventually had a nice little orchard with apple, plum and cherry trees, selling the cherries over in Tacoma.  Oscar worked very hard clearing brush, building feed bins for the stable and making the place comfortable for us.  He chopped wood nearly every day we lived there.

Browns Point with Jerry Meeker's dock

His work as a lighthouse keeper could be demanding, but mostly he lit the lamp precisely at sunset and extinguished it at dawn, keeping track in the log book of ships that passed.  When it was foggy, work became more demanding.  We had a bell that had to be rung whenever it was foggy, day or night.  It was called the Gamewell Fog Bell Striking Apparatus, and would strike a huge bell every 20 seconds.  It had to be re-wound every 90 minutes, which kept Oscar awake most of the night, then if the fog persisted during day I took over while he slept.  However, when the Gamewell broke, which was frequently, I assisted him by keeping time, and calling out to him every 20 seconds.  He’d strike the bell as loud as he could so the ships would hear it.  It was exhausting work and our ears were ringing for days.  We got electricity in 1922.  Now Oscar did not have to light the lamp at sunset, we could flip a switch from the cottage, and the Gamewell was also electrified.  That was relief, as we had sixteen straight days of fog in January of 1926.

We were not blessed with our own children, although my brother’s two daughters Ruth and Annie Lou came to live with us.  I taught them to sew on my old hand crank sewing machine.  They liked cooking, as did I, saying their favorite was a steamed date pudding with hard sauce.  Oscar’s mother also lived with us and enjoyed gardening as much as I did, so that our little cottage was a higgledy-piggledy profusion of flowers, vegetables and three generations of family.  It is said that Mother Nature’s colors never clash, and I find that people can all get along if left to bloom where and when it suits them.

Browns Point was a panorama of passing boats all hours of the day, as there were few roads.  Enterprising men, including the local Indians, built piers and docks all up and down the shore.  Boats stopped every few miles, bringing beachgoers, sightseers, and even groceries.  When Capt. McDowell built a dance hall on one of his docks nearby, his clientele increased and I worried for my nieces.  But they turned out all right.  In World War I Camp Standby was established on Dash Point for the girls of various War Camp Community Service Clubs to let them experience the great outdoors. The WCCS was formed in 1917 to organize recreational and social activities where servicemen and women could spend off duty time together. We often saw the boats taking young girls to Camp Standby.  World War I was very good for industry in Tacoma, as lumber, salmon and food packing were high in demand.  Lumber and wheat prices climbed to record levels and new flour mills and salmon canneries were busy. Wood and steel shipbuilding grew to be second only to the lumber industry in the Northwest. Todd Shipyards in Tacoma was working nearly round the clock to provide ships for the war effort. 

Camp Standby

Tatoosh Island

Oscar saved many people from capsized boats, including three Japanese men who actually jumped in the water, thinking their companion in a rowboat would pick them up.  Evidently he didn’t see or hear them, but Oscar did, and rowed out to pluck them from the water.  He declared it no easy feat to get them in the boat.  He had lots of stories like that.  His former boss, the head lighthouse keeper out on Tatoosh Island, told how he was nearly blown off the island during one fierce gale, blown, in fact, head over heels for 300 feet before arresting himself by means of clinging to grass and vegetation before plunging over the cliffs into the crashing ocean.  The bull they kept out there was not so lucky, but WAS blown over.  They thought the bull was lost, in fact they wrote in the logbook that he was “lost at sea”.  However, the plucky bull found his way through the high surf back to the island, climbed up the steep cliffs, and demanded an extra ration of hay for privations and exposure suffered in sea and surf.  The cow however, named Mrs. Shafter, was not so ill-fated, and managed to remain sanely on shore.  Why she was named Mrs. Shafter was anyone’s guess, and one can only wonder about the original Mrs. Shafter.

Oscar and I had a fine life together in our little cottage on the point.  We loved to read National Geographic, the Sat Evening Post, Etude, Rudder and Yachtsman.  Oscar taught music lessons, I taught the girls how to cook, garden and sew.

Oscar had to retire when he was 70, and we told everyone that we were happy to move to an apartment in Tacoma because it would really be ours.  It wasn’t ours though, we rented it.  I miss our cottage, the boats passing and waving, our flowers, our chairs on the front porch, our nieces laughing and bringing me shells from the shore, showing me their fine sewing, or sniffing the aroma of  the dinner they’d cooked for me.  I miss the beacon of light that spoke of a caring lighthouse keeper who sang me love songs and gave me a beautiful little home beside the sea.

 

Remember, you are the guardians of the memories of those who have gone before.

The Wreck of the General Grant

A famous Gordon Lightfoot song, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” says that Lake Superior never gives up her dead.  The Auckland Islands, bleak, lonely and windswept, have a certain cavern that never gives ships back either.  Especially ones filled with gold.  True story.

The ship was the General Grant, built right after the Civil War and named for Ulysses S. Grant. It was a three-masted barque that was 179.5 feet long, 34.5 feet wide, and drew 21.5 feet.  She left Melbourne, Australia, commanded by experienced Capt. William H. Loughlin, bound for London by way of Cape Horn at the tip of South America. The day she left was autumn in the southern hemisphere, May 4, 1866.  She carried 58 passengers, many of them successful miners, and 25 crew.  She also carried a cargo of wool, skins, 2,576 ounces of gold and reputedly “nine tons of zinc spelter ballast”. At least that is what the manifest said, but a ship supposed to transport gold, the London, had not made it out to New Zealand, so the gold had been waiting to go by the next available ship.  The General Grant was the only ship leaving Melbourne, Australia at that time.

Nine days later they were 300 miles south of New Zealand.  On the utterly calm but foggy night of May 13, 1866, the captain posted lookouts, and the Auckland Islands were sighted off the port bow at 10:30PM.  The ship tried to turn away from them, but a shockingly strong current began to carry the ship directly toward the island.  Every sail possible was hoisted, but with light wind, the crew was unable to turn the ship, and the ship glided through the fog towards the cliffs.  The currents were considered hopelessly strong and a small boat launched to row them away would have been futile.  Even though a mere puff of wind could have saved them, they collided with the cliffs on the western shore.  The ship swirled and turned, pushed northward, hitting rocks on shore and turning helplessly around and around. At 1:30 AM on May 14^th, the ship was pushed up a small cove. The crew lit lanterns to see what lay before them, and it was said that the walls were so sheer that there wasn’t even a space for a bird to perch. 

Then as sleepy passengers in dressing gowns, robes, and hastily donned coats watched in horror, the ship was drawn toward the great black maw of a cavern.  The fore topmast broke and the passengers heard the sickening sound of squealing wood on rock as the ship was thrust into the inky cavern.  The masts knocked off pieces of rock which smashed through the fo’c’sle deck and through the starboard deckhouse.  The royal foremast broke off, as well as the topmast and lower mast, leaving only stumps.  Soundings were taken and under her stern they had 25 fathoms, which is 150 feet, but all the while, the boat was being further jammed into the cave.  The waves rumbled deep in the cavern and added to the cacophony of questions shot at the crew.

There was little anyone could do in the black of night, and as the ship was not going anywhere, the captain thought it best to wait for dawn.  When it got light, it became apparent that the situation was becoming worse.  The rising tide and increasing wind and waves pushed the ship up against the roof of the cavern, causing the main mast to be forced through the hull of the ship.

On board were three lifeboats, which consisted of two quarter-boats, each 22 feet long with a 5 foot beam, and a long boat of 30 feet with a 7 foot beam.  The two quarter-boats were launched with some crew members, passengers, and tins of food.  The quarter-boats were supposed to land, get people ashore and come back for more.  Unfortunately, there was no place to land, so the boats fought their way outside the cavern battling heavy seas.

The long boat was filled with 40 crew and passengers, but there was no need to launch it, as the General Grant sunk and the long boat floated off the deck.  The heavy waves lashed at the long boat, and it swamped and capsized.  Three of the long boat’s passengers were able to swim through the pounding surf to the quarter-boats.  Most of the passengers, including the captain, went down with the ship.  A total of fifteen people, consisting of nine crew members and six passengers, including one woman, Mrs. Jewell, clung to life in the quarter-boats, unable to save any of the screaming passengers who were quickly overcome by heavy seas.

The island, Auckland Island, was sheer cliffs on its western side.  They rowed and bailed all day, trying to get to Disappointment Island, about six miles to the west, but then gave up, deciding instead to try to round the north shore of Auckland Island and hope that there would be a beach rather than sheer cliffs. Night overtook them, and they were able to land at a little rock about a mile and a half northeast of Disappointment Island, where they spent the night trying not to get blown out to sea again.  The next day they again tried to make for the main island, but after an hour were blown back to Disappointment Island.  Later that day, the wind calmed and they were able to make it back to the main island and around the north shore to Port Ross, an abandoned whaling ship stop.  They found two huts at Port Ross. 

The survivors had some matches, and managed to get one of them lit, then were shocked that they had not thought to supply it with tinder.  After it went out, they laid dry wood and tinder, and struck match after match to no avail.  Finally they got one to light, got the fire started, and never let the fire go out the whole time they were on the island.

It was late autumn, and the subantarctic winter would be descending upon them, meaning no sealing or whaling boats would be coming past.  The fifteen survivors would very likely be spending months on the island.  Wearisome days followed, no ships passed by.  The men carved primitive little ships, detailing their location, the name of their lost ship, and gave each little boat a piece of tin for a sail, hoping that the reflection of it on the water would attract a ship, then launched them into the trackless seas.  Some carved information on pieces of driftwood and launched them attached to inflated seal bladders.  The currents carried away the messages, but no help came.

Seals proved to be plentiful, and their meat was the castaways’ main food and clothing.  They also ate limpets, bird eggs, and found pigs and rabbits on Enderby Island nearby.

By summer, eight months after their shipwreck, four of the crew decided to attempt to sail to New Zealand in one of the quartermaster boats.  They covered it with seal skins, figuring that they had to head east-northeast, which was incorrect.  New Zealand lies nearly 300 miles to the north.  They had no compass, charts, nor guiding nautical equipment, but set sail on January 22, 1867.  They were never seen again.  Autumn came, then deep winter.  Months later, in early spring, September 1867, 62 year old David McLelland died of illness.  

That left ten remaining survivors, who decided to leave the island where they had lived for eighteen months and move to smaller Enderby Island, where they might be nearer the shipping lanes.   On November 19^th, they sighted a cutter, the Fanny, but she did not see their signal smoke, or she did, ignored it.  Two days later, November 21, 1867, another ship passed by, the brig Amherst, and she did see her signals and came to the rescue.

Three years later, one of the survivors, David Ashworth, mounted an expedition to find the wreck of the General Grant.  He set sail aboard the schooner Daphne on March 26, 1870.  He knew exactly where the islands were, and arrived off the west shore of Auckland island. On a clear, calm day he, the captain of the Daphne, and four of the crew set off in one of the Daphne’s quarter-boats.  Three of the crew remained onboard the Daphne.  The quarter-boat did not return. Although the remaining crew waited and waited, the quarter-boat never returned.  They searched everywhere and never found her, returning to their home port when all hope was lost.

Did the small boat from the Daphne get sucked deep into the cavern and couldn’t get out?  Was David Ashworth, who escaped from the cavern once, doomed to drown in it? 

No one has ever been able to find the wreck of the ship. Rumors say that the ballast, listed as zinc spelter, was actually gold.  Perhaps only David Ashworth knew for sure.

Noise Pollution

When Jack was just a year old, we sat on the deck on a windy, sunny day, him on my lap, watching the white caps out on Puget Sound mimicking the sudden flash of white gull wings. Sailboats were zipping hither and thither.  But what caught his attention was the wind in the maple trees next door.  Both he and his twin sister had learned some sign language, so I waved my hand and made a wind sound to indicate that I too saw the leaves dancing, and he responded with the same gesture. 

“Wind,” I said. 

That was the start of it.  He’d point out the awning flapping on windy days, or the trees waving to him.  He loved the fan blowing in his face. All things wild and beautiful.  A week or so ago, he came with his family to our property in the Cascades.  He’d been there before, but of course didn’t remember it.  When Mommy and Daddy got him out of the car, he stood in awe, then stretched out his arms and turned in circles.  His delight in the forest and mountains was clear.  He twirled and looked at every vista of the lake, the rocks and little flowers, arms out.

That’s kind of how I feel up there too, Jack.  It’s wild, windy, beautiful. One startling aspect of it is the silence that allows us to isolate delightful sounds. We can hear our creek chattering down the gultch, elk bugling in the fall (not that we need silence to hear THAT), turkeys gobbling to each other as they scurry up the hill, or just this past week heard a ruffled grouse drumming.  What’s rather startling is to hear the rush of wind over the feathers of a crow as she flies past, as in town there is so much ambient noise a crow could fly right up our ears and we’d not hear it.

Back in Seattle, we live next to the airport, and since they built the third runway, the airplanes roar very close indeed.  We are simply surrounded by noise.  Bathroom fans, HVACs, even constant music. Nearly everyone has earbuds these days.  Must we have so much sound?  Are the music listeners needing more sound, or are they merely shutting out the distasteful?  Some Musack is just plain awful, I find when I’m at the fabric store trying to calculate yardage, I have to put in earplugs to tune it out.  Even nature sounds can be irksome, like the barking sea lions at 3AM when we have the windows open in the summer.

This past week, up at the normally peaceful silent Cascade property, our neighbors decided to put in a well.  So right in front of us, KA-CHUNGA-HISS, KA-CHUNGA-HISS, for three days.  Friends were going to be joining us for some country camping and we called them and agreed to do it some other time.  To get away from the noise, we went on a hike, and discovered our chosen trail went right by a logging operation with about ten chain saws buzzing away.  We all need water, so wells are needed, I am not giving up wood products anytime soon, I fly on airplanes and drive a car, so can’t begrudge these operations.  Technically.

So what sounds bug you?  Traffic, loud fans, Musack in stores?  How do you shut it out, without adding more sound? I suspect that Time has a cure for noise, so I’d better be careful what I wish for. 

Meanwhile, Jack and Ellie are over and the place is anything but quiet.  Toys have all sorts of ways to beep, wail, and ring in order to thrill toddlers, whose delight in said beeping, wailing and ringing must be exclaimed over in toddler-ese, mimicked and amplified.  There are books to be read aloud, and songs to sing.  Running, screeching, asking questions is what little people are all about.

Noise?  What noise?  Nonni only hears music to her ears.

The Kitty Catcher

We used to have a large orange cat named Hobie.  He moved away, finding better options at our neighbor’s house.  Like heated towels she put in the dryer for him to lie on while he nibbled on turkey from the butcher.  I don’t even feed my husband turkey from the butcher, nor heat his towels in the dryer, as husbands are not so finicky as cats.  Cold pizza is fine with him.

Hobie Cat doesn’t notice us anymore, being utterly too fat from cat delights to do much but waddle among the wisteria.  He looks like an orange raccoon.  But he used to follow us around the garden, pretending to be on Important Cat Errands while we were working.  Odd that his Errands were never more than ten feet away.  He’d be facing the other way, not deigning to recognize us, but as soon as we went into the front yard, there he’d be too, under a rhody.

A little neighborhood girl decided she wanted to hold Hobie, and Hobie was having none of it.  As soon as she got within five feet, he’d flee to the next bush.  Hubby noticed this.

“What you need is a Kitty Catcher,” he stated to the little girl.

“What’s a Kitty Catcher?” she asked.

“I’ve got a whole bunch of them in the garage,” said Hubby.  “I’ll go get you one.”  A few moments later he was back with a string tied onto a thin dowel.  “Just draw it over the ground where you want the kitty to go.  It’s magic.”

About five minutes later, the girl walked past holding a confused Hobie, who no doubt wondered how he got into her arms.  He was a gentleman about it, at least, but catching a kitty can backfire when you are only five and they weigh twenty pounds.  Catching them is more fun than carrying them.

We have our own Kitty Catchers, but they are not spelled that way, illustrated by another little girl, this time from England and named Rosie.  She was also five years old and her parents were our table-mates on a cruise.  Poor little Rosie was the only child of her age in the whole dining room, and she was bored to dddddddddeeeeeeaaaaaaaaatttttttttttthhhhhhhh.

Ah, but lucky for her, we have Kiddie-Catchers.  One involves pieces of paper napkin placed on wet fingernails and accompanied with a litle song about birds flying away.  Poof!  The birds disappear at the right moment.  Then poof!  They come back. Mysterious! Often even for adults.  Then Hubby, master of parlor tricks, showed her how he could throw his finger in the air and catch it again.  He could inflate his bicep by blowing on his thumb.  He could pull off his thumb. 

The next day Rosie came skipping into dinner, tugging her parents to go faster.  I showed her how to make a see-saw with fingers, and played Here’s The Church, Here’s the Steeple, which her parents had never even heard of.  Another involved crossing your arms, interlocking your fingers, pulling them through then try to raise the one pointed to.  Giggles ensue.  Can you raise your finger when the third knuckle is on the table?

The following day, Rosie came dressed up in a darling little dress and a wore a flower in her hair.  She wanted to sit between us.  For dessert, we had a strawberry shortcake, and we asked her if she liked her strawberries.

“It isn’t straw-bear-ry,” she informed us.  “It’s strawh-burry.”

We melted, finding a child with an English accent utterly charming.  Then she smiled sweetly and patted my hand.

The Kiddie-Catcher evidently works in reverse, too.