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Originally published in the Historic Nantucket, Vol. 44, no. 2 (Summer 1994), p. 38-40

The Humor of Nantucket
by William F. Macy

It seems obvious that Mr. Macy had fun preparing this talk for NHA's 1903 annual meeting. You'll enjoy it too.

William F. Macy

Those of you who are surprised to see me here are not more so than I am to be here. In response to our President's invitation to contribute something to the programme, I wrote that I expected to be elsewhere at this time, but that if I could arrange it I would be glad to come and do my part. My presence here reminds me of the story of the good old lady who lived in Polpis and had been asked to join a party who were going to Great Point to spend the day with the light-keeper's family. Something having gone wrong on the morning of the "squantum," however, she was in no mood for festivities when they called for her, and declined to accompany them. What was their surprise therefore when, several hours later, in the midst of the lunch at the light house, in walked "Aunt Love," and in response to their exclamations, "Why, we thought you weren't coming!" calmly replied as she seated herself at the table, "Well, I wasn't, but I was up this way and thought I'd stop!" So I, finding myself at the Vineyard yesterday, thought I'd stop here for a day, and here I am.

In dealing with this subject I am confronted with two very serious difficulties, — first, the danger of perpetrating a good many of what must necessarily prove to be "chestnuts" to many of you; and second, the constant fear of "treading on somebody's corns." Most of the stories and sayings I shall ask you to hear have been told before — some of them very often — but I may have a few which are new to all of you, others which are new to some, and those which are familiar to all may still bear repeating once more. And since, as Rosalind says, "A jest's prosperity lies in the ear of him that hears it, never in the tongue of him that makes it," the personnel of my audience gives me confidence to take some chances.

As to the other danger I mentioned, I apologize in advance for any wounds of a personal nature I may inflict. It would be out of the question to mention names without hitting someone's relations here, so I will ask you, as we say, not to "spoil a joke for relations' sake," and for once to eliminate the personal equation altogether.

The Compiler of "Sea Girt Nantucket" classifies the humor of the Island as of two kinds, conscious and unconscious. I think I might still further separate it into three subdivisions to which I would give the names, coined for the occasion: "Nauticalisms," "Quakerisms," and "Personalisms."

It is my purpose to give only a few of each, and one or two of a miscellaneous character not yet classified.

Nautical terms are so interlarded with the common everyday speech of those of us who are to the manner born that we do not realize our use of them half the time until our attention is called to it by outsiders.

We do not pull, we always "haul." We do not tie or fasten anything, we "splice" it; we rig and belay, back and fill, get under way (or weigh), heave to, come about and square away, so naturally and spontaneously that it never occurs to any of us there is anything unusual in our mode of expressing ourselves. To the visitor it is all "so interesting," and "quaint," to use a much abused word which I overheard one good Nantucket lady say she was so tired and sick of the sound of she wished she might never hear it again.

I have jotted down a few samples of more or less unconscious humor in the use of Nauticalisms.

An old captain, being invited out to dinner, frankly acknowledged as the company drew round the festive board, that he was ready to "fall to" any time, for he'd "come with a swep' hold."

Another, being asked why he retired from the sea, replied: "Well, I thought when I got to the No'thard o' sixty, 'twas time to heave to."

Still another, on a visit to New York, found fault with the lack of oysters in the stew served him at a restaurant, and call-
ing the waiter, inquired "Say, can't ye give us a few more oysters? These here are a day's sail apart."

One member of The Sons and Daughters of Nantucket wrote on his reply postal card accompanying the announcement of the annual reunion: "Sorry I can't fetch it, but I'll try and fore-lay for it next year."

Nantucket children were told to "splice their patience."

Housewives spoke of "tending kitchen halyards."

A request for assistance in any task often took the form of asking someone to "hold the slack."

An ill-fitting garment was said to fit "like a pu'ser's shirt on a hand spike."

A thrifty wife of the old days, noting that the larder was getting low, and seeing no immediate prospect of its being replenished, is said to have remarked to her lazy husband, who had been sitting in the chimney corner all winter: "Well, John, one or tother of us has got to round Cape Horn and I ain't agoin'."

Long absences from home were accepted as so much a matter of course in the old days that we can almost believe the story of the wife who saw her husband coming up the street on his return from a four years' voyage "around the Horn," and taking the empty water pail from its place on the dresser, met him at the door with: "Hullo, John, got back have ye? Here, go get a bucket o' water."

Perhaps the most deliciously "salt" of all the old nautical expressions was the saying applied to a sailor just home from a voyage, as he strolls down the street on his "sea legs," in a brand new suit from the outfitter's shop, his pockets full of money, which he can't get rid of fast enough, smoking a "long nine," ogling the maids, and with a general the-world-is-mine air in his whole attitude and get-up. Then the old timers would tip the wink and say: "There's Jack! Rolling down to St. Helena, eighteen cloths in the lower studd'ns'l and no change out of a dollar!"

These anecdotes and expressions smacking of the sea and of ships might be multiplied indefinitely. Everyone here could doubtless furnish as many as I have given, but a few Quakerisms were promised.

You have all heard of the old Quaker schoolmaster who set the copy on the blackboard for the writing class:

"Beauty fadeth soon
Like a rose in 6th mo."

Also the story of "Robinson Crusoe and his good man 6th day."

Aunt Elizabeth Black, the schoolmarm, used to say when a pupil recited well: "Excellent! Excellent! Thee deserves a reward of approbation!"

An elderly Friend once interviewed the blacksmith in regard to the price for making him a carving knife. "Well," was the stammering reply, "I can make you a pretty good knife for seventy-five cents; I can make you a better one for a dollar, but I'll make you one that would cut the devil's head off for a dollar and a quarter!" It is needless, perhaps, to repeat the Quaker's remark: "Thee may make me the dollar-and-a-quarter knife."

"Friend Charles," remarked an old Quaker to a sailor addicted to the habit of drawing the long bow, after the latter had spun an unusually stiff yarn, "if thee'd ever been one-half as economical of the world's goods as thee is of the truth, thee'd be the richest man in Nantucket."

How much better that than calling the man a liar.

Occasionally the Quakers dropped into verse, as witness the well-known proposal of Obed Macy to Abigail Pinkham:

From a long consideration
Of the good reputation
Thou hast in this nation,
Gives me the inclination
To become thy relation
By a legal capitulation.
And if this, my declaration,
May but gain thy approbation,
It will lay an obligation
From generation to generation
Of thy friend
Who, without thy consideration
May remain in vexation.

It is gratifying to be able to record, in passing, that this effusion had the desired effect, and that Obed and Abigail were married (in the year 1786) and had ten c hildren.

A story which indicates that human nature, and especially feminine nature, was much the same among the Quakers of a hundred years ago as we find it now, was told me recently by a lady who is present today, and who, I trust, will permit me to tell it. The lady, who is a granddaughter of the illustrious Walter Folger of astronomical clock fame, relates that during the periods when that great man was working on his various inventions he often became so absorbed that his good wife scarcely saw him for days at a time.

Indeed, it was only with difficulty that he could be persuaded to come to his meals, and then he ate in an absent-minded way and returned immediately to his workshop with scarcely a word. On one occasion a neighbor, calling at the house, had the temerity to offer sympathy to Madame Folger for the loss of her husband's society. "It's too bad, so it is, that Walter neglects thee for his old notions!" "Yes," replied the loyal wife, "it's a great trial, and sometimes I almost wish he didn't know any more than thy husband!"

Which is just one more example of "how these women do love one another!"

Before coming to the personalisms, I cannot refrain from mentioning, as one of the humorous features of Nantucket character, the well-known complacency and self-satisfaction of the average Nantucketer concerning his native town and all that pertains to it.

We all know the type of man who cannot understand why anyone should want to live anywhere else when he could live on Nantucket. We have heard of the man who had never been "off-island." "What on earth should I want to go off island for," said he. "This town's good enough for me." We speak with kindly pity of those who were unfortunate enough to have been born elsewhere, and, during the winter freeze-ups, much sympathy is always expressed for the people on the mainland in their enforced isolation from Nantucket.

A Nantucket schoolboy located Alaska as "in the Northwest corner of off-island."

Another began his composition on Napoleon thus: "Napoleon was a great man; he was a great soldier and a great statesman — but he was an off-islander."

Note the "but." Poor Napoleon!

One of the public carriage drivers, showing a party of excursionists over the town, was asked what those queer platforms were on the top of many of the houses. "I told 'em," he said, "that they were 'walks', but I wondered where they'd been all their lives."

The speech of the older Nantucketers is filled with quaint similes of a personal application, many of which are still heard occasionally, though often their origin is shrouded in mystery. I have culled a few of the more notable examples:

One "Uncle Jimmy," who kept a grocery store in the old days, from time to time missed pork from the barrel which stood in the open back-shop. He had his suspicions, but he never mentioned them, nor the loss, to any one. Finally one day, years afterward, a certain respected citizen, lounging in the store, inquired casually: "By the way, Uncle Jimmy, did you ever find out who stole that pork?" "Never until this very day!" was the calm reply from Uncle Jimmy as he fixed his visitor with a stern, unflinching gaze. It is further stated that the pork was paid for in full, with compound interest. Hence the expression so often heard: "keeping still like Uncle Jimmy."

When the honor of entertaining the minister fell to Annie Burrill, the good woman was so flustered that she forgot to put any tea into the tea pot although the water was duly boiled. The minister accepted the beverage without remark, and when the spirit of hospitality prompted his hostess to ask him repeatedly: "Is your tea satisfactory?" his invariable response was "It has no bad taste, Madam." Thus, "as weak as Annie Burrill's tea" became a simile for her day and generation.

A man named John Meader, living here during the War of 1812, applied to his neighbor for the loan of a hammer. Being asked what he wanted it for, he replied, "To knock out my teeth. I have no need of them, for I can get nothing to eat." Hence the saying among old Nantucketers, "I have no more for it than Meader had for his teeth."

The remarkable penchant of many Nantucket characters for what someone has platitudinous ponderosity is often called to, and many anecdotes are related of the flowery language used in some of the announcements in the local papers.

In the far away time lived one Squire Hussey, lawyer, real estate agent, justice of the peace and, withal, a past master of the English language, as will appear in the following notices:

"For Sale: A dwelling house situated on the Cliff. This notable headland commands an extensive view of the Vineyard Sound, where vessels may be seen passing to and fro in accelerated velocity."

"For Sale: A dwelling house on York Street. This is one of the most popular localities of the town, in the midst of a refined and enlightened community. The colored Methodist Society contemplates erecting a house of worship immediately opposite, which fact will commend itself to all religiously disposed minds."

A lady relates the following experience of a shopping tour in Nantucket:

"I wanted a piece of trimming so I went down to Harriet's for it, but she hadn't it, so I went over to Lyddy Ann's. She said "no," but thought I'd find it at Mary F.'s. She sent me into Emmie's, but Emmie didn't have it either, and suggested Hannah's, so I crossed over and tried there. Still unsuccessful, I stopped in at Lizzy Ann's, and she told me the only place I could get it would be up to Eunice's, so I went way up there, just for a little piece of trimming, but I got it!"

The old game of "Kumchekum", as we always pronounced it (however it may have been spelled) in which one person gives the initial letters of some object he has in his mind, from which the others endeavor to guess what it may be, was often played on Nantucket with names of persons. On one occasion one of the younger members gave the letters "L. O." After the guessers had exhausted the entire population of the town, one member even surreptitiously consulting the well-worn family copy of the local census, they were forced to give it up, when the youngster coolly announced that the person he had in mind was "Lizabeth Austin."

[This anecdote suggested a similar incident to a lady who was present in which the initials "G. N." were given, and after the guessers has racked their brains for an hour or more, they learned that the object in mind was jack-knife.]

These are but a few of the hundreds of good stories, many doubtless better than these, which have been told of our people, but I disclaim any attempt to cover the field in even the least exhaustive way. Those I have given are only a suggestion of the possibilities in this direction. Many of them have been three times thrice told; many of them lose much of their savor without the atmosphere and the personality of the teller to accompany them; but the suggestion which has been made of collecting these bits of history and sidelights on the bygone generations, that they may be preserved in some permanent form in the archives of the Association, is a good one, and one which I hope may be carried out. If the few examples I have given shall serve, even in a slight degree, to stimulate

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