Chesapeake by James A. Michener Read Free Book Online Page A

hand, with many legs.’
    As soon as Pentaquod uttered these words a benign smile spread over the scarred face of his interpreter, who said nothing. Obviously he was recalling moments of past happiness, after which he summoned the girl who had caught the oysters. ‘He doesn’t know crabs, either,’ he whispered.
    The girl smiled and with her right hand gave an imitation of a crab wriggling its many feet. Then a look of compassion filled her eyes; to be ignorant of the oyster was amusing, but to be unacquainted with the crab was pathetic.
    ‘What is crab?’ Pentaquod asked, and Scar-chin replied, ‘When Manitou, the Great Power, finished populating the river with everything our village required—pine trees for canoes, deer to feed us in summer, geese and oysters for winter—He saw that we were grateful and well disposed. So in His grace He created one thing more, to stand as a token of His eternal concern. He made the crab and hid him in our salty waters.’
    Women in the crowd asked what he had said so far, then prompted him to add details that interested them: ‘A crab provides little food, so he is not easy to eat. But the little he does offer is the best food under the sky. To eat crab you must work, which makes you appreciate him more. He is the blessing, the remembrance. And no man or woman ever ate enough.’
    Pentaquod listened with growing respect as Scar-chin reported on this delicacy, and when the oration ended he asked tentatively, ‘Could I taste some?’
    ‘They come only in summer.’
    ‘Didn’t you dry any?’
    This question, when interpreted, brought laughter, which ended when the girl moved forward to indicate that the meat of the crab was so delicate it had to be eaten immediately; her fine fingers danced as she portrayed this.
    Again Pentaquod fell to rumination, confused by this barrage of strange information. ‘But if the crab has the hard shell that I found on the island …’ He hesitated as the girl nodded, then knocked her knuckles together to prove how hard the shell was.
    ‘Aha!’ Pentaquod demanded, grabbing her by the wrist. ‘If the shell is so hard, how is it that Fishing-long-legs can cut it in half with his beak?’
    When Scar-chin explained that the Susquehannock used that name for the great blue heron, and that he was referring to the manner in which the heron caught crabs, tossed them in the air and cut them in half, the girl’s expression became even more compassionate.
    ‘It’s the soft crab,’ she explained.
    ‘The what?’
    ‘In the summer we catch crabs that have no shell …’
    This was totally incomprehensible, and Pentaquod shook his head, but the girl continued, ‘They have no shell, and we roast them over the fire, and they are the best.’
    Pentaquod could make absolutely nothing of this, and he was about to drop the whole discussion when a boy of about nine summers moved beside the girl and by a series of swift gestures of hand-to-mouth indicated that he himself could eat four or five of the no-shell crabs. This seemed preposterous and Pentaquod turned away, but the daring boy tugged on his arm and repeated the pantomime: he could indeed eat five no-shells.
    When the crowd dispersed to arrange ramshackle sleeping quarters for the night, Pentaquod retreated from the shore to his own wigwam, but before he fell asleep he found Scar-chin standing in the rude doorway. ‘Stay with us,’ the little man said. Pentaquod made no reply. ‘The werowance is old now, and sad.’ No comment. ‘The girl who caught the oyster for you, she is his granddaughter, and whenever he sees her it causes pain.’ This was impenetrable, but the little man continued, ‘Her father, the werowance’s son who should be in command now, died of the fever and the girl reminds him of this loss.’
    Pentaquod saw no reason to respond to any of this, so in the darkness the little interpreter remained in the doorway, content to watch the shadowy form of the tall Susquehannock who had