Tales of the Chesapeake | Page 3

Joseph,
who fed your brethren when they were starving, with their father, for
corn, give me a few oysters, that we may live, and not die!"
The Jew felt the supplication. He was reminded of Christmas eve. The
poorest family on Chincoteague had bought his liquor that night for a
carouse, or brought from the distant court-house town something for
the children's stockings. Before him was one whose service had been
that powerful religion, shivering in the light of its natal star on the
loneliest sea-shore of the Atlantic. He had harmed no man, yet all
shunned him, because he had loved, and honored his love with a
religious rite, instead of profaning it, like others of his race.
"Take my tongs," replied the Jew. "Dip yonder! It will be your only
Christmas gift."
"Peace to thee on earth and good-will to thee from men!" answered the
outcast.
The preacher raised the long-handled rakes, spread the handles, and
dropped them into the Sound. They gave from the bottom a dull,
ringing tingle along their shafts. He strove to lift them with their weight
of oysters, but his famished strength was insufficient.
"I am very weak and faint," he said. "Oh, help me, for the pity of God!"
The Jew came to his relief doggedly. The Jew was a powerful,
bow-legged man, but with all his strength he could scarcely raise the
burden.
"By Abraham!" he muttered, "they are oysters of lead. They will
neither let go nor rise."
He finally rolled upon the deck a single object. It broke apart as it fell.
The moonlight, released by his humped shadow, fell upon something
sparkling, at which he leaped with a sudden thirst, and cried:

"Gold! Jewels! They are mine."
It was an iron casket, old and rusty, that he had raised. Within it, partly
rusted to the case, the precious lustre to which he had devoted his life
flashed out to the o'erspread arch of night, sown thick with star-dust. A
furious strength was added to his body. He broke the object from the
casket and held it up to eyes of increased wonder and awe. Then, with
an oath, he would have plunged it back into the sea.
The outcast preacher interposed.
"It is your Christmas gift, Issachar. It is a cross. Curse not! It cannot
harm you nor me. Dip again, and bring me a few oysters, or my wife
may die."
"I know the form of that cross," said the oyster-man. "It is Spanish.
Many a year ago, no doubt, some high-pooped galleon, running close to
the coast, went ashore on Chincoteague and drifted piecemeal through
the inlet, wider then than now. This mummery, this altar toy, destined
for some Papist mission-house, has lain all these years in the brackish
Sound. Ha! ha! That Issachar the Jew should raise a cross, and on the
Christian's Christmas eve! But it is mine! My tongs, my vessel, myself
brought it aboard!"
He seized the preacher's skinny arm with the ferocity of greed.
"I do not claim it, Issachar. My worship is not of forms and images.
Dip again, and help me to my hut with a few oysters, for I am very faint.
Then all my knowledge and interest in this effigy I will surrender to
you."
"Agreed!" exclaimed the Jew, plunging the tongs to the bottom again
and again, in his satisfaction.
They walked inland across the difficult sands, the Jew carrying the
crucifix jealously. Lights gleamed from a few huts along the level
island. At the meanest hut of all they stopped, and heard within a baby's
cry, to which there was no response. The preacher staggered back with

apprehension. The Jew raised the latch and led the way.
The light of some burning driftwood and dried sea-weed filled the low
roof and was reflected back to a cot, on which a woman lay with a
living child beside her. Something dread and ineffable was conveyed
by that stiffened form. The Jew, familiar with misery and all its
indications, caught the preacher in his arms.
"Levin Purnell," he said, "thy Christmas gift has come. Bear up! There
is no more persecution for thee. She is dead!"
The outcast preacher looked once, wildly, on the woman's face, and
with a cry pressed his hands to his heart. The Jew laid him down upon a
miserable pallet, and for a few moments watched him steadily. Neither
sound nor motion revealed the presence of the cold spark of life. The
husband's heart was broken.
"Poor wretch!" exclaimed the Jew. "Mismated couple; in death as
obstinate as in life. Lie there together, befriended in the closing hour by
the Jew of Chincoteague, a present--to-morrow's Christmas--for thy
neighbors of this Christian island!"
He stirred the fire. Death had no terrors for him, who had