The spirit level

Weird tales and weird harvest produce

by Sally Cragin

Illustration by Lennie Peterson

Hollis the Mountain Man prides himself on being relentlessly rational, yet every Halloween he's slightly on edge. Perhaps it's because the leafless trees outside the Mountain Lair become sinister skeletal specters. Or perhaps it's because the occasional butternut ker-chunk on the roof becomes a ghostly knock in his dreams. Sometimes the morning mist hovers above the still-flat surface of Picture Pond, and, if he's indulged more liberally than usual in the homebrew, he imagines shapes shifting across the black water. Marooned on the edge of the millennium, he yearns for his ancestors' simple life. He also wishes he were of the generation that went to church on Sunday but still talked about ghosts and walking spirits with equanimity.

"But not too far back," he tells Delia Ellis Bell the Partial Yankee (there was a questionable great-great-grandmother) one afternoon at at Happy's Coffee & Qwik-Stop (30 kinds of doughnuts, 20 kinds of lottery tickets, one kind of coffee). As they stare out the window onto Main Street, a gray and deserted thoroughfare in the late-afternoon sun, things that go bump in the night seem a long way away.

"I know what you mean," she says. "I like all my modern conveniences, and electric light and all, but there are definitely times when I feel like the Other Side is a lot closer than I'd like." At this, Hollis brightens. One of the enduring factors in their longtime friendship is how each of them can hear the other's anxieties, which torpedo their own.

"Actually, what really depresses me is this theme-park haunted house deal that starts in late September," he says. "When we were kids, there were plenty of haunted houses, and you didn't have to pay fifteen bucks to go in."

"True enough," says Delia. "Now a scary story is when I think about what your cholesterol numbers must be, or what Lorencz the Hermit might have been ingesting in that abandoned school bus in the woods. Not like the old days, of witches, warlocks, and wendigos."

"What's a wendigo?" he asks with furrowed brow.

Delia's eyes light up. "Let's go canoeing," she says wickedly. "I'll tell you while we're paddling across Picture Pond." Her cackle isn't altogether pleasant, and Hollis looks skeptical. "You'll love this story," she insists.

The legend of the wendigo is unusual in the New England folk tradition. There are no witches, no people transformed into animals, no haunted houses. The wendigo is essentially a force of nature, which consumes people or, at least, terrifies them to death. Origins are obscure, but it does appear in the Algonquin lexicon as a reference to a person who was turned into a cannibalistic monster because he ate human flesh when times were hard. But the wendigo doesn't always take human form -- writer Algernon Blackwood wrote a version of the story that cast the monster as an evil force larger and louder than a passing thunderstorm.

In Blackwood's story, a pair of hapless canoers portage through the back woods. In their tent that night, one man awakes to find the tent crushed and leaning, as if someone was pushing on the outside. But his partner remained asleep beside him. When the man touched the canvas, it was icy-cold. The next day, they meet an elderly Indian who warns them they are in wendigo territory. Still they continue into the woods until a scream rips through, and then a thunderous booming. When the trees shake, and then topple, as if some enormous presence is crushing them, the canoers abandon their craft. When they finally collapse, there's an even louder noise and then more crashing. But the portagers were safe -- they had reached the end of the spirit's territory.

"Interesting," Hollis says. "I didn't know there were New England ghost stories that came before the settlers came, but I guess it would make sense."

"Of course," says Delia, the tireless teacher. "And if there can be said to be a moral, it's that there are two taboos: eating human flesh and trespassing. Ready for another one?"

They have canoed to the far end of Picture Pond, and it's a lengthy paddle back, not to mention portaging 50 yards through the woods. "Oh, sure," says Hollis. "Are there any stories that are common to Pilgrims and Indians?"

"Sort of," says Delia. "One tale emerges in the narrow horizon of time when the settlers and indigenous people were uneasily sharing the land. It also concerns eating and the trespassing against social customs."

The Nipmucks of Thompson, Connecticut, enjoyed a bounteous landscape and many waterways. The Great Spirit had blessed them with an abundance of fish, and one year they decided to invite neighboring Narragansett people for a feast. Both tribes took great pride in their cooking ability, and each tribe had a specialty. The Narragansetts made bread of corn and strawberries, and the Nipmucks prepared eels. At the start of the fete, the Narragansetts made a great show of presenting their bread, yet it did not get served in the ensuing courses. The chief got angrier and more upset: Why was their bread not good enough? Why was it scorned during such an important meal? At last, he rose to his feet and cursed the meal, the Nipmucks, and, most of all, the eels. He said they weren't properly gutted, or prepared or even seasoned. The Nipmucks were stunned, they didn't understand the cause of this outburst. Then, the slaughter began. As the Narragansetts had come unarmed, all but two were massacred. Nearby settlers, hearing the clamor feared a war had broken out, and took to their houses. By nightfall, when quiet had spread over the land, they cautiously re-emerged.

Hanging over the Indian fishing grounds was an astounding display of ghostly blue light radiating upward from every pond, stream, and river. The light resembled flames -- or eels, writhing indignantly. This legend has a latterday coda: it's said that every seven years, this eerie light reappears. Some say it's a reminder of what happens to those who reject hospitality. Others might say it's a caution to those who outrage the Great Spirit.

Night is falling on Picture Pond, and it's ideal weather for canoeing, too cold for 'skeeters, warm enough for shirtsleeves. "Wow," says Hollis. "No witches, no warlocks, and no haunted houses. It certainly shows how dangerous food criticism can be," he concludes.

IT'S NOT TO LATE to pick-your-own orange thing, whether it's squash, pumpkin, or gourds, all of which you'll find at Evans Farm in Still River, where all pumpkins are just $4. The Evanses grow Howdens, which run anywhere from 40 to 60 pounds, says farmer Marion Evans. "This year, they were exceptionally large, a nice orange color with thick green stems," she explains. Despite the drought, the pumpkins plumped up nicely, as Evans Farm is situated on low ground. "We can afford a drought, but not a flood," she says.

This family farm got into the pick-your-own business two decades ago. "We put up a tiny sign saying PICK YOUR OWN SQUASH, but that didn't catch people's fancy," Evans explains. When they realized people were coming for the jack-o'-lanterns instead of the Mother Hubbards, business boomed. "We've got customers now who are the kids and grandchildren of people who came then."

Also available are gourds, which offer even more variety (and larger sizes due to the drought, ironically enough). You'll find "spoon gourds, crown-of-thorns, small warted ones and big warted ones," says Evans. Unlike pumpkins, which tend to be reassuringly cosmetically consistent, the gourd game is a botanical crap-shoot that would have intrigued Luther Burbank had he not been so preoccupied with thornless cacti and stoneless plums. Evans explains, "You plant the seeds and sometimes they come up from last year and cross-pollinate. Those will have a green collar on them or are dark green with orange and white. You never know what you're going to get."

Evans Farm is located at 284 Still River Road, between Bolton and Harvard. For more information call (978) 456-8443. n

Sally Cragin believes in ghost stories -- it's the ones about real people that make her skeptical.

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