MOSES THE FISHERMAN

Monday was the day the local fisherman, Moses Chandler, would call upon his customers to take their weekly fish orders.

Moses, or Mose as people called him, was the best fisherman in Popham Beach.  Tall and lanky with a face sunburned from hours spent on the open sea, out beyond this point of land that was his home.

He and his wife Grace lived in a small, brown, shingled house.  Grace was a small, little bird of a woman who spent her time minding everyone else’s business.  She would be up with her husband to feed him his breakfast, then do her chores around her little home, after which she would make her rounds of the peninsula to gather gossip. If some one was ill or in the hospital in the nearest city of Bath, she would always make a special trip to see them. Of course, whenever there was a funeral, she would hurry up with her chores, then put on her best Sunday clothes and go to the church to cry along with the bereaved family.  In the evening, along with his supper, Mose was always met with all the juicy gossip his wife had managed to gather during the day.

My mother, Ellen, got to wondering one day about this amusing little woman and her odd little habits, and decided to find out a little more about Grace Chandler. So when the familiar knock came at the door one Monday morning, she rushed to open it.

“Good Morning, Mose! How are you and your wife doing?”

“Doin’ fine, M’am.”

“Anything new in the village?”

“Naw.  Same as always.”

“Mose, I was wondering,” my mother went on. “Grace loves to go visiting.  Does she wear cosmetics when she visits?”

“Now, what in tar nation is that?” came Mose’s sharp reply.

“Does she put color on her face when she goes visiting?” my mother explained.

“Now, listen here, young lady,” the tall fisherman said to her, squinting one eye. “When you’re in Popham Beach, you talk Popham Beach language, you hear?  Now, I don’t know what you mean about cosmickicks, but sometimes when she dresses herself up all pretty-like, she does looks like she had fallen face first into the flour barrel.”

It was all my mother could do to keep from bursting into laughter while she gave Mose her order for fish, the image of a flour-faced Grace Chandler dancing in her head.