THE SECRET

My great-grandfather David Thomas Percy Sr, owner of the D.T. Percy & Sons stores in Bath, ME in the mid 1800s, also known as the beehives, was very proud of his sons, three of whom had become doctors. It had not always been so, especially with his second son, George E. Percy.

George was a ladies' man. Very handsome, very debonair, he had courted and charmed many young Bath women, to his father's chagrin. DT Percy had always been able to keep his sons within the strict boundaries he had set for them as they grew up, but George was cut from a different cloth. At eighteen, he was a free-spirit who was not about to be fenced-in.

Now his mother, Adrianna Bosworth Percy, was the sister of the well-known sea captain Frederick Stead Bosworth who had sailed to many ports around the world, and was a strict taskmaster. So, when George was considered to be out of hand, her husband decided that the solution was to send his son to sea with his uncle and, thus, be brought under control. Adrianna wept and begged him to reconsider the decision to no avail.

So George was sent off to sea with Captain Bosworth aboard the Harvester. His family would not see him for many years. When he did return, George was taller, leaner, and sported a full beard. He never told anyone about his life on the high seas. Graduating from Boston Medical University, he married and moved to Salem MA to practice medicine, becoming a highly respected member of the community.

One day, after a grueling night spent with a patient, George decided to relax by going to the barber to have his beard trimmed. As he sat in the barber chair, a warm towel on his face, George succumbed to exhaustion and fell asleep. The barber thought he would take this opportunity to bring the doctor's appearance up to date. So, while George slept peacefully, the barber lathered him up and shaved the sides of his face, leaving only a goatee, and revealing a long scar down one side of the doctor's face for the whole world to see.

When George awoke he was furious. The secret he had hid so successfully from everyone for so long was a secret no more. He went home in a fury, stormed into the house and down the hall to his office. Only one problem: the housemaid saw him and thought he was an intruder. She ran screaming up the stairs to his wife Helen, breathlessly telling her that "a man with a scarred face has burst into the house and was now sitting in Dr. Percy's office."

Carefully, they both descended the stairs and approached George's office where they found him pacing up and down, fuming. Helen recognized him at once.

"George," she said. "I thought you held no secrets from me." Then she burst out laughing. "At least now I have a well-groomed, fashionable husband."

"I fail to see the humor in this situation, " her husband replied stiffly, stomping out of the room, the peals of laughter from his wife and the housemaid ringing in his ears.