The Enchanted Mouse... The Enchanted Mouse
The Enchanted Mouse
Inthe early days of Eastham, when the menfolk were concerned with the business of the sea, there lived a Captain Jed Knowles and his young, lovely, and devoted bride. The captain was a fine figure of a man. Mrs. Knowles, for all her beauty and sweet womanliness, was strange indeed, for they said that she had strange supernatural powers.
Mrs. Knowles was devoted to her sailing husband, and, as did many of old time Cape wives, sailed with him on several of his voyages. When love was young, and absence unbearable, Captain Knowles liked to have his wife along with him, but the objections of the crew, who, according to the best sea superstition, believed that a woman aboard was bad luck, soon added to his misgivings about taking her along. Besides, time was not kind to the temper of Mrs. Knowles, and she soon became not a pleasure to have along, but rather a bother. The captain soon decided that such companion voyages must cease.
For several voyages now, Captain Knowles, undergreat opposition and argument from his good wife, had succeeded in sailing without her.
On one occasion, however, when the captain was to leave for an extensive voyage, his wife once more requested that she be allowed to accompany him. The answer was a firm negative, and much to the captain’s surprise and delight, Mrs. Knowles did not demur, and offered no argument to his decision. And this quick change about fooled the unsuspecting seaman, for he underestimated the power of a woman, especially the strange power of his own wife.
On the day of departure, Mrs. Knowles bade her husband a fond goodbye at the door of their home. The captain went down to the docks, weighed anchor, and was on his way. He did not know, however, that a tiny mouse had followed him aboard close at his heels.
Three days out at sea, the captain got a report from the cook that cheese and other like supplies were being nibbled upon by what was certainly a mouse. The captain, who prided himself on a clean and rodent-free ship, directed him to set poison for the scavenger, and thought no more of the matter.
But the captain did not rest easy. His sleep was disturbed upon many occasions by a rustling, scampering noise in his cabin. When he arose and lit his lamp, he was stunned to see, sitting on the foot of his bunk, a tiny mouse, seemingly unafraid and serene, looking straight at him. This happened night after night, and the captain became quite fond of the little creature. But when upon one occasion, he found that the mouse had eaten up a midnight supper, and gnawed upon his log book, as well as starting to scamper up and down the bed while the captain was asleep, hechanged his mind. Taking up his whip, he struck the little mouse with it, killing it, and tossed it out of his porthole.
When the captain returned home, he opened the door to find his wife dead on the floor in a pool of sea water with the mark of a whiplash across her face.
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