Flaming Pooched Eggs

From Gazette editions of June, 1935:

The scene was a Vineyard street, a parked flivver at the curb. Upon the scene appeared two pedestrians, who observed that a fire was blazing merrily in the hood of the car. One promptly ran to summon aid while the other stood near. Appeared next another car, whose driver dismounted and promptly extinguished the fire in the parked machine.

Then, with bells ringing and sirens sounding, three pieces of fire apparatus, crowded with men nerved to face a conflagration, swept into sight and dashed along the street. As the procession of fire-fighting machines disappeared, the driver of the car that had caused all the disturbance appeared, jumped into his car, and sped after the apparatus looking for the fire. And the lone pedestrian, who had witnessed all, doubled into kinks and has not quite straightened out yet.

Some time ago when the book American Speech was published, the world was informed that on Martha’s Vineyard a poached egg is called a pooched egg. We have consulted a number of veteran Vineyarders whose aggregate age can be computed in centuries, and none of them has ever heard of a pooched egg. Our Island vernacular has many individual inflections of spelling and pronunciation, many of them from the sea, some from early inhabitants, and all both expressive and strong. But what can said of the pooched egg? It means nothing, conveys no sense of scene or character, and needs strong evidence to be linked with the Island. So far such evidence is lacking.

We have no particular resentment against the phrase “pooched egg” if it belongs. But it does not seem to belong. Usually one can recognize a Vineyardism, but this is apparently not one. It is a waif, and how it got into American Speech as a child of ours is inexplicable.

Allan Kenniston of West Tisbury relates the following tale which will interest bird lovers. Mr. Kenniston, who is an authority on bird life, espied a crested flycatcher in a tree near his home recently. This bird is very rare on the Vineyard, and is but seldom seen. As large as a catbird, and crested in similar manner to the bluejay, it is quite noticeable. But its habits and tastes are even more peculiar, for the bird prefers snake skins to anything else in the construction of the lining of its nest.

Mr. Kenniston, being aware of this fact, watched the bird and discovered that it had selected one of his bird houses as a site for its summer home. Producing a snake skin, found shortly before, he laid it on the ground near the bird house and soon after Mrs. Flycatcher, espying the skin, picked it up and darted for the bird house, and with much wrestling and labor with the cumbersome object, succeeded in getting it through the opening of the house, where it will undoubtedly serve to protect a brood of little flycatchers.

A box turtle of unusual size and evident age was found last weekend by Wesley Correllus of the Middle Road, Chilmark. The turtle bore on its under shell the initials M. L. 1832 and E. C. 1912. The older date was barely distinguishable, and appeared to be as ancient as purported. The turtle was found in a locality where a turtle marked years before the Civil War has been found on several occasions since and identified by old inhabitants who know the story. Possibly this is the same turtle. Box turtles are rare on the Vineyard where once they were numerous. Charles G. Norton of North Tisbury found one recently, a handsome specimen unmarked except for the beautiful pattern of its shell. It is said that when foxes were plentiful on the Island the animals captured the turtles and, carrying them to water, would hold them beneath the surface until they drowned, when the fox would enjoy a meal of turtle. Bleached shells of these land tortoises are occasionally found around lonely little ponds.

Willis Hughes, the proprietor of a bakery, would like an answer to this one: Which way do you twist a cruller? When his baker was preparing a batch of crullers, Willis offered a criticism. “You’re twisting them the wrong way.” The baker insisted that he was absolutely right, and Willis was just as firm. “Not that it affects the taste of the cruller, but it does lower the efficiency of the workmanship, to say nothing of being contrary to nature, to twist anything to the left. All screws, pipe threads, fittings and what not are threaded with a right hand thread, unless for special jobs, and a cruller ought to be twisted to the right!” The honest baker opined that he had twisted doughnuts for decades in just that manner and be blowed if he proposed to change at his time of life. Crullers are made from dough, which is stirred first and the twisting is done in the direction the mixture is stirred, otherwise it will unmix the ingredients. And so the matter rested.

Compiled by Cynthia Meisner

library@mvgazette.com