How Captain Kept Cool
The Hotter it Got the More Flannel Shirts He'd Wear.
"There used to be an Old fellow down in Onancock, 'way down on the eastern shore of Virginia," said a man who was born and lived the greater part of his life in that salt water region, "who knew how to keep cool in the very hottest weather. Yes, even when the mercury was boiling and tumbling about the century mark, just as it has been doing up here this summer, old Capt'n 'Billy" Williams was always as cool as a cucumber. When everybody else in the country was stretched out in the shade somewhere gasping for air, Capt'n Billy would be moving about his truck farm and talking about the laziness of some people.
"No, sir; he didn't make any secret about his method of keeping cool. It was just the opposite. He was a kindhearted man and wanted to see everybody comfortable. His plan was to wear always a thick red flannel undershirt, and every time the weather became what you might call distressingly hot Capt'n 'Billy' would put on an extra undershirt. He had an idea that it was lucky to wear red flannel, and I have seen the capt'n working around the wharf (for he was the captain of a fine packet, as well as a truck farmer) with four red flannel undershirts on.
"The old man didn't often get riled, for he was an even-tempered sort of fellow. He did mix up things, though, when he did get mad, and if curses and anathemas would consign a man to eternal torment, when Capt'n Billy opened up on him he was a doomed man, sure enough.
"Around about Onancock and the adjacent waters tributary to the Chesapeake, about the time I am talking about, the folks never saw a steamboat, at least in that section of Virginia; but one day there came puffing and blowing up the river a concern with a smokestack and sending out smoke that was blacker than any thunder cloud that I ever saw. Some of the country people who had gathered in great numbers to see the stranger got as scared as Robinson Crusoe was when he saw that nigger foot in the sand. They were afraid it might blow up and kill somebody.
"Capt'n Billy didn't share this apprehension. He had seen such boats in Baltimore. He got mad, though, because he could see in it some mean Yankee trick to interfere with his packet trade. The boat was called the Maria something, and as her hull was painted black, the packet captain named her the 'Black Maria,' and said so many things about her captain and mate and all the crew that some the pious Methodists came very near to talking to him in the meeting house on the next Sunday.
"There wasn't an evil wish that the old man didn't wish for the strange boat, but after he got through cussin', he went to work and gathered a whole cargo of truck to carry to Baltimore. The steamboat man got busy himself and got a lot also, promising to get it to market quicker than the sailboat could.
"They sailed the same day on a very hot morning. The newcomer's captain was tortured with the heat and as nervous and fidgety as a pea on a griddle. Captain Billy had on two extra red flannel undershirts, and was as clam as anyone could be. He took along two extra undershirts for luck. The steamer got away two hours ahead of the Onancock skipper and the church members gathered and prayed that Captain Billy might be forgotten for his sins and win the race to Baltimore.
"In about ten days Captain Billy's boat loomed up in the distance. She was coming up 'wing and wing,' and before long she was tied up at the wharf.
"Where's the Black Maria?'" was about the first question that met the captain. "I beat her to Baltimore about eight hours, but she's coming back for another cargo," he said, and he started out to give her another volley of bad wishes, but he saw the preacher in the crowd, and sheered off into mild language. But his ill wishes came true. The steamboat stuck her nose into a mud bank coming up the river, and she died there. So the old fellow's maledictions worked all right, and the red flannel undershirts gave him luck as was surely proven by his sailing packet beating the steamboat to Baltimore.