Old Plantation Neck and the Big Pond, Now Cape Charles Harbor, Part 4
About this time a blockade runner "turned up" just from the Eastern Shore late one afternoon and rang the door bell at a private house in Richmond, where three of the boys boarded. They (there was more than one of them) were always welcome, for they brought boxes, letters and news from home. He (this one) remained for supper. At the supper table that night were three charming young ladies, daughters of the gentleman, who was a widower, and kept house for their father. During supper, when Captain _____ talked interestingly of what was going on over on the Eastern Shore, suddenly looked across the table just opposite him and said: "Oh, I forgot to tell you, Mr. _____ that I saw your wife and little boy a day or two ago, they were both well."
The young lady who was pouring coffee at the time came near dropping the coffee pot. It made a flutter, and though there was much smiling and some blushing, it passed off quietly and there was no discussion of the matter at the table.
The young man and young lady most interested, did not meet that night, but next morning as he crossed the hall they met; she looked straight at him with the suspicion of a twinkle in the corner of her eye and said: "I always thought you were a married man."
The young man looking her square in the eye replied: "Indeed, that is a compliment, for married men are always more refined and thoughtful of ladies, having been so taught by their wives." Her reply came quick, thus: "Then, I know you are not a married man."
The captain was put up to this and acted his part first rate. He enjoyed a joke, and sometimes showed his jocose acumen with the Federals, illustrative of what the Irishmen said of the insect: "Put your finger on him and he isn't there."
On one occasion he landed along the shore near the place the gunboat shelled so sharply on Old Plantation, arranged his boat among others so as not to be suspicioned, then struck out across the country to the main county road; he did not get far along this road when he was halted by a squad of Federal cavalry who said: "We are looking for the blockade runner Captain _____ do you know him and can you tell us anything of him? We are told this is about the time he is expected to land and somewhere near the place he sometimes lands."
His reply was: "I do not know him, but have heard of him. I think if you will go to the house Old Plantation where Mr. ----- lives, take him aside, he will tell you if he knows, and all he knows about him. In inquiring where this man lives do not say what you want with him, but see the man himself privately."
"Thank you," said the cavalryman, "won't you take a drink?" passing a bottle to the captain who gave it a long and a strong pull with the parting words "good bye and good luck to you." "Same to you," said the cavalryman and rode off.
The war, though so long continued, like everything else, had come to an end, and the locality suggestive of this talk passed into the hands of W. L. Scott of Erie, Pa., a few years after it ceased, whose spirit of improvement astounded the foxes and birds of the air of the vicinity, and, as to "ye old time fellows" who loved so well the voice of nature and delighted so much in her capers, they love Cape Charles City (a monument of the keen sightedness of its founder) no less, only it is hard to forget that old time music which nature used to play on her harp of countless strings around about there.
But the times have changed and the people with them. Where the foxes, coons, 'possums and wild fowl had camping ground and their carnivals a smart city has sprung up (Cape Charles City), the terminus of a double track railway, connecting North with everywhere. A line of palace steamers with polite and accommodating officers connects South at Norfolk and Old Point with lines east, west, north and south. From the docks of this little city are shipped (in season) daily over 10,000 barrels of potatoes as one item along this railway line. This section of Virginia (the Eastern Shore) is called the garden spot of the State, where nature has, with lavish hand, thrown broad cast her blessings, and not the least among them are healthful air and the purest of water. No part of the Old Dominion is more beautiful. With cleanliness of environments supplemented by the use of plenty of lime and proper drainage, this section will, in the near future, become a resort for invalids, where nature will do the work of restoration to health apart from medical art.
Could ye old time denizens of this vicinage about which we have been so long talking stand here today they, with us, would make their obeisance and with one accord exclaim, "It's all for the best," while from the distance would come the declaration of Capt. John Smith as a reminder of what he said nearly three hundred years ago, concerning the industrious people of the Eastern Shore: "I told you so."