The Mysterious Guest Read online

  “The sun has set,” said the boy wearily.

  “There’s plenty of moonlight,” the man said.

  “You must be joking,” said Thomas, frowning.

  “Are you angry?” asked the grinning owner.

  “No!” the boy said quickly. “I’m tired.”

  But the man made him return to work. He had a little rest between moonset and sunrise.

  One day, Thomas lost his temper. Shaking his fist at the owner, he cried, “Drat you and your coal!”

  “You’re angry,” said the owner, smiling. “You must now work seven years for free — or buy back your contract.”

  Trapped, the boy sobbed — positive he would die in the greedy man’s service.

  Joseph, worried about his brother, came to the mine, heard what had happened, and promised, “I’ll fix things.”

  When the owner made him the same offer, Joseph said, “The stakes aren’t high enough!”

  The owner asked, “What do you propose?”

  “If I slack off or get angry, I’ll work 14 years without pay. But if you grow angry, you must pay me $1,000 and tear up my brother’s contract.”

  Smiling, the man produced a contract they both signed.

  At dawn, the owner woke the other boys, but Joseph stayed in bed.

  “Are you slacking off?” the man demanded.

  “I saw how slowly the tired breakers work,” Joseph said. “I’m resting so I’ll work faster.”

  “Get up!” the man insisted.

  “Are you angry?” asked Joseph.

  Remembering their contract, the fellow said, “I’m just reminding you there’s work to do.”

  “I’ll start dressing,” said the boy. But he did so at a snail’s pace.

  “Hurry!” the owner cried.

  “Are you getting angry?” asked Joseph.

  “Of course not! But time’s wasting.”

  By the time they reached the mine, the others were eating lunch.

  Joseph said, “I can’t work alone. And I need strength, so I should eat.” While the owner tried to keep calm, the boy chewed slowly.

  Frustrated, the owner yelled, “It’s getting dark!”

  “Are you getting angry?” asked the boy.

  “Never!”

  “Since the sun is down and it’s a moonless night,” Joseph said, “it must be time to stop working.” Off he went to the bunkhouse.

  The next morning, the owner said to Joseph, “You’re going to be a door boy. You open the mine doors when the mule-drawn trams come through, and close them after they pass. It’s important work. The doors keep fresh air flowing in and keep back dangerous gases that could mix and cause an explosion.”

  “Yes,” said the boy, curling up in a coal tram and falling asleep.

  “What is this?” shouted the owner.

  “I need a nap to gather my strength and wits for this important job.”

  The flustered mine owner banged the tram with a hammer.

  Joseph sat up. “You seem angry,” he said.

  “I just want you to know that I am calling a short day and sending everyone home,” the man explained.

  The next day, the owner said, “I’m making you a mule-tender. You lead the mule pulling a loaded coal tram to the surface, and then return him below with the empty tram. But tend those mules as best you can. Without them, the mine closes.”

  Shortly after this, one of the miners ran up, shouting, “Your new boy has gone crazy! He’s set every mule free!”

  The owner rushed to the mine entrance, as Joseph was untying the rope that hobbled the last mule. “What have you done, you idiot?” he roared.

  “You told me to treat these mules the best I could. They are half-blind and bad-tempered from rarely seeing the sun. Fresh air, sunshine, sweet grass, and freedom from the coal tram seem best for them.”

  “Here, now!” cried the owner, grabbing the mule’s halter. But the animal kicked him into a slag heap.

  Joseph extended his hand to the man, who slapped it aside. “Are you angry, now?” he asked.

  “Of course, you fool!”

  “Then you owe me $1,000 — and my brother’s contract.”

  “It’s worth it to get rid of you!” screamed the mine owner. He shredded the brothers’ contracts and paid Joseph, and the brothers went happily on their way home.

  Charley Parkhurst’s Secret

  One of the most colorful figures during the California Gold Rush was Charley Parkhurst. He had a reputation for being the roughest, toughest, one-eyed, lantern-jawed, stagecoach driver who ever steered a six-horse team across mountains and through valleys in California — or anywhere else, for that matter!

  Folks said he drove like a maniac, but could navigate treacherous roads with unmatched skill. He could drive his horses to the limit (and jangle his passengers’ nerves along the way), often covering 60 miles a day, over muddy or flooded roads — and make the return trip. Charley’s feel for the road always brought him through safely. Once, when the team of horses suddenly veered from the road, throwing Charley from the driver’s seat, he managed to hold on to the reins and eventually steer the horses into a clump of bushes, ending the wild ride. The passengers, shaken but thankful, took up a collection and gave their driver $20.

  A horse had kicked Charley years before, blinding him in one eye and requiring him to wear an eye patch for the rest of his life. When asked how, with only one eye, he could see the road when the horses and wheels were kicking up clouds of dust, he simply said, “Don’t have to. I smell and hear it. When the wheels rattle, I know I’m on hard ground. When they don’t rattle, I look down to see if the road’s still there.”

  His skill with a whip was legendary: They said he could use his whip to snap a cigar out of a fellow’s mouth at 15 paces. Though holdups on the stagecoach lines were common, bandits learned not to tangle with Charley. One day, on a run from Oakland to San Jose, a bandit held up the stage and ordered him to throw down the Wells Fargo cash box he was carrying. Charley, who was unarmed, did what the fellow demanded. But after that, he kept a six-shooter on the seat beside him. The next time he heard the same fellow, hidden beside the road, give the same order, Charley fired into the bushes and killed a wanted criminal. Word must have spread, because no one else tried to stop a coach that Charley was driving.

  But Charley had a secret: She was a woman who pretended to be a man for almost 50 years! She was born Charlotte Parkhurst about 1812 in New Hampshire. When her parents died, she was placed in a Massachusetts orphanage, which she hated. All the children’s hair, boys’ and girls’, was cut short, so at 15 it was easy to disguise herself as a boy and run away. So the pattern for her life was set.

  She got work in some stables, where she cleaned the stalls, pitched hay, and cared for the horses. In return, she received room and board and a small salary. But she had a natural talent for working with horses, and soon became an accomplished and popular driver. She earned the title of “Whip,” for her skill in handling a team. Soon she was asked to move west by two men who were starting a stagecoach line in gold rush territory.

  She arrived in California in the early 1850s, and soon became famous throughout the Sierras as a fearless stagecoach driver. Though she was only of medium height, she had broad shoulders, a deep enough voice, and the hint of a moustache. With her boots, broad Texas hat, and gloves (which she wore even during meals), she was accepted as a man. With her face weathered by sun and wind and sporting her eye patch, no one thought otherwise.

  At night, Charley would sleep with her horses in the stable. If anyone commented on this, she’d simply say, “I get along better with horses than folks.” She took excellent care of her “babies.” And any driver who mistreated his horses would find himself facing down Charley — whose reputation for being able to handle “himself” in a fistfight was legendary.

  With the end of the Gold Rush era, Charley decided to retire after 15 years of driving coaches. She bought a stage station and ran it for a while,
then became a farmer, raising cattle. In 1868, she cast her first vote in a national election, 52 years before the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, was passed.

  Charley lived as a man until her death in 1879. It wasn’t until her body was being prepared for burial that her secret was revealed. The revelation shocked the community. People couldn’t believe she had carried on the masquerade for so long. But other drivers always remembered her fondly, as “pleasant and steady and sober” — one of the “boys” who did well. And one of the most colorful figures to emerge from the Gold Rush era.

  Gib Morgan:

  Tall Tale Teller, Tall Tale Hero

  Oilmen, from Pennsylvania to West Texas to oil fields around the world, have heard at least a few of the legends of Gilbert “Gib” Morgan. He was a real person, born in 1842 in Callensburg, Pennsylvania, not far from Titusville, where the first oil well was drilled in the United States in 1859. He died in 1909. He was a veteran of the Union Army, and a “boomer” — an oil gypsy who followed new strikes around the country.

  A natural-born storyteller, he recounted extravagant tales that starred himself. Folks recalled him as a dark-complexioned old fellow, with a heavy gray mustache, earnest blue eyes, and a sincere-sounding voice that made people half-believe some of the outlandish tales he spun. He wandered the fields of many states, accompanied by his old tomcat, Josiah, who was mean enough to run off any dog he tangled with.

  Field crews eagerly awaited Gib’s visits, watching for the figure in high leather boots, jeans, blue flannel shirt, and scruffy black derby perched on the side of his head. When they gathered in the evening to relax, Gib sat in the center of things and recounted his adventures, such as the time he built the biggest rig in the world.

  According to Gib, there was a patch of Texas soil that the “rockhounds,” who scouted likely spots for oil wells, felt was oil-rich. However, the best drilling crews couldn’t make a hole to draw the crude out. The ground was too soft, and kept falling into the well. The drillers used a bit, or cutting tool, to make the hole, and then they lowered lengths of pipe to hold up the sides. But each time they lowered another section of pipe, it would have to be narrower than the previous one, so the bits had to keep being smaller as they bored deeper into the earth. Finally, the pipe was so narrow, they could no longer lower the cable and bit (what was called the “string of tools”). At last, the frustrated boss asked for Gib’s help.

  First, Gib ordered special tools — some big, some little. Then he started work on the rig itself. The derrick covered an acre of ground. “I figgered the work was likely to take a long time,” he said, “so I shingled the outside and plastered the inside, hung pictures, and moved in furniture. By the time it was done, the rig was so tall I had to hinge the top part so it could fold over and let the Moon by. Since it took 14 days to climb to the top to work, I built bunkhouses fer the men to sleep in on their way up or down.”

  Gib started drilling using his biggest drills, and then he used smaller and smaller bits, as the workers shored up the sides of the hole. By the time he reached the 2,000-foot level, he was using the smallest of his new tools, which slid down one-inch tubing. But then he found that the last part of the hole he’d drilled, when lined with tubing, was too narrow for even his smallest bit.

  “That didn’t stop me,” Gib boasted. “I brought in the well with a needle and thread. Soon’s I poked that needle into the oil sand, the gas pressure pushed the oil up the borehole, and ‘black gold’ gushed from the top of the rig. Luckily, I’d put a real sturdy roof on the derrick, or that oil woulda shot a hole in the sky.”

  Then he added, “With some of the money I got, I built a hotel 40 stories high with narrow-gauge railroads on each floor to take guests from the elevators to their rooms. Since most folks like south and east exposures, I put that hotel on a turntable, so ever’body got to face those directions at least part of the time.”

  One of his favorite stories was about Strickie, the boa constrictor Gib supposedly found on a drilling expedition to South America. Drilling had stopped because Gib had used up 10,000 feet of cable drilling a deep well, and he was waiting for more cable from the United States. The minute he saw the boa, which was about 20 blocks long, Gib got an idea. He had his men haul the snake back to the rig, where he used him as replacement cable. This was the start of their friendship. Gib kept the snake well fed and well cared for. A grateful Strickie slept in front of Gib’s bunkhouse door, guarding him at night. If Strickie’s length wasn’t quite enough, the snake would obligingly shed his skin, thus doubling the length of cable, and letting the men finish a well.

  Though he was a man of average height and weight, Gib claimed to have done many things that were on a giant scale. Once, he said, he used a spool of drilling cable for a line, a steamboat anchor for a hook, and a steer for bait, to catch a catfish so big that the water level in the river dropped two feet when he reeled it in. He boasted that he had a horse named Torpedo that was 22 yards long. “Never turned him around,” Gib said. “Just threw him into reverse.”

  One of his greatest achievements, he said, was building what was then the biggest pipeline in the country. It ran from Philadelphia to New York. When asked if he made money on the pipeline, Gib would sigh and say, “Lost ever’ cent. I invested in the polka-dot business, and made a barrel of money. Then a feller invented the square polka dot. Pretty soon ever’one wanted those new-fangled dots, and I went bust.”

  For generations of oil workers, the stories of Gib Morgan have been retold and added to. They continue to survive as a colorful bit of American folklore.

  • About the author •

  Robert D. San Souci has been contributing retellings of folktales – including numerous tales from regional America – to magazines in the Cobblestone Publishing Group for many years. He has published many award-winning adaptations of this folk literature, including The Talking Eggs: A Folktale from the American South (illustrated by Jerry Pinkney), a Caldecott and Coretta Scott King Honor Book; Two Bear Cubs: A Miwok Tale from California’s Yosemite Valley (illustrated by Daniel San Souci), named Best Children’s Book by the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association; and Cut from the Same Cloth: American Women of Myth, Legend, and Tall Tale (illustrated by Brian Pinkney), winner of the Aesop Prize given by the Children’s Folklore Section of the American Folklore Society. The author currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

  • Other books by Robert D. San Souci •

  Dare to Be Scared: Thirteen Stories to Chill and Thrill

  by Robert D. San Souci

  illustrated by David Ouimet

  These thirteen original scary stories for kids ages 8 to 12 include ghost tales, “jump” stories, dark fantasy, and science fiction, all set in contemporary situations that will seem hauntingly familiar to young readers.

  Check it out here: Dare to be Scared: Thirteen Stories to Chill and Thrill

  Double-Dare to Be Scared: Another Thirteen Chilling Tales

  by Robert D. San Souci

  illustrated by David Ouimet

  What’s creepier than being lost in the woods all alone? How about being lost in those woods, and sensing you are not alone? San Souci has spun another 13 masterful tales to keep nightlights glowing across the country.

  Check it out here: Double-Dare to Be Scared: Another Thirteen Chilling Tales

  Triple-Dare to Be Scared

  by Robert D. San Souci

  illustrated by David Ouimet

  Thirteen more spine-tingling tales draw readers into the life of a young person like themselves just as fate brings the characters face to face with the supernatural. Each story hurtles through twists and turns toward an unexpected, open-ended conclusion much more compelling than a traditional trail of terror.

  Check it out here: Triple-Dare to Be Scared

  Dare to Be Scared 4

  by Robert D. San Souci

  illustrated by David Ouimet

  Kids will quiver with terror as they
learn what’s really behind the closed doors of the Principal’s Office or on the railroad tracks at dusk in Heading Home. You don’t even want to know what happens to thirteen-year-old Peter after moonrise in Michigan. And that’s just a taste of the scares and dares lurking between the covers of Dare to Be Scared 4!

  Check it out here: Dare to Be Scared 4

  More great eBooks from Cricket Media

  The Realm of Imagination: Favorite Stories from CRICKET

  Enter the Realm of Imagination with 30 exciting tales of adventure, fantasy, and contemporary fiction from the pages of CRICKET magazine. Enhanced by comments from Cricket’s rambunctious and beloved bug characters, these stories will excite your imagination and curiosity—and often, make you laugh

  Young Heroes of the North and South

  Uncover the little known story of the contributions and sacrifices of American children during the Civil War. Meet the young people who served as spies, marched into battle as drummer boys, and helped nurse wounded soldiers. Brimming with photos and illustrations, Young Heroes of the North and South is drawn from the pages of COBBLESTONE, the award-winning American History magazine for young history buffs.

  The Mysterious Guest: Folktales from Across America

  by Cobblestone Magazine Group

  The stories in this collection were first published in FACES, a magazine for ages ten and up.

  Editor: Elizabeth Carpentiere

  Digital design by Joshua Banks

  © 2011 Carus Publishing Company

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Cobblestone Publishing, 30 Grove Street, Peterborough, NH 03458.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-8126-2795-4

  ISBN-10: 0-8126-2795-4

  Carus Publishing Company

  30 Grove Street