Urban Legend
When you live in the New England countryside it's nearly a law that you adore Halloween. It was certainly that way in 1963 when Pamela was 15. Young people in the 60's had a double dose of bloodrush going on. 15 at the threshold of being a full blown teenager and this life event taking place as the infamous 1960's were just picking up steam. A heady combination. So much so, even teens living off the beaten track were not immune. They gave their parents instructions to bring them things from the city when returning from work or the supermarket. The latest Bob Dylan record or a magazine with a multi-page spread on the British Invasion. Turn tables rotated constantly and phone lines buzzed.
It has always been recognized that country kids matured early. After being cooped up at home on a back country road with just your immediate family, by 12 or 13 you were pretty well itching to broaden your horizons. So you found a group to join in at the new Regional Highschool which included some members old enough to drive. In order to do this Pam cultivated a mature look and reputation early on. Fall of school year '63 found Pam settled in to the tenth grade. If you were at all pretty, which Pam was, you already had a boyfriend. This didn't mean an awful lot yet, other than you were cool enough to get a boyfriend or vice versa for the boys.
Pam was on the cheer squad and her boyfriend Rob was on all the ball teams. Poster children for their type. There was another type that during this historical period enjoyed an unusual popularity. The Bohemian who would morph into the Hippie. There is always an "artistic" faction among teenagers. They dress in black and mope while being painters, writers or musicians. They contemplate death and worry their parents, who try to decide if they are playacting or truly suicidal.
At the highschool this year, the beat group is almost edging out the jocks. The times they are a-changing! A strange un-voiced competition for popularity ran an undercurrent through school activities.
Claire was on the other team from Pam, even though they had been country neighbors; living a half mile apart; since they were little. It's interesting to witness the unspoken way things like clique politics work themselves out between teenagers. While Pam and Claire remained friends in the neighborhood, at school they each drifted off into their own peer groups. Claire was in all the art classes she could fit into her schedule. She wanted to be a painter. She didn't think she was very good, but she kept at it. As Pam was pretty, Claire was plain. A little chubby. Her baby fat never left as people kept promising her it would.
The beats had a tendency to conduct their social life in groups rather than couples. Even so after a while they would pair off because they wanted to explore their sexuality and we weren't quite into the whole free love thing just yet. Claire found her counterpart in the art room. Thomas was a good painter. He was from a farming family and the real ideal of who would evolve into a Hippie. They made a good pair, not ultra popular by jock standards; but well liked and included.
The school year was well underway. Students and teachers settled in. Days were growing shorter and colder. By mid-October houses up and down the country roads were sprouting Halloween decorations. Pumpkins and hay bales and mums. Paper cut outs in windows and Indian Corn tied to doors and lamp posts. Every year stories would circulate about scary events that had taken place in the rural surroundings.
"There is a rock on our farm that has a Witch's footprint in it" Thomas was telling a group in the art room. " Four generations ago my family bought the farm from the Haskell family who had owned it since colonial times. The Haskells proudly told the new owners of the rock they had purchased and it's attending legend."
"It seems one Mercy Brewer had been run out of Boston colony because she was suspected of being a Witch. Her transgression was stealing a baby for what was thought to be a ritual sacrifice. Truth of it was she did indeed steal a baby from it's cradle, in a neighboring town, in the dark of night. Her intent was not to harm the child, but to return to Boston claiming that the babe was hers and the product of an affair with a well respected magistrate, who had a wife already. She had hoped that the ensuing scandal would dissolve his marriage and she could have him and the babe for her own. What she didn't count on was the wife's refusal to give up her husband and more so, her life style. Nor the denial of the Magistrate as to the affair with her. Instead he used his influence to have her banished from Boston by trumping up the " baby sacrifice " tale.
Cast out, she took the babe and fled south to Middleborough. There she was taken in by the original owners of the farm as a farm hand."
Now of course you would have to be more than a bit unstable to trump up such a plan to begin with and her ensuing plight made her seethe with rage every time she thought about it. Her anger clouded her thinking further and she began to think perhaps the powers of darkness could help her exact revenge on the magistrate. She would wonder the woods behind the cow pen and sit on a table rock and ponder a plan.
"There must be something to this witch stuff or there wouldn't be such an uproar over it. Perhaps the Devil would help me." The more time went by the more obsessed she became with revenge. The last night of October she again took the sleeping babe from it's cradle and carried it to the rock in the woods. She laid it on the table rock and began to walk circles around it muttering curses she had invented in her head.
"Take this babe I beg of you and in exchange for this life strike down the Magistrate who betrayed me!" She kept repeating this plea and walking faster and faster around the rock. The child just lay there not even crying- just watching her.
As her ranting reached a crescendo, she grabbed a rock from the ground, jumped upon the table rock and held it above the baby's head. Just as she was about to fulfill the curse a mighty lightening bolt smote her down into a vapor.
The next morning the farmer and his wife went searching for the missing girl and her baby. The wife had become very attached to the baby and had prayed for some way to have it be her own. Finally they came to the table rock and saw a bundle there. Running to it, fearing the worst, they saw the baby was alive and sleeping. Just beside it was a pile of blackened ash burnt blacker than coal. The farmers wife lifted the child tenderly in her arms. The farmer, curious, brushed at the ash on the rock. He felt of it and bent to smell it. It smelled so acrid he reacted by sweeping it to the ground. Beneath the ash, burnt into the rock was a clear footprint. Small and in the shape of a woman's boot sole.
It was so burnt into the rock face it has lasted all these years and every Halloween it turns black black again. There is a legend that says if a pregnant girl steps upon the print she will not be able to remove her foot until the adulterer is punished."
"That's just a story!!!" the listeners said.
"Well you can think that if you want or better yet come see it for yourselves !" said Thomas, thinking it would be a good hoot for Halloween.
And so a Halloween field trip was planned. The story spread like wildfire through the school. Before long kids from all the different social sets were making plans to converge on the woods of Thomas' farm.
Pam had just confided to Claire that she was pregnant. No one else knew yet. Not Rob and certainly not her parents.
"This can't be happening to me!" "I can't have a baby--what about college?"
"Well if you really don't want it, you'll have to have your parents send you away to get rid of it." 'They'd probably rather do that than have everyone know you got pregnant."
"You're probably right there knowing them." "Swear you won't tell a soul."
"Of course-- I would never--you know I love you like a sister." "What are you going to do about the Witch Rock Halloween party?"
"Why?"
"Well you know the legend says...."
"Claire don't be ridiculous!" "That's just a Halloween story and an excuse for a party."
The week before Halloween the excitement grew. There was to be a bon fire in the field and food and drink was being trucked in for the party. It really seemed group politics had been put aside for this uniting event.
Halloween night was perfect, not too cold. At dusk everyone started pulling their cars and trucks onto the hayfield. Hamburgers sizzled- music blared- lots of Rolling Stones. The beer keg was tapped and plenty of doobies made the rounds. Around nine o'clock the bonfire was lit. People started telling Ghost stories to get people in the mood for the hike.
Claire and Thomas had been busy keeping things at a manageable level of revelry. At eleven o'clock Thomas jumped up on the back of his pickup truck.
"O.K. Everyone.... we're heading out. It's about a mile so stay on the trail. Don't wonder off ...there are wild dogs back there...." He knew he was wasting his effort but had to at least try. "Use flashlights!!!...no fires!!
And so the procession began. Much laughter and drunken stumbling. At various spots along the trail spooks jumped out to wild shreeks.
Finally at the rock, Thomas lit the TIKI Torches he had placed in a circle around it. The rock was about six feet by four feet. and sure enough, there towards the back side was the footprint plain as day, or should we say night. The girls touched it in awe. The boys scraped at it to see if it were freshly painted. Little stone steps had been placed beside it and the procession across the rock began. All the girls walked across- some holding their breath- and placed their foot on the print. When they didn't stick they jumped off the back side and their boyfriends gave cheers and pats on the back.
Pam hopped up on the rock, turning to give Claire a sly smile. At the stroke of midnight she gave one long hop and her right foot came down on the print. A loud rumble crossed the sky and when she would have naturally completed the motion of landing on her left foot she crumpled to the stone. Her right foot would not budge. Lightening pierced the sky with another loud crack, leaving the smell of sulpher in the air. Pam was out cold with fright. Girls screamed for real this time. The boys tried to pry her foot loose. After the midnight hour passed the foot released and a badly shaken group of young people straggled back to their vehicles.
"WOW That was awesome!!!" was the word around the halls before first class the next morning. The light of day made the whole thing not so scary. No one saw Pam or Rob.
The students for first period civics class opened the classroom door and stopped in their tracks. The smoldering remains of Mr Jenkins was strewn across his desk.
Happy Halloween Everyone!!!
It has always been recognized that country kids matured early. After being cooped up at home on a back country road with just your immediate family, by 12 or 13 you were pretty well itching to broaden your horizons. So you found a group to join in at the new Regional Highschool which included some members old enough to drive. In order to do this Pam cultivated a mature look and reputation early on. Fall of school year '63 found Pam settled in to the tenth grade. If you were at all pretty, which Pam was, you already had a boyfriend. This didn't mean an awful lot yet, other than you were cool enough to get a boyfriend or vice versa for the boys.
Pam was on the cheer squad and her boyfriend Rob was on all the ball teams. Poster children for their type. There was another type that during this historical period enjoyed an unusual popularity. The Bohemian who would morph into the Hippie. There is always an "artistic" faction among teenagers. They dress in black and mope while being painters, writers or musicians. They contemplate death and worry their parents, who try to decide if they are playacting or truly suicidal.
At the highschool this year, the beat group is almost edging out the jocks. The times they are a-changing! A strange un-voiced competition for popularity ran an undercurrent through school activities.
Claire was on the other team from Pam, even though they had been country neighbors; living a half mile apart; since they were little. It's interesting to witness the unspoken way things like clique politics work themselves out between teenagers. While Pam and Claire remained friends in the neighborhood, at school they each drifted off into their own peer groups. Claire was in all the art classes she could fit into her schedule. She wanted to be a painter. She didn't think she was very good, but she kept at it. As Pam was pretty, Claire was plain. A little chubby. Her baby fat never left as people kept promising her it would.
The beats had a tendency to conduct their social life in groups rather than couples. Even so after a while they would pair off because they wanted to explore their sexuality and we weren't quite into the whole free love thing just yet. Claire found her counterpart in the art room. Thomas was a good painter. He was from a farming family and the real ideal of who would evolve into a Hippie. They made a good pair, not ultra popular by jock standards; but well liked and included.
The school year was well underway. Students and teachers settled in. Days were growing shorter and colder. By mid-October houses up and down the country roads were sprouting Halloween decorations. Pumpkins and hay bales and mums. Paper cut outs in windows and Indian Corn tied to doors and lamp posts. Every year stories would circulate about scary events that had taken place in the rural surroundings.
"There is a rock on our farm that has a Witch's footprint in it" Thomas was telling a group in the art room. " Four generations ago my family bought the farm from the Haskell family who had owned it since colonial times. The Haskells proudly told the new owners of the rock they had purchased and it's attending legend."
"It seems one Mercy Brewer had been run out of Boston colony because she was suspected of being a Witch. Her transgression was stealing a baby for what was thought to be a ritual sacrifice. Truth of it was she did indeed steal a baby from it's cradle, in a neighboring town, in the dark of night. Her intent was not to harm the child, but to return to Boston claiming that the babe was hers and the product of an affair with a well respected magistrate, who had a wife already. She had hoped that the ensuing scandal would dissolve his marriage and she could have him and the babe for her own. What she didn't count on was the wife's refusal to give up her husband and more so, her life style. Nor the denial of the Magistrate as to the affair with her. Instead he used his influence to have her banished from Boston by trumping up the " baby sacrifice " tale.
Cast out, she took the babe and fled south to Middleborough. There she was taken in by the original owners of the farm as a farm hand."
Now of course you would have to be more than a bit unstable to trump up such a plan to begin with and her ensuing plight made her seethe with rage every time she thought about it. Her anger clouded her thinking further and she began to think perhaps the powers of darkness could help her exact revenge on the magistrate. She would wonder the woods behind the cow pen and sit on a table rock and ponder a plan.
"There must be something to this witch stuff or there wouldn't be such an uproar over it. Perhaps the Devil would help me." The more time went by the more obsessed she became with revenge. The last night of October she again took the sleeping babe from it's cradle and carried it to the rock in the woods. She laid it on the table rock and began to walk circles around it muttering curses she had invented in her head.
"Take this babe I beg of you and in exchange for this life strike down the Magistrate who betrayed me!" She kept repeating this plea and walking faster and faster around the rock. The child just lay there not even crying- just watching her.
As her ranting reached a crescendo, she grabbed a rock from the ground, jumped upon the table rock and held it above the baby's head. Just as she was about to fulfill the curse a mighty lightening bolt smote her down into a vapor.
The next morning the farmer and his wife went searching for the missing girl and her baby. The wife had become very attached to the baby and had prayed for some way to have it be her own. Finally they came to the table rock and saw a bundle there. Running to it, fearing the worst, they saw the baby was alive and sleeping. Just beside it was a pile of blackened ash burnt blacker than coal. The farmers wife lifted the child tenderly in her arms. The farmer, curious, brushed at the ash on the rock. He felt of it and bent to smell it. It smelled so acrid he reacted by sweeping it to the ground. Beneath the ash, burnt into the rock was a clear footprint. Small and in the shape of a woman's boot sole.
It was so burnt into the rock face it has lasted all these years and every Halloween it turns black black again. There is a legend that says if a pregnant girl steps upon the print she will not be able to remove her foot until the adulterer is punished."
"That's just a story!!!" the listeners said.
"Well you can think that if you want or better yet come see it for yourselves !" said Thomas, thinking it would be a good hoot for Halloween.
And so a Halloween field trip was planned. The story spread like wildfire through the school. Before long kids from all the different social sets were making plans to converge on the woods of Thomas' farm.
Pam had just confided to Claire that she was pregnant. No one else knew yet. Not Rob and certainly not her parents.
"This can't be happening to me!" "I can't have a baby--what about college?"
"Well if you really don't want it, you'll have to have your parents send you away to get rid of it." 'They'd probably rather do that than have everyone know you got pregnant."
"You're probably right there knowing them." "Swear you won't tell a soul."
"Of course-- I would never--you know I love you like a sister." "What are you going to do about the Witch Rock Halloween party?"
"Why?"
"Well you know the legend says...."
"Claire don't be ridiculous!" "That's just a Halloween story and an excuse for a party."
The week before Halloween the excitement grew. There was to be a bon fire in the field and food and drink was being trucked in for the party. It really seemed group politics had been put aside for this uniting event.
Halloween night was perfect, not too cold. At dusk everyone started pulling their cars and trucks onto the hayfield. Hamburgers sizzled- music blared- lots of Rolling Stones. The beer keg was tapped and plenty of doobies made the rounds. Around nine o'clock the bonfire was lit. People started telling Ghost stories to get people in the mood for the hike.
Claire and Thomas had been busy keeping things at a manageable level of revelry. At eleven o'clock Thomas jumped up on the back of his pickup truck.
"O.K. Everyone.... we're heading out. It's about a mile so stay on the trail. Don't wonder off ...there are wild dogs back there...." He knew he was wasting his effort but had to at least try. "Use flashlights!!!...no fires!!
And so the procession began. Much laughter and drunken stumbling. At various spots along the trail spooks jumped out to wild shreeks.
Finally at the rock, Thomas lit the TIKI Torches he had placed in a circle around it. The rock was about six feet by four feet. and sure enough, there towards the back side was the footprint plain as day, or should we say night. The girls touched it in awe. The boys scraped at it to see if it were freshly painted. Little stone steps had been placed beside it and the procession across the rock began. All the girls walked across- some holding their breath- and placed their foot on the print. When they didn't stick they jumped off the back side and their boyfriends gave cheers and pats on the back.
Pam hopped up on the rock, turning to give Claire a sly smile. At the stroke of midnight she gave one long hop and her right foot came down on the print. A loud rumble crossed the sky and when she would have naturally completed the motion of landing on her left foot she crumpled to the stone. Her right foot would not budge. Lightening pierced the sky with another loud crack, leaving the smell of sulpher in the air. Pam was out cold with fright. Girls screamed for real this time. The boys tried to pry her foot loose. After the midnight hour passed the foot released and a badly shaken group of young people straggled back to their vehicles.
"WOW That was awesome!!!" was the word around the halls before first class the next morning. The light of day made the whole thing not so scary. No one saw Pam or Rob.
The students for first period civics class opened the classroom door and stopped in their tracks. The smoldering remains of Mr Jenkins was strewn across his desk.
Happy Halloween Everyone!!!
posted by minniepeckham at 10:00 AM
1 Comments:
Thanks for giving me a comment! Glad you enjoyed my story. minnie
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