8 NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
‘Cap'n Bill — Lobster Catcher.” 
Magnolia Boat-Maker and Fisherman Won't Admit He Saved “Big Bill,” 
our President, from Davy 
Jones’ Locker, But the Facts are in This Yarn. 
Cap’n Bill “aint nothin’ but an ol’ lobster-ketcher,’’ 
—he says so himself—but if it hadn’t been for Cap’n 
Bill, ‘‘Big Bill” Taft might not now be riding in the 
ear, bearing he Presidential crest, past the shack at 
Magnolia where the ol’ fisherman lives in the summer- 
time with his little grandson. As a matter of fact, ‘‘Big 
Bill,”’ had a narrow escape from Davy Jones’ locker al- 
though Cap’n Bill won’t admit that ‘‘you could put it 
just thataway.’’ 
Of course, Cap’n Bill, being ‘‘nothin’ but an ol’ 
lobster-ketcher,’? is modest, and even insists that 
‘oTwa’n’t no sech thing;’’ that Taft would have been 
President anyway,—though he ‘‘mout have got wet.’’ 
Fifteen year ago ,William Howard Taft was not as 
big, speaking generally, as he is now. He was not even 
‘*Big Bill’’ to many of the millions who have learned to 
know his smile and his ‘‘greatness.’’ But Mr. Taft, 
receiving a generous handicap from Nature in the race 
for ‘‘bigness’’ and the right to the title of ‘‘Big Bill,’’ 
has had the advantage of Rooseveltian and golfing pub- 
ilcity, while Cap’n Bill being, as before mentioned natu- 
rally modest has hidden his candle in a lobster-pot so 
that at the age of three-score-and-some he is just a hap- 
py-go-lucky fisherman with scores of friends—million- 
ou the handshake of Cap’n Bill—lobster-ketcher. 
‘*Pretty’’ may not be considered much of a word to 
use as descriptive of the weather, but to Cap’n Bill it 
pictures a pleasant, bright, nothin’-to-do sort of a day. 
So—on a ‘‘pretty’’ afternoon recently, Cap’n Bill 
sitting on the gun’! of a boat hauled up alongside his 
shanty, was aroused from a day dream of a fo’e’s’le of 
years agone, by the honk and purr of a steam touring 
ear. By the time his sand-filled eyes could pierce the 
fog of dust that had curled up behind the ear, the ma- 
chine had been stopped, and a man draped in a tweed 
suit of English walking cut and a cap to match was 
strolling up the gravel path to the little cottage where 
the Hon. William H. Moody is trying to get well enough 
to take his place on the United States Supreme -Court 
bench in the Fall. 
‘‘1’d knowed that back anywhere, anytime,’’ said 
Cap’n Bill aloud, taking his weathered hat from his 
heavy shock of greyed hair and stretching his big frame 
to its full height. 
‘“‘And that walk, too’’, he added, swinging his big 
foot over the side of the boat and leaning his elbow on 
his leg so that he might rest his bewhiskered chin in 
his hand the better to manipulate his Missouri meers- 
chaum. 
‘‘Ahoy, chum!’’ he hailed as | came away from the 
gate across from the shanty. 
‘*°Lo, Cap’n Bill,’’? I called, going to where the old 
man stood. 
‘““Wa’n’t that our President?’’ asked Cap’n Bill, and 
when | allowed he had named it, he continued: ‘‘I knew 
I couldn’t go wrong on the look on him, though as you 
can see for yourself, I only got a sight through the fog 
his wagon kicked up. 
“Tf I’d only knowed he was agoin’ to steam past here, 
I’d ’ave been standin’ up with hat off, 
‘‘But Lor!, I suppose he wouldn’t remember an old 
lobster-ketcher like me,’’ contiued Cap’n Bill after a 
pause, ‘‘would he now?’’ 
Without waiting for my opinion:on the matter he con- 
tinued in the same strain; ‘‘ You see I’m only one 0’ the 
common people and I don’t suppose I ought to expect 
that the President of the United States would remember 
an ol’ lobster-ketcher he hadn’t laid eyes for nigh onto 
fifteen year, would he now?”’ 
Cap’n Bill was working up a story and I knew that 
the only way I could get it was to keep my mouth shut 
and not be tempted by the frequent would-he-now that 
was the Cap’n’s way of keeping his listener interested. 
‘It’s wasteful o’ matches and sp’ilin’ o’ yer smoke 
ter let yer pipe go dead.”’ 
That is the Cap’n’s little hint to the one who inter- 
rupts his narrative even by request. So I kept my 
mouth shut while Cap’n Bill knocked his pipe clean, and 
then followed him into his lttle shanty. 
Motioning me to a chair he sat in his big old-fashioned 
rocker and while he carefully and slowly filled his corn- 
cob sailor-fashion, chipping his smoking from his 
pressed plug, 1 crowded my tongue-burning mixture 
into a dude briar and wonderer if I really appreciated 
a smoke. As if reading my thoughts, Cap’n Bill broke 
the silence with this bit: 
‘‘There’s a whole lot a man gets out’n an old pipe 
besides smoke.”’ 
‘‘long about fifteen year ago, there abouts, when 
Magnolia was jest as pretty but maybe not so ex- 
pensive as ’tis nowadays, old Gen’] Knox used to come 
here with his two boys,’’ began the captain. 
‘‘Now you needn’t get inquisitive about Gen’! Knox 
for that wa’n’t his name, but bein’ as how his boys is 
livin’ and are good friends o’ mine, I don’t suppose 
’twould do me any good to go tellin’ all I know. You 
scen one 0’ the sons comes here now and as he is pretty 
well known and rich, he might object to an ol’ lobster- 
ketcher braggin’ about his friendship with him. So 
we ti just make believe it don’t make no difference about 
a name, It’s near enough to Knox anyhow so that most 
anyone who remembered Magnolia when the general 
used to come here will remember the right name. 
oy was fishin’ ’round here then and ketchin’ lobsters, 
yjes’ as I am now, passing the time in the winter makin’ 
sailboats to sell to the children in the summer, jes’ like 
I am now. 
an’ helpin’ the kids learn how to swim, so ’twa’n’t 
strange for me to be called on when the Knox boys 
wanted to make up a fishin’ party. 
‘‘One day one o’ the boys came down to my place and: 
says: ‘Cap’n Bill, I want to use yer boat tomorrow for 
a fishin’ party. Will yer take us out? Judge Taft is 
here and he likes fishin’ 
‘‘Course I’ll take yer out—I don’t care who yer got 
visitin’; don’t make no difference to me. 
‘“‘Guess I didn’t know what I was talkin’ about 
though, for next day when the boys eame down they 
(Continued to page 53) 
I got to know the summer people pretty 
well, takin’ them cut fishin’ and teachin’ them to sail, 
