On the Back Side of Sabbathday Lake

"On the Back Side of Sabbathday Lake"

By Jennifer Wixson

All Hallow's Eve message for the Norway and W. Paris UU Churches 

October 27, 2013

READINGS:

"Hallowe'en" by Hezekiah Butterworth, 1895 

"Little Orphant Annie" by James Whitcomb Riley*

When we were young, Mother used to read to us four kids before she tucked us into bed at night. We'd all gather 'round her old stuffed chair in the living room, decked out in our flannel nightgowns or homemade cotton PJs - my youngest brother Wes, of course, always claiming the privileged position in Mom's lap - and she would pick a poem or a story to read aloud, perhaps something by Holman Day or a perhaps a selection from her well-worn anthology. One of my personal favorites was "Little Orphant Annie," which I loved to hear her read even though it scared the bejesus out of me, especially in the fall when the days darkened early and the temperature began to drop. I could almost hear the "crickets quit" and feel the lightning bugs and dew get "squenched" away. But safe in the family nest, I enjoyed the thrill of closing my eyes and imagining I was one of those children listening to Little Orphant Annie's witch tales: "An' the goblins will get you ef you don't watch out!"

I never really believed in goblins or witches growing up. However, I never really DISbelieved in them, either! And so I tried to follow Annie's Golden Rule lest I become one of those children who gets snatched through the ceiling unexpectedly never to be heard from again. While parents of today might decry Annie's teaching tactics - scaring the bejesus out of kids - her underlying message harkens directly back to the old time teachings of Jesus: respect your parents; love one another, and help the poor. Thus, without ever cracking the Bible, I was instilled from birth with the theology of the New Testament by the roundabout way of Little Orphant Annie.

When I was in my late 20s and early 30s, I had the good fortune to rent a log cabin situated on the back side of Sabbathday Lake in New Gloucester. The year-round cabin, which had rights to the clear, beautiful water, was perched on a ridge almost directly across from the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village. The rent was incredibly cheap for lakefront properties, even cheaper than an apartment in the downtown slums of downtown Lewiston or Auburn. I found out later that our landlord had dropped the rent especially for us because she had wanted to irritate her posh and snotty neighbors and my live-in boyfriend at the time was-a drummer for a rock 'n roll band. Needless to say, my landlord was successful.

But the drummer didn't last, and I was eventually left alone on the back side of Sabbathday Lake. I worked in a bar mixing drinks at night and wrote novels during the day. I belonged to a writer's group, the New Gloucester Writer's Cabal, and this would have been an altogether uneventful time in my life except, except ... except that strange things occurred on the back side of Sabbathday Lake, strange things not unlike those tales that Orphant Annie told about.

First off, was the black cat. This wily, scrawny creature with a pathetic and eerie howl appeared on my deck out of nowhere one day. The black cat stuck around for a week or so and then simply disappeared. The scenario was repeated multiple times, and I began to wonder if someone was trying to send me some sort of cryptic message. More likely, though, the black cat was visiting all of the homes in the area and being "adopted" at each one. I spoke to some of my neighbors about the mysterious black cat; however, to my surprise, no one else had seen it but me.

Second, my writer's group, the New Gloucester Writer's Cabal, was, well, strange. I had never heard of the term, "Cabal," and so before I attended my first invitational meeting I looked the word up in the dictionary. "Cabal" turned out to describe a sort of secret type of gathering. Witches, in fact, were said to have cabals. The definition did not unnerve me - writers are notorious for exaggeration, after all - but when I got there and found that the group was meeting by candlelight in the fourth floor attic of an 18th century home and that there was a good deal of herbal smoking going on. I must admit I was shaken. I stayed, of course, although I didn't inhale. Not then, anyway.