"I can take you over there," he said.
"Ain't nothing to do there," the younger boy piped up.
"I know," I said. "I just want to see it."
The older boy said he could go tomorrow morning, maybe even this evening. He used the word "evening," which you don't hear kids use much anymore.
Then the two of them just walked away, "Well, tomorrow or this evening?" I said.
"I'll have to see what I have to do this evening," the older kid said.
"Where'll I find you?"
"I'll see you walking around."
"How much do you want, to take me there?"
"We'll settle that when I do it," he said, all sunglasses and self-possession. I walked around plenty, but I never saw him again.
Before leaving on the 7:30 boat the next morning, I biked down to the Driftwood General Store, the only place on Smith Island where you can get something to eat at that hour. I sat in a white plastic chair on the concrete porch, sipping orange juice and coffee and pulling the wrapper off a Tastykake as I watched the morning traffic across the street at the dark and ancient post office. After I finished my Tastykake I went into the store to talk for a few minutes with the owner, Steve Eades. I told him about my frustrated attempt to get to Tylerton, and Eades said, "You should have said something yesterday. I would have taken you over in my boat."
I left for the mainland along with four islanders, the day's mail and 2,016 live soft-shell crabs. The crabs were packed with wet seaweed in heavy cardboard boxes, 12 dozen to the box, picked up at a string of shanties the boat stopped at after leaving the Ewell town dock. It was a fine, luminous morning as I stood in the stern, crab boxes leaking on my feet, watching Ewell slip behind us as we cleared the channel called the Big Thorofare and made for the open bay. Off to port, the clapboard straggle of Rhodes Point rose above the marsh. Farther still in the same direction, isolated by tawny reeds and flat blue water, the gables and squat Methodist steeples of Tylerton shone glossy white against the sky. Unattainable Tylerton, a backwater's backwater: I wished I had been able to get there -- but it's always nice to save something for next time.
William G. Scheller last wrote for the Magazine about snowmobiling on the Gaspe Peninsula.
How To
To get there: Ferries and tour boats leave for Smith Island out of Crisfield, Md. (410-425-4471 or 410-425-5931; 410-425-2771). From the mainland side of Chesapeake Bay, tours leave in summer from Point Lookout, Md. (410-425-2771) and from Reedville, Va. (804-453-3430). To stay: On Smith Island, the Ewell Tide Inn B&B (410-425-2141) looked nice, but was booked when I was there. The air-conditioned Smith Island Motel (410-425-3321) was small and serviceable, with shared bathrooms; it opens for the season in May. The B&B in Tylerton, should you manage to get there, is called the Inn of Silent Music (410-425-3541). To eat: Ruke's has a great soft-shell crab plate and crab cakes, and the Bayside Inn (open only till 4 p.m.) puts out a buffet with a lot of Southern comfort food. There's no place open for breakfast; you either buy something the night before (the motel has a common fridge) or grab coffee and a packaged snack at the Driftwood General Store. -- W.G.S.
