Didgeridoo Hoax or Otherworldly Portal? – Travelers coming from Malone, be not too quick to scorn: this mischievous timber-tale may prove mere jest of local hands, or a knot-hole through which the entire North Country itself saws midnight wood!
A Hollow Log, Strange Sounds, and a Warning to Downstate Excursionists
EAST BELLMONT, N.Y., 3 MARCH 1890.—There has lately been no little talk along this end of the lake, and, as usual, just enough contradiction mixed in with the facts to make the whole matter ripen finely before it reaches Malone, and become a perfect certainty by the time it gets down among the susceptible people of Rome and Utica, who are always ready to believe that every stump in the North Woods conceals either a philosopher, a panther, or a supernatural brass band.—The present disturbance concerns what certain ingenious or afflicted persons have taken to calling the “Dimensional Didgeridoo,” being nothing more at first hearing than a hollow log of unusual length and complexion, lying in a patch of second growth between the old road and a wet piece of timber beyond Chateaugay, but now reported, on the authority of boys, teamsters, a widower, and one lady from Constable, to emit at intervals sounds not belonging, so far as any one can prove, to this immediate world.
The thing itself, as described to us by those who have seen it nearest, is of no handsome appearance, but rather the reverse, being a weather-darkened section of log, bored or burnt through in ancient times, and having at one end a natural twist which gives it a look as though Providence had designed it for mischief and then forgotten to finish the job.—One account says it was first found by a man cutting browse, who put his shoulder to it thinking to roll it clear, when it gave forth a mournful bellow like a steamboat in thick weather, though there was no mouth to it but bark, rot, and shadow.—Another, no less confidently told, insists that a schoolboy, idly kicking at the thing, heard from within it what he afterward declared was not sound at all, but “a whole place,” which expression, while not scientific, is perhaps as exact as could be expected under the circumstances.
Since then there have been various experiments made, some wise, some otherwise.—One young fellow, with more enterprise than discretion, applied his lips to the larger opening and blew with such spirit as he usually reserves for dance night at the hotel, whereupon the log returned a note so long, so foreign, and so little indebted to Christian scales, that two crows rose from a tamarack and a hired girl at a neighboring house sat suddenly down in the snow, supposing judgment was being rehearsed ahead of time.—A second party, wishing to prove the first either a liar or a fool, undertook the same trial after supper, and was rewarded, not by a note, but by what all agree was a kind of distant confusion, as of hammering, dogs, wind under a door, and some one speaking in a language none had the education to repeat.—This gave fresh vigor to the believers, who now say the thing is an instrument by which sounds from other conditions of existence are drawn into ours, much as sap is drawn in spring, while the doubters maintain that a hollow stick in a swamp will say almost any thing to a man already determined to hear wonders.
For our own part, we would not for the world deny any innocent citizen his private mystery, especially in a season when roads are poor and amusement expensive, yet there are features of the case which deserve sober handling.—In the first place, the log stands, by all accounts, very near that old belt of rough ground where all manner of queer noises have before now been laid to owls, frost, loose boards, wandering stock, and one regrettable clarinet from the lower settlement.—In the second place, there is reason to suspect that certain persons, whose names charity forbids us to print, have lately found pleasure in alarming summer boarders and such down-country visitors as come furnished with city overcoats, delicate nerves, and a settled conviction that the Adirondacks are full of noble savages, hidden gold, and moral instruction.—If it should turn out that the “Didgeridoo,” as they persist in naming it, has been trimmed, placed, or secretly attended by human hands, the joke, though elaborate, will not be entirely without local precedent.
Nevertheless, there remains a stubborn residuum which even common sense has not wholly swept aside.—A reliable man, not given to fancy, declares that while passing the place with an empty jumper at dusk, he distinctly heard from the log the noise of a crowd, then a bell, then what seemed to be a child laughing very far off, and all this though the road was empty and the woods at perfect stand.—A woman of good character states that when the wind is from the northwest the sound changes its disposition, becoming less mournful and more industrious, like distant machinery or the turning of unseen wheels.—A third, older than either and therefore less likely to be imposed upon, says the noise resembles no earthly contrivance, unless perhaps the world itself were trying to snore through a knot-hole.—These testimonies, while not harmonious, are at least discouraging to those who had hoped to dismiss the whole matter as merely another camp-side falsehood hatched for the confusion of children.
It is even whispered, though with that caution proper to all decent scandal, that the thing may have some connection with certain forgotten timbermen or survey parties who formerly worked in that quarter and left behind them not only rude tools and blazed lines, but notions not suitable for Sunday repetition.—One old resident alleges that an Indian once warned his grandfather never to sleep in hearing of a “singing log” after thaw, because such timber had one end in this world and the other where lost thoughts go when men are done with them.—We give this only as it was given to us, and without vouching for its theology; but there are readers who like a tradition all the better if it cannot be comfortably explained before breakfast.
In the mean time the younger people are, of course, deeply interested, and some of the older ones nearly as much, though pretending otherwise.—There has been more walking of the road near sundown than the state of the mud altogether justifies, and several families who had not before shown any marked attachment to natural philosophy have found reasons to drive that way of an afternoon.—Parents from the larger places, should they come up expecting harmless scenery and wholesome silence, may therefore govern themselves accordingly.—If they hear a strange droning from the woods, they may call it wind in a hollow trunk if they prefer, and perhaps preserve their composure by so doing; but they must not be offended if our home people, having lived longer with the timber and knowing better how often a plain object turns queer after sunset, choose to hold their opinion in reserve until the log has either been split open, carted off, or elected to the Legislature.
Whether interdimensional instrument or only the most accomplished hoax yet devised for the benefit of the credulous, the Dimensional Didgeridoo has at least succeeded in restoring to our quiet section that agreeable stir which follows every respectable mystery.—It has set boys to prowling, men to arguing, and women to listening at kitchen doors when the wind freshens after dark.—It has done more for roadside conversation than politics, and more for local travel than trout.—Should any of our readers from Utica or Rome desire a fuller acquaintance with the article, they are advised to bring stout boots, moderate expectations, and a willingness not to cry out at the first unaccountable note.—For ourselves, we shall continue to observe the affair carefully, and if the log presently opens communication with another sphere, or is found to conceal a farmhand with a talent for low music, the public may rely upon being informed in due season.
PLAYED OUT.
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What mysteries of Chateaugay Lake haunt you?