Grew up anyway

I was told this story by the director of the Maine Maritime Museum on a tour thereof, about which more later. The story is about the tours the museum gives in the summer of Seguin Island, a high lump of rock off the Kennebec River. That island is home to one of the oldest and most prominent lighthouses on the Maine Coast, originally authorized by George Washington. The lighthouse was of course manned for decades by a succession of keepers and their families.

Seguin Light

Because the island is high and steep, the Coast Guard built a tramway to get people and supplies from the harbor up to the light keeper's house and back down again. The museum’s guide liked to tell the story about the time one of the trams got loose while ferrying a young mother and her baby down the hill. The tram quickly gathered speed and was headed for a serious crash at the bottom of the tramway. At the last minute the mother heaved her baby out of the cart back up the hill. The tram did crash and the mother was seriously hurt, but the baby landed unharmed in the bushes by the side of the tramway.

The guide liked to repeat this story on every tour for its dramatic effect, although the museum director suspected that the guide was none too sure about its truth. One day, as the tour boat was returning to the museum, the director was proceeding downriver in another boat on another mission. He noticed the guide gesticulating wildly, pointing excitedly to an elderly tourist lady sitting in the tour boat, and yelling something across the water. Finally, the director realized what he was trying to communicate: “That's her! That's the baby!”