The author, John Marek, is a writer and executive director of the Anson Economic Development Partnership.
I suppose it says something about me that most of my favorite short stories have dark, if not horrific, twists. “A&P” by John Updike ends with a grocery store employee foolishly quitting his job to uphold the questionable honor of three girls he doesn’t even know. In Jack London’s “To Build a Fire,” the protagonist freezes to death after failing to start a campfire with his remaining matches. But the granddaddy of all these dark tales is a “holiday” story written by Lawrence Sargent Hall in 1960.
“The Ledge” tells the tale of a fisherman, his son, his nephew and their dog who set out on Christmas morning to hunt the sea ducks that gather at low tide on the rock outcroppings miles off the coast. After a successful day of hunting on an island-size ledge, they discover their boat has come loose from its mooring and drifted away, leaving them trapped on the shrinking landmass as the ice-cold waters rise with the tide. Like “To Build a Fire,” the reader maintains hopes for a happy ending as the odds of seeing one progressively decrease, then evaporate entirely. It’s a taut, emotional piece of fiction, except it’s not.
“The Ledge” was inspired by a true story. On Dec. 27, 1956, a hunting party of five set out from Ash Point in South Harpswell, Maine, to go gunning for ducks between Eagle Island and West Brown Island. Buster Estes Jr. skippered his boat, the Amy E, with son Steven, 13, son Maurice, 12, nephew Harry Jewell and fellow fisherman Everett Gatchell on board. The party divided and took two small skiffs to different sides of the island. Estes and the two young boys were stranded on the ledge near West Brown Cow as the freezing tide was coming in and died. The other group came home alive to tell the story.
Even with those eyewitness accounts of the general events of the day, Sargent has to fill in the unknowable details and does a chilling job: The dog swimming off to its presumed death. The fisherman hoisting his son on his shoulders to give him a few precious additional minutes of life. The son accepting his fate without blame or panic.
Generations of literature students have dissected the work. Many see the story as a study of contrasts. The fisherman is both gruff and caring. The happiness of Christmas is set against the sadness of the tragedy. I have always perceived the story as a cautionary tale about the perfect world we try to create versus the harsh reality of the real world. The fisherman is attempting to create a memorable Christmas experience for his son and nephew, the kind of legendary day they will talk about into adulthood and maybe even pass down to their children.
He starts by buying them each a new shotgun as Christmas presents, then surprises them with the hunting trip to try them out. He picks a spot he knows they will have to themselves and where they will likely have a successful hunt. And had the boat not drifted away, his efforts would have been a spectacular success. But the reality of the world shatters the idyllic scenario he carefully crafted; a poorly tied knot, the boat being out of sight during the critical point it comes loose, and the lack of other boats in the area because of the holiday. This confluence of things, none of which on its own would have been especially concerning, ultimately leads to tragedy. Maybe that’s the lesson we can take away from Sargent’s story, and maybe our societal fascination with tinsel and lights and Hallmark movies and making those perfect holiday memories makes “The Ledge” far more appropriate holiday reading than we might imagine.
You can read “The Ledge” in its entirety here.