by Becky Rule

New Englanders are known for their sparing but precise use of words.
In the classic example, tourists ask the local if he knows how to get to Randolph.  “Yup,” he says.  In another, tourists in Portsmouth, consulting a map, ask a local if it makes any difference whether they take I-95 or Route 1 to Portland, Maine.  The local replies: “Not to me, it don’t.”

The same taciturnity applies not just when we talk to people from away, but when we talk to each other. A father and son were fishing from the bank of the Contoocook River.  They dozed off.  A fog rolled in.  The son woke up, alarmed. “Father,” he said, “We ain’t here no more.”

“Don’t worry, son,” the father said. “We ain’t far from here.”

This one-liner was attributed to Walter Sanborn of Chichester.  He’d brought his sons to the old swimming hole for a dip.  When it came time to go, the boys refused to get out of the water.  Walter is said to have said:  “If you boys don’t behave, next time I bring you, you won’t come.”

Bruce Geiger’s neighbor in Lyneborough told me this story.  Bruce is fondly remembered as a great yankee character. He pronounced his name Geigah, of course.  A tall thin man, good with horses, did a lot of work in the woods.  One morning he told his wife he was headed out to the wood lot with his tricycle tractor.  When she returned from the village that afternoon, Bruce hadn’t come in from the woods yet.  She got a hold of their other neighbor, Tinka Johnson. “Tinka,” she said, “I haven’t seen Bruce.  He should have been home hours ago.”

So Tinka went in search of Bruce and came upon a terrible scene — the tractor upended and Bruce, apparently, pinned underneath.  Tinka rushed to Bruce’s side expecting the worst.  But he realized his friend was o.k. when Bruce looked up and said: “What took ya?”