Today Castle Town in Vermont is a town

of yesterday, a town not built to seem like

yesterday, a town not restored, but kept.
Castle Town is real.
– Statement made by a recent visitor.

CHAPTER NINE

THE BRIGHT ENCHANTMENT

CASTLE TOWN is enchanted. Even as it was when the settlers came, bringing beauty and
peace and content through the wilderness, so it is today.

The pride of Castle Town is in the pulpit in its church, which is the most beautiful pulpit in
Vermont, and in the houses, porticoes, archways, and stairways which Thomas Royal Dake,
the carpenter – the artist of yesterday – fashioned. Upon the whole town this man has set his
touchmark as surely as Ebenezer Southmayd ever set his upon pewter.

The stranger, passing through, drives more and more slowly, until he stops and says: "There
is a spell upon this place!"

Once a year the doors of the homes of Castle Town are opened, and all the beautiful
treasures, which the song of the blue cat caused to be fashioned, are shown to strangers who
come from far and wide to see them, and to hear the story of Castle Town.

Two things the visitors do not see. One is the teapot of Ebenezer Southmayd. Folk still speak
of it, but no one knows what has happened to it, or where it may be hidden. The second
treasure that is missing is the carpet which Zeruah Guernsey fashioned. For that carpet,
together with the hearth rug of the blue cat, hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of the City of
New York.

If you doubt this story, you can go and see for yourself. In the daytime the blue cat will give
you stare for stare. But at night, when the Museum is quite empty and a blue moon shines
through the windows, then the blue cat's song may be heard echoing down every corridor.

Did not the river say he should live forever?

Arunah?

Scarce a soul remembers him. For his spell over Castle Town was completely vanquished,
even as the river had hoped. Though, as the river had likewise promised, Arunah died to the
tune of his own song of speed – crushed beneath the wheels of a train. Even today the sound
of the train whistle through the valley is a sound to chill one's bones. It is all that remains of
the dark enchantment.

As for the river which flows through the valley, go and sit beside it. And if you should hear it
suddenly begin to sing its song, turn quickly. There in the reeds for an instant – if you are
quick enough – you will see a small blue shadow. For of course it is hardly to be expected
that the blue cat – who was no ordinary cat – stays in the Metropolitan all the time!

Sing your own song. Sing well! Sing well!

HOW THE BLUE CAT OF CASTLE TOWN

CAME TO BE WRITTEN

THE people of Castleto'n sing their own song to this day. Not long ago reports reached
Washington that on Grandpa's Knob, a high point above this Vermont town, what looked like
a giant windmill turned great arms in the sun. It was said that this was a wind turbine, which
was seeking to use the wind to generate electricity. So, in the summer of 1946, Catherine
Coblentz went to Castleto'n with her husband, who was interested in seeing this experiment.

There at a church supper, Hulda Cole, the village librarian, told her that Castleto'n was noted
as the site from which Ethan Allen set out to take Fort Ticonderoga, and that the town was
justly proud of two of its early citizens. One was the carpenter who built there the most
beautiful church pulpit in Vermont, as well as many of the town's beautiful houses. The
second was a girl who had designed and fashioned a carpet so beautiful and unusual that it
hung now in the Metropolitan Museum of New York. On that carpet, among other designs,
was pictured a most fascinating blue cat.

"Why a blue cat?" inquired Mrs. Coblentz. But no one in all the town could say. Although
there were those who recalled having heard that, in the days when the carpet lay on the floor
of its creator's parlor, any cat walking into the room for the first time would always stop
short, arch his back and spit at the blue cat pictured beneath his nose.

In the winter of 1946 Hulda Cole sent the source material of the town – which had been
gathered by Mary Gerrish Higley and left to Mrs. Cole personally – to Catherine Coblentz in
Washington. Its unexpected arrival was so tempting that Mrs. Coblentz studied it carefully,
and twice returned to Castleto'n to see and learn more.

Not only was the history fascinating in itself – but the stuff of folklore was there. And so the
author has handled it in this book. For a year and a half, she insists, the Blue Cat sat on her
pillow night after night, trying to purr his story into her not-unwilling ears. Being a
Vermonter by birth, Mrs. Coblentz was prepared to evaluate highly the spell which even to
this day lies over this Vermont valley town. Every person mentioned in the book actually
lived in the town, and did the things of which this book tells, and the names are the real
names of those individuals of yesterday.

Or, to sum it up. Every word in the book is true, and there isn't a word of truth in it.

Acknowledgments:
To these people of Castleto'n:
Mr. and Mrs. James Burns, Miss Edna Higley, Mrs. Raymond Ransom, Mrs. Custis St. John,
Mrs. G. H. Taggart, who were generous with their homes and their knowledge; Mrs. Beatrice
St. John Wright, for permission to sketch designs from one of the Gilroy tablecloths, now in
her possession.

To Mrs. Harold Brown, and Mrs. Margaret Onion for clarification of some final details; and
to Mr. George Hutchins and Mr. Jim Eaton, for help in ascertaining the location of the
Mansion House.

To William Rice for making a map of early Castleto'n.

To Lawrence Ward for special assistance.

For reading the manuscript and making helpful suggestions:

Miss Karin Blanchard of New York City; and Herbert Wheaton Congdon of Arlington, an
authority on Vermont architecture, and author of Old Vermont Houses.

For pictures and a reproduction of the touchmark of Ebenezer Southmayd:

Ledlie Laughlin, author of Pewter in America, Its Makers and Their Marks.

The interpretations of the characters in this book are derived from the source material, and
are, of course, the author's – and the blue cat's!

Books by
Catherine Cate Coblentz

The Blue Cat of Castle Town

The Beggars' Penny
The Bells of Leyden Sing
The Falcon of Eric the Red
Sequoya