Lou’s View – Dec. 5, 2013

Bob Giry’s Ear Rings

By Lou Bernard

So when Halloween rolled around, I had to tell some Henry Shoemaker stories. Shoemaker, the writer from McElhattan, is always a good one to get to when you need ghosts and monsters. He wrote down a lot of old local legends, many of which are great for Halloween.

And now, it’s December.

And guess what? Shoemaker wrote some Christmas stuff, too.

Typically for Shoemaker, it’s nothing like you’ve ever heard presented as a Christmas story before. Only Henry Shoemaker would try to get away with a Christmas story that begins,”When Bob Giry was shot to pieces….”

Oh, and it stars the Devil. I’ve resisted writing about this one before, largely because I don’t want to be burned in effigy outside the Ross Library. But I’m going to try to get away with it. (Also, notice how cleverly I put in a shameless plug for my employers, even when I’m being burned in effigy.)

This one is from his 1911 book “Pennsylvania Mountain Stories,” and it begins with a man named Bob Giry.

Giry’s father was a very religious man, but Giry himself rebelled, and took pride in being evil. It was a petty sort of evil, throwing rocks through windows and being rude to people, but he took pride in it. (Bob Giry was sort of a jerk. And if you’re expecting a warm, fuzzy ending where he discovers the true meaning of Christmas, it’s a Shoemaker story—Better think again.) One winter, he was working on the lumbering industry down in Sugar Valley, and wound up gathering a sort of club of admirers.

One Christmas Eve, sometime in the early 1900s, Giry and his followers planned a gathering. They were going to sit in a local cabin and be evil. This apparently involved swearing and blasphemy, as well as drinking a lot of whiskey. They shipped whiskey in from Loganton for the occasion.

During their party, while they were trying to be as profane and evil as possible, suddenly all the lights went out. And they heard something coming down the chimney.

It turned out to be the Devil, because of course the Devil would show up in Sugar Valley on Christmas Eve. It’s a Shoemaker story; why would you even question it? The men, who until this point had been telling one another how tough they were, ran for their lives.

Giry was the last one out, but he tripped over a log and knocked himself cold. He woke up in the cabin, with the Devil standing over him. And the Devil, of course, apologized for breaking up the party.

“I did not mean to scare you off when I came in,” said the Devil. “I thought the door was locked, consequently I came down the chimney. I would not have broken up your party….I only wanted to stop in and get a few pointers. Get me a drink.”

Giry got the Devil a whiskey, and they sat down to talk. The Devil gave him a pair of earrings, described by Shoemaker as “in the form of coiled serpents, exquisitely made, and while apparently of gold, were transparent as crystal, and light as feathers. The Devil explained that these earrings would enable Giry to be more evil than ever before.

To thank him, Giry offered his coat—The Devil was sitting there without a shirt, and it was winter. The Devil told him to quit doing nice things like that, and be evil already, but he took the coat. “It’s hotter than this where I come from,” he explained.

Giry let the Devil out, and sat alone the rest of the night. In the morning, he found his coat draped over some bushes near the cabin. He put it on, and set out to do evil.

Which he did—According to the story, he robbed his way across the country, finally chased down by a sheriff in Kansas. Giry, in an effort to get away, had driven his horses into a fence, and was shot in the ensuing escape. The sheriff, somehow recognizing that the earrings were a problem, pocketed them and took them into evidence.

And there, they disappear from the story. Nobody, not even Shoemaker, gives any further explanation of what happened to the earrings. So if you happen to be shopping for a gift this season, and see a pair of earrings that are gold, clear, and shaped like serpents, you may want to just consider a gift card instead.