... The Orleans Lamplighter
At Rock Harbor lived the old lamplighter of Orleans, Josh Northrup, who took the job when the good ladies of the church—The Sewing Circle and Female Samaritan Society—organized the Orleans Street Lighting Club.
For years Josh was a familiar figure, making his rounds up and down the streets with his ladder, oil, and matches. Josh listened with a philosophical nod to all the complaints of the townsfolk, and was often heard to sigh:
“I’d start on one end of my beat quite a while before dark and folks around there would get all set up by the spectacle of me burning oil before sundown. By the time I reached the other end, it was after dark, and durned if the fools down that end didn’t kick cuz they weren’t getting their money’s worth.”
The lamplighter’s set of rules decreed that the lights were not to be lit on what the calendar called a “moonlight night” whether the moon could be seen or not. Thus the most dangerous time to be strolling along the streets was apt to be on a scheduled moonlight night, for Josh always stuck religiously to the calendar.