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Title: Cape Coddities
Author: Scaife, Roger Livingston
Language: English
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CAPE-CODDITIES
[Illustration]
CAPE
CODDITIES
_By_
DENNIS and MARION
CHATHAM
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY_
HAROLD CUE
[Illustration]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
1920
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
[Illustration]
_FOREWORD_
These essays—thumbnail sketches of Cape Cod—should not be taken as a
serious attempt to describe the Cape or to delineate its people. They
merely express a perennial enthusiasm for this summer holiday land,
to-day the playground of thousands of Americans, three hundred years ago
the first “land of the free and home of the brave.”
Acknowledgments are here given to the _Atlantic Monthly_ for permission
to include “A By-Product of Conservation” and “Scallops,” to _The
Outlook_ for the same courtesy for “A Blue Streak,” and to _The House
Beautiful_ for “A Casual Dwelling-Place.”
THE AUTHORS.
_January, 1920._
[Illustration]
_CONTENTS_
I. _A Message from the Past_ 1
II. _The Casual Dwelling-Place_ 10
III. _The Ubiquitous Clam_ 27
IV. _A By-Product of Conservation_ 38
V. _Motor Tyrannicus_ 51
VI. _“Change and Rest”—Summer Bargaining_ 69
VII. _A Blue Streak_ 87
VIII. _A Fresh-Water Cape_ 97
IX. _Al Fresco_ 112
X. _Models_ 122
XI. “_A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea_” 132
XII. _My Cape Farm_ 140
XIII. _Scallops_ 154
_Aftermath_ 166
[Illustration]
_CAPE-CODDITIES_
I
A MESSAGE FROM THE PAST
Is it not strange that people who dwell in the same city block from
October to May, enjoying with mutual satisfaction the life which touches
them equally, should from May to October show such varying opinions that
argument is futile? These people who have wintered so happily together
may be placed in three classes—those who claim for the State of Maine the
exclusive right to the title of “God’s Own Country,” those who think of
the North Shore and Paradise as synonymous, and those other fortunates
whose regard for Cape Cod places it second only to heaven itself.
Therefore, it is interesting to read the following passages and to find
these same divergent views of the Cape in earliest times.
Captain John Smith in his account of New England in 1614, in a passing
reference to Cape Cod, says it “is a headland of high hills of sand
overgrown with shrubbie pines, hurts and such trash, but an excellent
harbor for all weathers. This cape is made by the maine sea on one
side and a great bay on the other, in the form of a sickle. On it doth
inhabit the people of Pawmet and in the Bottome of the Bay, the people of
Chawum.” Scant praise.
Bartholomew Gosnold, writing to Raleigh in 1602, through the medium of
his associate, John Brereton, said, “We stood a while like men ravished
at the beautie and delicacie of this sweet soil”; and later, “truly the
holsomnese and temperature of this climat doth not only argue this people
(Indian) to be answerable to this description, but also of a perfect
constitution of body, active, strong, healthful and very wittie.”
Here spoke the original summer visitor and the founder of that colony
which dots the coast from Marion to Manomet.
If Gosnold could see the Cape on the present day, he would doubtless
show profound disappointment, unless he had chanced to invest in shore
property, for the forests teeming with game have disappeared, and no
trace of the wit he describes can be detected among the few Indians who
still cling to the shores of Mashpee Pond. But the broad waters, the
sloping sands, and above all the soft climate which Mr. Brereton tells
us did so much for the aborigine, and which now transforms our children
into veritable little red men, remain.
Despite the depredations which the Cape has suffered at the hands of
both natives and summer residents, its flavor has been maintained, and
the very fact that it is largely inhabited serves well in these days of
friendly intercourse and indulgent habits; for we all of us must live
happily in summer, and to do so means comfort, food, and drink. And so we
find each town, however diminutive, possesses its Butcher and Baker and
Candlestick-Maker.
The latter, to be sure, is employed by the local electric light plant,
and often his trade includes a knowledge of simple plumbing. The Baker
more often is both Postmaster and Grocer, while the Butcher may be
found to be the Chairman of the Board of Selectmen. But all are true to
the type, and that wit which Gosnold so happily mentions may often be
detected among these simple people, some of whom are sea captains whose
taciturnity has been transformed into a shrewd cynicism coupled not
infrequently with a delightful optimism. Rarely will a native Cape-Codder
get the worst of a repartee and still more rarely will you find him the
first to terminate a conversation. He is as tenacious in conversational
competition as he is lax in business aggression. In fact, he would far
rather stand on the corner and describe to you, in detail, the amount of
work that has been shouldered upon him by So and So and So and So’s wife,
than to make the slightest attempt to accomplish any of the sundry duties
imposed. And yet he knows, and so do you, if you are at all versed in
Cape ways, that he will receive ample financial return for his slightest
service.
There is no such word as hurry in the bright lexicon of Cape Cod, but
I confess it with some trepidation, for my many Cape friends will take
violent exception to my statement, true as it is. And yet I do not blame
them. I believe it is thoroughly accounted for by the climate; for when I
first visit the Cape in the spring or early summer, I always experience
a languor which makes the slightest effort seem a task of large
proportions. In short, I am lazy and prefer to see some one else do it.
This feeling generally passes away with the sheer joy of vacation days,
days of freedom and fresh air; but I realize that the climate breeds a
lack of ambition, to which I doubtless would succumb were I to live on
without interruption amid the Cape-Codders.
And therefore I prefer to think of the Cape as a playground for the
initiate, a wonderland for children, and a haven of rest for the tired of
all ages, a land where lines and wrinkles quickly disappear under the
soothing softness of the tempered climate.
Joseph Lincoln has told us of the people; Thoreau has written of the
place; but no one will really know the Cape unless he becomes a part of
it.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
II
THE CASUAL DWELLING-PLACE
Is there a reader who has not at one time or another gloated over the
terrors, the thrills, and the mysteries which, in fiction, invariably
lie hidden in an unoccupied house? When one stops to think of it nearly
all the literature of roguery, as so clearly set forth in former days by
Wilkie Collins, Gaboriau, down to Conan Doyle and Mary Roberts Rinehart,
possesses as its most important stage-setting an untenanted mansion. It
may be one of those familiar villas generally located somewhere near
Hampstead Heath, a house set apart from its neighbors and surrounded
by a hedge; a house with every appearance of having been closed for
several years and now showing the first signs of decay; or it may be one
of those somber brownstone houses situated in one of the many New York
residential streets, where every house so closely resembles its fellows
as to court mischief to all who may return late at night; or again, it
may be one of those palatial country houses set among lawns and gardens
which are invariably described with broad, magnificent porticoes toward
which spotless limousines are continually approaching at top speed for no
apparent reason. Such a setting is perhaps the commonest, and the time is
always just before the family arrive for the season or just after they
have left for other equally expensive quarters. Now and then the novelist
will modestly cast the fate of his story in the seclusion of a deserted
cottage by the sea or a lonely hut among the hills, but rarely does this
occur nowadays. The mystery story is as dependent upon luxury of setting
as is the modern bachelor upon his creature comforts. And, therefore,
if the devotee of fiction chose to apply himself to this theme, he
would find that nearly all novelists, great and small, from Dickens
to Oppenheim, from Hawthorne to Anna Katharine Green, have utilized
the empty house to bring about the climactic point in the weaving of
some gruesome tale. So clear are these fictional features that, by the
association of ideas, one’s fears and apprehensions are invariably
aroused whenever the occasion arises when an unoccupied house or even an
untenanted apartment must be entered.
With that unmistakable odor of mustiness comes afresh this uncomfortable
sense of trepidation (hardly fear, perhaps), and with it a conviction
that rats and mice are hidden spectators, and that the darkness and gloom
could well hide crime as well as the thieves themselves. This entire
mental state is largely caused by the aforesaid novelists, who I doubt
not would have the same hesitancy in opening the door of a darkened
chamber or in groping down the cellar stairs of a house long left to
disintegration.
In short, reading has trained us all to regard empty houses with
suspicion, an absurd state of mind which should be quickly dispelled, for
in the case of nine out of every ten, yes, or ninety-nine out of every
hundred houses, there is no cause whatever for suspicion.
There is a sunny little house on the shores of Buzzard’s Bay which
remains unoccupied except for ten weeks in the summer. Its shutters are
closed and fastened long before the oaks have turned to their gorgeous
fall colorings or the marigolds and phlox have lost the freshness of
their bloom.
The soft, salty breeze, rippling the waters, the dancing rays of the
September sun through the swaying pines, give a joyous setting to this
cottage by the water, courting as it were an occupant. The hardiest of
that overworked class of readers who rely upon mystery stories would
find it difficult to conjure up a tragedy for such a spot. The native
Cape-Codders, knowing the owners, always glance over toward the cottage
as they pass by in the hope of finding a blind open or a light through
the trees, to show that some of “ther fam’ly be down for Sunday.” For
this is one of the important services which this particular cottage
renders to its owners. As the scion of the family (aged ten) once sagely
remarked, “We use the cottage more when it’s closed than when it’s open.”
And to each and every member of this house its welcome is always the
same. The family reach the house after dark on a Saturday night. The lock
readily responds to familiar fingers, the door creaks a friendly welcome
as the family grope their way through the hall in good-humored rivalry
to see which shall be the first to secure the box of matches always kept
on the right-hand corner of the mantelpiece in the living-room for this
emergency. Then, as the lamps are lighted, the old familiar objects
appear precisely as they had been left, perhaps six months before, with
a coating of dust, to be sure, but nothing which a few moments and a
dustcloth could not remove; for dust in this region is little known.
True, the chairs, or at least such of them as possess cushions, are
shrouded in covers. The sofa is a bulging conglomeration of cushions,
gathered from all hammocks and piazza furniture; but a few deft passes
by the fairy godmother of this establishment, and presto, the cushions
are distributed and the sofa offers a cozy retreat for the entire party.
Otherwise the living-room is livable. A fire ready laid is only waiting
for a match and a turn of the hand to open the flue. Such is a cottage by
the sea if it has been planned and built as it should be, not alone for
summer use, but also for spring and autumn holidays.
The little cottage in question is a very ancient affair. A long line
of sturdy Cape-Codders dwelt in it, uncomfortably, for generations. It
was not until a few years ago that it was entirely renovated, enlarged,
and equipped for summer use. Much care and thought were given to its
convenience, and it stands to-day as a model for perennial use as a
casual habitation. But it has certain drawbacks; as, for instance,
plaster. Such a cottage, to secure the maximum comfort with the minimum
of expense, should be unplastered, and without a cellar so that the
circulation of air will keep the house free from dampness. There should
be a kerosene cooking-stove in the kitchen so that the cooking can be
done without jeopardizing the water coil or boiler. Furthermore, unless
one’s family and friends are experts in the culinary art, the usual stove
fire is built regardless of the cost of coal or kindlings, and the
fire itself is apt to take a good deal of time in the making, several
trials often being necessary before the coals kindle into a respectable
glow. The problem of water is perhaps the most troublesome. No house, of
course, can be left with the water on during the winter season. These
Cape cottages are no exception to the rule, and every pipe is carefully
drained and the faucets greased to prevent rust.
To go to the trouble of turning on the water system for an occasional
Sunday or holiday was manifestly out of the question, and so the owner of
this particular cottage solved the difficulty in true backwoods fashion.
A small stone tank, placed in the closet behind the stove, holding not
over five gallons of water, was always religiously filled. This served as
lubricant for a hand pump at the kitchen sink. One of the first duties in
starting in housekeeping was to heat a pail of this water, thaw out the
pump, and thus secure the supply which adequately filled the family needs
for the day or two of camp life to be enjoyed.
You will ask what of bedding and blankets? They are there at hand. As
a matter of fact, the less one puts away the better for each and every
article. All blankets hung upon ropes stretched across the attic are dry
and ready for use. Upon such occasions as the one noted, the family do
without sheets and sleep fully as soundly. The blazing of the fire logs
and the warmth of the living-room have given to all a drowsy feeling
which defies wakefulness when once the head touches the pillow.
If any one should contemplate making use of his summer house in this
fashion, there are certain suggestions which it would be well to follow;
points which any yachtsman or camper would never overlook.
First of all, there should be a place for everything and everything
should be in place. You can never tell when you will return. Perhaps you
may be delayed and not arrive until after dark, chilled and hungry from
a long motor ride. At such times a fire ready laid, with a good store of
dried wood, is essential to happiness and comfort.
There should always be a list of provisions left at the house so that
you may avoid duplication in purchasing supplies. Besides food, there
should also be such necessaries as soap, matches, and candles. These
should always be left in the boxes to prevent the mice and squirrels
from robbing one. A good scheme is to build a zinc-lined cupboard in the
pantry in which to keep such perishables.
Kerosene is dangerous to leave about, and it is well to bring this with
you for the cook-stove; furthermore, it is hard to remember whether
enough has been left at the house for twenty-four hours’ use.
Care should always be taken to leave the small water tank filled unless
you plan to secure your supply from a friend or neighbor.
Your pots and pans, cutlery, dishes, and glasses should always be washed
and put away in order before leaving, ready for instant use.
A little system will make all the difference in the world in the comfort
and enjoyment of such an outing, and will save labor, so that your actual
work will be done in much less time and the daylight hours can be given
over to the outdoor life which endears the place to each and every
member of your family.
Whether it be a canoe, a knockabout, a gun, or a fishing-line, the
life outside the cottage will be a reflection of that within and
your enjoyment will come from the facility with which you manage the
essentials of simple living. And so after you have enjoyed your day in
the open, you will return to the cottage and discover that the simple
comforts which it offers, while perhaps lacking the luxury of your daily
routine at home, will be enjoyed with a relish far beyond that existence
in a brick block, amid a mass of bric-à-brac and surrounded by servants.
In its place you will devour an unusual amount of food which tastes the
better because you have cooked it, and later you will fall asleep with
the wind singing in the trees, and the waves lapping the shores. The
occasional barking of a dog will arouse no apprehension, and the dread of
haunted houses, of mysterious deeds accomplished behind closed shutters,
will have vanished until you are safe home again with a “thriller” to
pass away the time before it is seasonable to retire.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
III
THE UBIQUITOUS CLAM
“They scattered up & down ... by yᵉ waterside, wher they could
find ground nuts and clams.” (William Bradford, _History of
Plymouth Plantation_, II, 130.)
Surprising as it may seem, the clam, at least under his own name,
does not appear in the Encyclopædia Britannica. And yet the clam is
proverbial, metaphorical, and substantial, so substantial, in fact,
that individuals of uncertain digestion have been rendered distinctly
unhappy after a hearty encounter. But what is more surprising to the
average person, and especially to the novice in clamming, is where all
the clams come from for the unending clam-bakes, clam-chowders, and the
various concoctions necessitating a generous supply of these silent
shellfish. A journey to the beach at low tide (for all clammers know from
the reference to that animal’s joyous spirit at high water that clamming
is useless at that period) generally fails to accomplish more than a
very lame back, muddy feet, and a paltry dozen or more specimens of the
clam family, generally of immature age. The profusion of empty shells
scattered about encourage the clammer into the belief that here, at
least, is a favorable locality for his first efforts, and he grasps his
fork and bends low, thrusting the implement into the black ooze with keen
anticipation that the mud will disclose a whole family of clams, ready
at hand for capture; but, instead, he is rewarded by finding a number
of white shells, seemingly clams, but in reality merely their shells
held closely together by mud and sand, the skeletons of former bivalves
whose souls have fled to other worlds and whose bodies have long since
disappeared the way of all flesh. And so he seeks another spot, and the
same process is repeated. Each time he is conscious of an increasing
stiffening of the back, recalling former twinges of lumbago, and after
an hour or so the tide forces him to retreat, and he returns dejectedly
to partake of a thin clam-broth, upon the top of which, as a consolation
prize, his wife has tactfully placed a little whipped cream.
And yet the clam is ubiquitous, once you know him, and the clammer,
himself, has been immortalized by Mr. William J. Hopkins in several
delightful stories with which certain readers are familiar. The
enthusiast soon learns their favorite haunts and on favorable tides he
gathers these bivalves by the pailful. For chowders and for bait alike he
digs, constructs a wire cage in which to keep his precious clams from
day to day, and week to week, and thus they become, as it were, almost a
part of his summer _entourage_.
The clam is a numerous family (_Mya arenaria_, were one to become
scientific). The ordinary mud clam which inhabits the tidewater harbors
of our coasts; the quahog, whose young, termed “little necks,” are
served, uncooked, as appetizers; and the sea clam, are very familiar in
appearance and habits; but all varieties are secured in different ways
and in varying localities, and therein lies an added charm to the pastime
of clam-digging.
There is a certain portion of the coast line in a very attractive
section of Cape Cod, which shall be nameless, where all varieties of
these mollusks abound, and it is difficult at times to decide which
variety to pursue. The ordinary mud clam is generally sought on the
especially low tides so kindly afforded by the moon at stated intervals.
It is then that the tide line resembles miniature trenches—first-line
defenses, if you will—so many and so persistent are the pursuers,
who look for all the world as if they were digging themselves in in
anticipation of a machine-gun attack.
The quahog is more secure, for he lives in No Man’s Land, beyond the
trenches and just under the surface of the mud. If one is walking up a
salty, muddy creek—and surprising as the fact may seem, one often does
follow this watery by-path—the foot will continue to disclose these big
fellows. In the course of an hour of this method of locomotion, a full
pail of quahogs may be secured without further discomfort than a pair
of wet legs and two very muddy feet. The fishermen, however, regard
such efforts as time lost. They manipulate two long-handled rakes bound
together at the bottom, and with this implement a sort of hand-dredging
process is performed which apparently yields better results. But it is
only the native fisherman, with his knowledge of tides and currents, of
sandy or muddy bottoms, of channels and shoals, who can successfully
locate the choice spots where these quahogs lie hidden beneath water,
seaweed, and mud.
The sea clam is as immaculately clean as his harbor cousin is muddy.
He is likewise found just beneath the surface of the water, buried in
firm white sand over which the white-crested breakers foam on the beach.
These clams are not greatly valued as food. They are gamy and tough in
comparison to their brethren and a sharp contrast in appearance, with
their delicate, smooth shell of an exquisite _café au lait_ color, and it
is for this reason, perhaps, that only the most enthusiastic of clammers
or fishermen after bait know of their whereabouts.
Along the beaches where thousands of Americans may be seen in
impressionistic attire, disporting themselves by bobbing up and down
in the waves, one could easily secure a pailful of these fascinating
creatures by wading out and groping in the sands. No more exhilarating
pleasure can be secured from surf bathing than in this pastime, which
calls for agility in dodging the breakers as they roll in. While you are
in the act of dislodging a fine fat specimen, your pail grasped in one
hand, the other embedded in the sand seeking your prey, your body is
swept first in, then out, by the waves. In order to regain your balance
you lose your hold, just escape being toppled over by the next wave
rushing toward its finish on the sands, and miss the clam; and so the
process begins all over again.
The “little necks” have their own places of abode close to the surface of
the mud in sequestered inlets. Now and again the plebeian clammer will
come across a stray family of little fellows while in quest of the common
variety, but as a pastime digging for “little necks” has but little zest.
And now, after realizing the fascination of clamming, why be surprised
if, when you run down to the Cape for a week-end, your host grips you
with a hand, cold and moist from submersion—a “clammy hand”; and why be
surprised if on the following day, instead of the routine of golf and
tennis, you are initiated into this simple sport? The surprise would come
to the writer of this slight dissertation if he should find you callous
to the delight of clamming or disrespectful of the occupation of the
clammer.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
IV
A BY-PRODUCT OF CONSERVATION
The torrent of conservation surged over our community in war-time with
a mighty roar, carrying with it all thought of flowers and lawns, and
making chaos of our cherished plans for a summer garden. With a velocity
which only social enterprise could initiate, New England became a market
garden from Eastport to Greenwich. Conservation developed back yards
and vacant lots into gardens, and bank clerks into farmers, enthusiastic
at the prospect, and innocent of the coming torments which weeds and
pests would soon bring with them. And so, for this same reason, our
flower garden on the Cape simmered down to a few nasturtiums and whatever
blossoms of a perennial nature cared to show themselves, while our spring
borders, usually a riot of color, were given over to vegetables.
What, then, should we have in our vases to reflect the profusion of the
outdoor season? For a room without flowers in summer is as devoid of
character and charm as a man without a necktie. The solution, naturally,
was soon found by many in the wild flowers, and if conservation has
accomplished nothing else, its gift to us of an appreciation of the
beauty and variety of these exquisite plants will more than repay our
efforts to grow potatoes, beans, and corn at exorbitant prices with
doubtful success.
The last days of school for the children and certain affairs at the
office, together with fixed habits which tyrannize over the household,
kept us from leaving for the Cape until late in June, so that we missed
the mayflowers which have made Cape Cod famous for generations. The iris
and violets, too, had disappeared, as well as the dogwood with its
delicate and generous pink-and-white petals. A few short hours after our
arrival, my little daughter discovered near by some exquisite specimens
of the wild lupine growing just as I had last seen it upon the slopes
of Mount Tamalpais near San Francisco, although perhaps not in the same
profusion.
From that first day until well into September, our living-room was made
joyous by a succession of flowers as delicate and graceful as ever came
from the highly cultivated gardens of the idle rich—a term which will
soon vanish and justly so.
The wild roses were late and never more plentiful or more perfect. The
daisies, arranged amid clusters of shiny bayberry and huckleberry leaves,
were transformed into stately decorations. The broom, as it is often
called, which abounds in certain sections of the Cape, planted there
in past years without doubt, gave one a sense of having been ferried
across the sea overnight, while our own columbine and wild geranium made
a pleasing variety, especially when arranged with the soft green of the
wild sarsaparilla.
With the coming of July, the _Hudsonia_, or beach heather, clothed our
foreground with brilliant yellow spots, touches of the sun here and
there, while the low wild shrubs and grasses seemed to grow overnight
in their desire to hide our view of the water. After a week of rain
in which we were confined to the flowers about the house—succulent
clover, Queen Anne’s lace, and a wide variety of tall grasses, which,
mingled with pine branches, form admirable wall decoration—our desire
for botanical information led us to scour the near-by country, not with
guide-book, motor-maps, or even a copy of “How to Know the Wild Flowers,”
but to journey simply forth, either on foot or tucked tightly into
our Ford car. To come unexpectedly upon one of the many ponds dotted
with lilies and fringed with a variety of flowering shrubs caused as
delightful a sensation as the same sight a few years ago would have
aroused, only then it would have stimulated a very different desire—the
thought of a possible bass, lazily drifting below the surface, to be
tempted, perhaps, by a fly, would have been uppermost. But this summer
our sport lay in securing wild flowers, a harmless and charming pastime
in which for the first time all the members of the family found equal
enjoyment, and even our near neighbors, confirmed golfers, admitted the
fascination of our newly acquired sport. To return laden with lilies,
wild clematis, marsh mallows, delicately pink upon their tall, stately
stems, cat-tails, red lilies, the fragrant clethra, and a variety of
other flowers whose names are to be discovered in the winter over a
“complete botanical guide,” savored of a veritable triumph.
Our growing interest in this wild garden was amply rewarded, for now in
August the flowers were at their height and it became doubly interesting.
Whether the discovery of new varieties or the satisfaction of gathering
and arranging the commonest weeds brought the greater pleasure, it is
hard to judge. The recollection of a tall, graceful copper vase filled
with the despised chicory and bouncing Bet, the blue of the one and the
delicate, pinkish purple of the other blending charmingly and supported
in contrast by a few sprays of sumac leaves, lingers as one of the
floral discoveries of the summer. A mass of fireweed, interspersed with
slender sprays of salt grass in full bloom, is another.
And yet to the sportsman or the embryonic scientist, individuals of very
similar characteristics, an excursion into the back country through the
woods, a good, long, honest tramp in pursuit of new floral game, and the
finding, now a clump of cardinal-flowers and again the deadly nightshade
(for the sportsman and scientist alike are fearless), is keen pleasure.
At times we would return with little booty to show for our trouble, a
gathering of St. John’s-wort, perhaps, or a few stalks of mallow or
one-eyed daisies, but never empty-handed and always with the exhilaration
of the thought that here was a garden without limit, without weeds, and
without the cares and expenses to which we were accustomed.
In arrangement, it must be confessed that discussion often arose. Certain
members of the family, who shall be nameless, preferred a few blooms
alone in each vase, while others clamored loudly for garnishings of salt
grasses and other green decorations. Upon such flowers as butterfly-weed
and tansy, such discussions nearly ended in riots, and only a tactful
distribution of these blooms to those who had gathered them with full
authority as to arrangement secured peace.
The goldenrod made its appearance earlier than usual, the handsome,
sturdy variety which grows close to the tidewater being especially fine.
With it came the purple and white wild asters, which are in reality so
much more beautiful than the cultivated kind, and the sea lavender vying
with baby’s-breath in its delicacy.
In this September a pleasant surprise came in the discovery of a flower
which we called—and possibly incorrectly so—the wild primrose, growing
close to the coast among the pines and scrub oaks; and blooming at this
same time was the beach pea, a long, climbing vine of a pinkish-violet
color, luxuriating amid the desolation of the sand-dunes.
Close upon the heels of these blossoms, which both seemed to belong to
the springtime, the turning of the leaves, the crispness of the air,
the short evenings, and the aforesaid three governing reasons, school,
office, and domestic domination, decided us with more reluctance than
ever to close the cottage. It was not until our luggage was packed and
ready that our final gatherings of the season’s wild flowers were removed
and the vases put away against the coming of next spring.
It still remains to be seen whether conservation will ultimately lead to
a saving in the cost of food (for Americans are more given to preaching
than to practice) but it has served us well in our appreciation of
certain of the good things in life.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
V
MOTOR TYRANNICUS
In the dim days of a decade ago—a generation might well have passed,
for time is measured by the march of events rather than the procession
of years—I remember yearning for the possession of an automobile. It
mattered not what make, or shape or size or year. I was oblivious to the
merits of six cylinders as opposed to four. I laughed at the enthusiast
who reckoned upon the length of wheel-base as deciding his comforter
the question of demountable rims as governing his decision as to which
make to select. All I coveted was something on wheels (preferably four)
of my own which might go or even might not go, for so rampant was the
possessive desire in my heart that the chief thing in the world seemed
to me at that time to be able to say “My motor” in an utterly casual,
matter-of-fact tone, and back it up by nodding my head in the direction
of the barn, which after the fashion of marriages had suddenly changed
its name overnight by the possession of a master, and so became my
“garage.”
This ridiculous state of mind is easy to account for. In winter we lived
in the suburbs where it seemed to both my wife and to me that every
friend we had owned a car. In summer we sojourned upon Cape Cod, where
the motor had replaced the runabout so completely that our old horse
looked like a prehistoric relic of the Stone Age. Added to this was the
ignominy of knowing that the Butcher and Baker both possessed machines
and had that mythological person the Candlestick-maker abided in our
town, doubtless he also would have honk-honked his way by our door.
In short, the thing got so badly on our nerves that finally, with full
knowledge of the financial iniquity involved, I purchased one of those
hopelessly plebeian affairs which travel under so many opprobrious
pseudonyms—a Ford. From that day to this I have owned some sort of a car
and have thought myself a wise and a fortunate man, and subconsciously I
have felt myself rather more of a person because of this possession, for
such is the frailty of human nature.
To-day, however, marks a turning-point, a milestone, a crisis in my
career. Personally I consider this day one of triumph—I have sold my car.
I have no independent means of transportation other than my own good
legs—or, at least, they were so until I neglected them—and I rejoice in
my motorless state. I feel a sense of exhilaration in my freedom from
Fords, from the bondage of Buicks, from captivity in my Chandler Sedan.
Such exhilaration is doubtless hard to understand because precisely the
same conditions now exist which originally drove me into buying that
first “Universal Car,” only in a more exaggerated degree. My children
(and now there are more of them) are always clamoring for rides, even for
the short distance of a few blocks which separates our house from school.
My wife (and I must confess there is now more of her too) still plies her
trade of exchanging visits and buzzing about town all day long, never
thinking of walking, and for myself, I have become mutely accustomed
to the rôle of family chauffeur when not attempting that increasing
impossibility, the attempt to make both ends meet.
And yet, is it after all so hard to understand this relief? In the first
place, the car, no matter what variety, either goes or it does not go.
If by chance it goes, you must go with it. If it does not go, you must
make it go or get some one who knows more about it than you do, and who
costs more than you do, to mend it. That means that you go upstairs into
your own room and change into old clothes reserved for this purpose, go
down again and out to the garage, where you stand in contemplative mood
for some moments before crawling under the machine. When you are safely
landed in a dripping pool of oil, your children and your neighbor’s
children come trooping in from play and ask you why you are there and
what you are doing. This in itself is disconcerting, for you generally
don’t know. Having successfully found that out you slowly emerge from
your cramped quarters, which compare only with an upper berth, return to
your room, resume the garb of a successful business man, and take the car
to a garage and there wait until some one makes it _sound_ all right.
This individual vies with the tax collector in separating you from all
excess cash.
This does not happen every day, I admit, but there is a sensation in the
back of the mind of nearly every motorist which is more or less constant.
You know that you worry when the car does not go. There is no ground for
speculation upon this point. You worry about what the matter is, and when
you find you can’t mend it, and take it to a garage to be repaired, you
worry as to whether you have taken it to the right garage, or the right
man in the garage. You fuss over the cost and you continually wonder
whether the repairs have been properly done or whether the blamed thing
won’t break out in the same place the next time you take the car out. And
during this whole period you feel in the bottom of your heart that you
could have mended it just as well yourself.
Then there are the worries when it _does_ go. You wonder when the tires
are going to give out, whether they are too flat or too inflated,
whether you put in gas before you started, and how the water is. You are
continually guessing whether you have too much or too little oil, and you
generally guess wrong.
These, however, are all mere trifles, the superficial maunderings of a
sensitive organism. Your major worries may be classified under three
headings:
First: the worry of changing cars. Every year the question comes up for
family discussion, competing valiantly with the problem of when we are
to move to the Cape. Shall we turn in the old car and get a new one? If
so, what kind?—and then follows a month of violent discussion in which
my wife and the children take one side and I the other. By instinct I am
a modest man and by habit cautious. I do not like changes, especially
sudden changes, and so my inclination is either to stick to the old
car for another year or buy a new one like it. My family—why I cannot
say—seem to be oppositely inclined. My wife avers that So-and-So has had
great luck with a ⸺. Billy, my eldest, backs her up with several lengthy
anecdotes told him by So-and-So’s son, proving the excellence of that
make above all others. I am sufficiently shaken in my opinion to consult
with the garage-man from whom I bought my car, only to be shown a car of
the variety mentioned in deplorable condition awaiting the mechanic’s
skill. Poor engine, inadequate something or other,—I can’t remember the
name,—and so it goes. My office is thronged with automobile salesmen so
that work is impossible, while the evenings are passed in futile argument
until the final verdict is given, resulting generally in a compromise—a
new car is purchased of a trifle better type at a considerable advance
in price and the old car sacrificed for a song. Those days of budding
greenness for which we have longed through all the cold, useless days of
winter are utterly ruined by this fearful problem.
The second worry comes with breakfast daily. Who is to use the car during
the day? The day being balmy, I had thought of going to town in it,
especially as I wanted to make a call on the way home. My wife, it seems,
had planned to go to the dressmaker. I should have guessed it. Billy,
who has just arrived at the legal age which foolishly permits youth to
endanger the lives and liberty of American citizens, had planned to take
a number of his cronies to St. Mark’s School to see a ball game. Billy,
as can be readily imagined, wins out.
This daily observance takes the entire breakfast period and often leads
to slight feeling. I say slight because I rarely ever secure the car
myself unless it needs repairing.
The last worry may perhaps be more likened to fear. “What next?” I
generally remark—for this third division concerns our friends. In
that happy decade, now but a dream, we used to live in a delightful
community, surrounded by friends who dropped in and then dropped out
again, both happy incidents in our daily life. But now, who has time to
see his neighbors when every one is frantically motoring to some distant
acquaintance miles away? What can you do when some friend at the end of
nowhere invites you to dinner because she knows you have a motor? You go
because your wife explains that this sort of thing is what a motor is for.
Is this not a matter for worry?—to work in an office until five; to
journey home with the knowledge that in exactly thirty minutes you start
out, in a car which needs oiling and when one of the tires should have
more air, for a distant suburb, where you are to meet a number of people
you do not know and never care to see again. That this sort of thing is
going to increase just as long as you have a pesky car is more than a
cause for worry. It is a calamity.
In a trice all this vanished, for I sold my car. I remember hearing the
story of a Southerner whose property was taken from him during the Civil
War and who later was robbed of all the money on his person. He confessed
to a feeling of intense joy and relief, for with his loss of property
went his feeling of responsibility, and care-free he entered the army and
fought a gallant fight.
And so upon that day I walked with elastic tread, head up, chest out,
delighting in the discovery of freedom. I care not that my friends
all possess cars. I’ve had one—several in fact—and I can afford to buy
others, but I am not going to. That is, not yet (and here I remember
my family, somewhat dubiously). I plan to renew the pleasures of daily
rambles over the beautiful hills of my own town. I plan to renew old
friendships with my neighbors near by. I look forward to an occasional
Sunday at home. In short, I picture the joy of being without a motor.
As a matter of fact, however, this vision was short-lived. In the first
place, the ramble over the old familiar hills made me so beastly lame
that my Sunday at home was a painful one, and the day was punctuated
by the complaints of each and every member of the family over the loss
of the car. I ventured out, still painfully, to call upon one or two of
my old neighbors, just for a run in and out again, but they, it seemed,
were out in their motors, and so I returned dejectedly to the sad-faced
group in my own living-room, where we managed to exist until bedtime,
conversing upon our prospective move to the Cape, and what it meant to
the various members of the family to be—as my daughter puts it—a million
miles away from every one with no means of ever leaving the house. And
so it was the Cape and its appeal which broke my defenses, for I must
confess our seasonal trips there were a delightful part of our existence,
to say nothing of the joys of our summer life.
The next day I took an early train to town, and I came home that evening
somewhat sheepish, but reasonably happy, for I came in a new car, which
bids fair to be the best one yet; it is certainly the most expensive.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
VI
“CHANGE AND REST”—SUMMER BARGAINING
Although on the surface Cape Cod seems to offer a haven of refuge to that
much overworked appendage to the modern man, the pocket-book, there are
dotted here and there upon the highways and byways many comparatively
innocent pitfalls.
To a close student of these danger spots, they may be grouped under the
heading “Tea-Rooms, Arts and Crafts Stores, and Antique Shops.”
I know of no greater relief than to escape from town and come to the
Cape. Once there, the daily routine of office, the absence of any
assigned duty, the leisure hours passed in or on the water or idly
knocking about the golf links, tend to merge one day into another, so
that time flashes past at an alarming rate. But every now and again comes
a day when some member of the family suggests that we take the motor and
extend our vision. It is upon such occasions that we test the financial
astuteness of the aborigines.
One never visits the Cape without discovering how effectively the climate
stimulates the appetite. What wonder, therefore, that every village and
hamlet possesses a Tea-Room of varying attraction?
The stop is made and the Tea-Room visited, only to find that the family,
in addition to ordering the tea, with its accompaniment of toast and
cake, or, for the younger members, a bottle of ginger ale or an ice-cream
cone, are bent upon securing a souvenir. The Tea-Room is generally
furnished with an assortment of articles intended for just such gullibles
as ourselves. There are, for instance, baskets of assorted sizes and
colors, for flowers, or fruit, or sewing, or pine cones; in fact for
everything that should be thrown away, but isn’t. We have several such
baskets at home, but that does not prevent some member of the family
from buying another. It will do for a Christmas present. Then there
are varieties of other things made far away and designed to lure the
cheerful motorist, such as charmingly decorated match-cases for elderly
people, noisily painted tin pails for the children, dainty knockers, and
all manner of knick-knacks for the women of the party. The invariable
assortment of what, to a man, seems the essence of uselessness, and yet,
I confess it, attractive to an insidious extent.
The pocket-book is touched, not severely, to be sure, but there is a
perceptible shrinkage as we file out to continue on our harmless junket.
For a few miles we bowl along over a delightfully smooth road and give
ourselves over entirely to the view. Now a long stretch of pine woods
gives just a glimpse of the water glistening through the trees; here and
there a little farmhouse, snugly tucked among a clump of lilacs close
to the road, with visions of larger establishments in the distance,
out toward the sea, the homes of summer residents boldly exposed to
the refreshing southwest wind; then a long stretch of marsh and dune
brilliant in the sun. Suddenly we come upon a more thickly populated
district where many of the old houses have been purchased and renovated
to fit the needs of city people, who, with the assistance of some modern
architect, oftentimes make enticing homes of these structures by the
simple addition of porches and piazzas, with bright touches of paint here
and there on blinds and doors, and the whole garnished well with bright
flowers, climbing roses, and cozy hedges.
It is generally near such a settlement that we come upon the Arts and
Crafts in all their glory.
Compared to the Tea-Room, the Art-Shop is a veritable mine of treasure.
From a variety of toys which would do credit to Schwartz to a complete
set of hand-painted furniture such as one might expect to find in the
window of the largest furniture store in Boston during the months of May
and June, seems a far cry for a small shop occupying a converted bungalow
in a modest Cape town; but this sort of thing exists, and between these
items there is an almost endless list of what for a better term may be
called “specialties,” and even I, who scorn the newness of furnishings
as they are displayed in town, fall a victim first to an exceptionally
soft-toned rag rug, oval in shape and comfortable to the tread, and also
to a set of doilies made of a light, colorful variety of oilcloth with
dainty pattern that my wife says will save washing; and lastly to a pair
of bayberry candles, olive green and a full eighteen inches high, which
it seems to me will give an admirable touch to our living-room mantel.
The shrinkage in the pocket-book is easily discernible; in fact I am led
to say briskly that I think we had better be getting along home, and so
we put our new treasures into the car and proceed homewards by a new
route more inland.
It is always interesting to try the lesser known roads even if they are
a bit rougher. They are little traveled and for this reason pleasanter
in midsummer; one rarely loses the way, for signs are plentiful, and so
we wind about the higher stretches which form the backbone of the Cape,
along sandy roads which at times diminish to mere cart-paths, but at all
times are passable.
Emerging from this forest district on one such excursion, we came quite
suddenly upon the forking of two roads where a clump of neat-looking
farmhouses, a schoolhouse, and a diminutive church indicated a real town.
Here my eye was arrested by the magic sign “Antiques” stuck into the lawn
in front of one of the houses.
While I do not admit the slightest lure in the sign of a Tea-Room except
when hard-pressed by hunger, and but scant attraction in the Art-Shop,
there is something about the word “antique” that whets my appetite
for exploration, and especially so when found in a quiet little hamlet
off the beaten path and probably not familiar to the many hundreds of
tourists whose smoothly running motors of ample proportions bespeak
well-filled pocket-books. Consequently I grasped the emergency brake and
came to a sudden stop in spite of a feeble protest from my daughter and a
heavy sigh from my wife on the back seat.
Where antiques are concerned, I take the lead, or, to be more accurate,
I stand alone, and so proceeded to the back door of the house; for those
who know Cape-Codders well enough realize the inconvenience and delay
which a knock at the front door provokes.
Seeing a middle-aged woman bending over the stove in the kitchen, I
called a merry “Good-afternoon” by way of salutation.
“Good-afternoon,” she replied as an echo might have thrown back my words.
“I saw your sign ‘antiques’ and thought perhaps I might have a look at
them,” I continued, nothing daunted.
“Mister Eldridge ain’t to home, but if you want to go out to the barn you
can see what he’s got,” she replied, without even turning her head to see
what sort of a second-story man I might be.
Here was luck, however, for I could look over the stock in trade of this
ambitious couple to my heart’s content, and I made haste to the barn,
which I found converted into one of the most amazing junk-shops it has
ever been my pleasure to explore.
Crowded together without rhyme or reason, and with no thought of display,
were the goods and chattels of generations of Cape-Codders; tables,
chairs, beds, sofas, ice-chests, a parlor organ, curtain rods, bits of
carpet, crockery in all stages of dilapidation. On one of the tables a
variety of hardware was strewn about, on one of the stiff-backed chairs
reposed three old brass lanterns. A Rogers group on a kitchen table
was flanked by a White Mountain ice-cream freezer on one side and a
fine old fire bucket on the other. A four-poster, of apple-wood, with
fluted posts terminating in pineapple tops, the wood in an excellent
state of preservation, was the repository of a half-dozen pictures,
three face-down, while one of the others disclosed itself as a really
good copy of the engraving of Washington and his family. But to the
casual observer, there seemed scarcely a piece of furniture or, in fact,
anything which was sufficiently in repair to survive the journey to my
house; furthermore, the rank and file of articles were of recent date and
had no charm for the collector.
However, the very hopelessness of the quest whetted my appetite, and to
the utter disgust of my family, I spent a good half-hour rummaging about,
not only in the main part of the barn, but also in the stalls, and even
in the hayloft, for the whole building was bulging with what seemed the
cast-off furnishings of the entire Cape.
The result of my examination was a really fine ship’s lantern which I
found in the loft; a pair of old pewter pepper pots, reclining in an old
soap dish, and a couple of straight-back rush-seated chairs, a trifle
rickety, but with the seats in excellent condition with the original rush
plaiting, which is unmistakable.
For fear of mislaying my selection, I had brought them outside the barn,
and at that moment a lanky, middle-aged farmer drove up in a buggy and
slowly got out.
“Is this Mr. Eldridge?” I asked.
“Thet’s me,” he replied. “Been havin’ a look over the department store?
I ain’t got in my elevators, an’ the outing department [here he looked
at my golfing tweeds] ain’t much to brag about, but I’ve got ’most
everything in thar except the town hearse an’ I’m savin’ that for my
mother-in-law.”
By George! I thought, here’s one of the real old-timers, nothing taciturn
about him, and I pointed to the modest selection I had made and asked
him what the price was.
“Well, as to price,” he replied, taking off his hat and meditatively
scratching his head, “that’s the worst of the business. I never just know
what my things are worth. Them chairs came from old widow Crocker’s, over
by Forestdale. She’d never sell ’em till she died, an’ then she couldn’t
help herself an’ her son-in-law cleaned the place out, an’ I got quite
a lot of stuff an’ paid him for the lot. What d’you say to a couple o’
dollars apiece?”
I said, “Yes,” as soberly as I could. I would have given much more.
“As to that lantern, it’s a good ’un and the glass is all right. I shall
have to get at least four dollars.”
“All right,” said I, cheerfully, for I had seen a smaller one in Chatham
go for eight just a few days before. “And how about the pepper pots?”
“Oh, you kin have ’em for—let’s see—’bout seventy-five apiece.” And I
agreed.
“What do you do with all this stuff?” I asked, as he helped me to dispose
of my treasures in an already well-filled car.
“Oh, mostly I sell to the Portugees that come here farmin’ and
cranberryin’. Now an’ then I get some old stuff same as you jest picked
up, but generally it’s the newer kind they like the best. I jest set
that there sign up ’cause I see every durn fellow ’long the road what
has a toothpick or a shavin’ mug to sell puts up a sign, an’ so, says I,
guess I’ll stick up one too.”
And that is the way I became acquainted with Silas Eldridge, dealer
in antiques, who has sold me many a real treasure, but I keep his
whereabouts as secret as possible, for of all the fascinating places for
picking up astonishing bargains on Cape Cod, his old dilapidated barn
offers the most surprises.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
VII
A BLUE STREAK
Slang is both the curse and the delight of the English language, and that
form of slang which our British friends term “Americanisms,” and which we
have now largely adopted as our national mode of communication, is not
confined to the youth of to-day by any means. In the home, in business,
and of course in sport, slang has found its way and has spread like the
weeds in the garden of the over-enthusiastic commuter. I remember hearing
a clergyman of national reputation and advancing years say a short time
ago, after a satisfying excursion of some sort, that he had “had more fun
than a goat,” and I defied him to elucidate that time-worn phrase to my
satisfaction.
The derivations and origins of American idioms and colloquial expressions
are vastly interesting, not only in showing the resourcefulness of our
people in cutting wordy corners and in the development of a certain
form of humor which I do not defend, but in shedding real light upon
the whys and wherefores of our universe down to its smallest detail. A
temperamental curiosity has led me from time to time to look up certain
of the commoner expressions, and I am indebted to this eccentric hobby
for several pleasurable experiences.
Many years ago—so many in fact that the memory is distasteful—I went to a
horse-race where the winner passed our stand at a pace which my companion
described as “going like a blue streak,” a familiar term with which I
ignorantly agreed at the time. I suppose that since then I have heard it
repeated many hundred times, but it was not until last summer when my son
applied it to a motor-boat passing out of the harbor, that I thought of
inquiring into its origin, and discovered, much to my surprise, that it
applied to the illusive and disconcerting movements of the ordinary sea
crab, often called the “blue claw.”
The discovery piqued my curiosity and I determined forthwith to
investigate the locomotory accomplishments of these retiring animals.
This was not as easy a task as I had expected. The crab is not socially
inclined, and the term “crabbed” is soon apparent. He is only to be found
at low tide, and generally near the mouth of a salty creek where the
bottom is muddy and sparsely covered with seaweed and eelgrass. There in
the late summer and fall he can be seen from canoe or rowboat, if one is
patient and watchful, and the expression to “go like a blue streak” fits
him like a glove.
Having provided myself with a net of the butterfly variety, I determined
to secure a specimen, and began my search among the creeks, so numerous
along the shores of Cape Cod. Although we came upon quite a number, it
took the entire morning to capture four.
When unmolested, these creatures crawl slowly and deliberately about
their business, sluggish in manner and shabbily dark in appearance,
grubbing about on the bottom, now in, now out of the seaweed, but the
instant that danger is threatened, they undergo a transformation. The
claws, from sprawling about on the mud at every angle, are drawn in, and
like a flash—or, far better, “like a blue streak”—the particular crab
that you have selected for capture darts away at an angle that leaves
you helpless with wonder at the suddenness of his departure and at the
blueness of his appearance.
As soon as you have spotted your prey the excitement begins. Armed with
the net, you crawl quietly to the bow of the boat and in whispers direct
the rower, now this way, now that, following the route taken by the
capricious crab. Sometimes the water is deep enough to permit the use
of the oars, at others it is necessary to pole the boat in and out among
the rocks covered by seaweed, your journey always attended by silence and
stealth as if the slightest noise would precipitate in flight this wily
crustacean.
At last when you are within striking distance, the net is plunged in
among the grass and brought up, alas! empty, and the hunt continues as
before.
When, after repeated trials, your patience is rewarded and a fine big
fellow is caught, the greatest care must be taken to prevent him from
crawling out of the net and escaping before he is landed in the boat,
for his activities are ceaseless.
Indeed, even after he is flung deftly into the pail, his savage struggles
may succeed in freeing him from captivity. And so it is only with
infinite caution and patience—qualifications necessary in every game—that
you are able to land your prize, and it is only then that you will find
the explanation of the color quality of his passing. As the crab is taken
from the water, its mud-colored shell appears a dark ultramarine blue,
the claws of a lighter shade, the under part shading to white tinged with
pink; its entire surface seems metallic in the intensity of its coloring
as it leaves the water. From a slow, lazy animal of peaceful habits, the
crab has become a veritable monster, savage and fiercely aggressive, and
woe to the unfortunate within reach of his claws.
His capture is a real experience and a distinctly sporting event. So
interesting and mysterious is the search, so active and adventurous
the pursuit, and so exciting and satisfying the actual catch, that one
is tempted to place crabbing among the big events of a summer at the
seashore.
I know a college professor who annually devotes the better part of his
vacation to this pastime, and several of my athletic friends, whose
prowess on the football field was a matter of international comment
in the papers, confess to the delights of a crab hunt; but it is a
surprising fact, nevertheless, that the majority of those who visit the
seacoast each year have never even heard of the extraordinary fascination
of hunting the originator of the “blue streak.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
VIII
A FRESH-WATER CAPE
To the majority of people Cape Cod spells sea breezes, a tang of salt in
the air, scrub oaks, tall pines, stretches of sand, and a large appetite.
To the few who know the Cape from more intimate acquaintance there is
added to this picture a swelling country densely wooded in sections and
spotted with ponds. It is a source of never-ending wonder how these
ponds exist in a country where the soil is so porous that a few minutes
after a shower there is no trace of the rain. In almost every instance
they are fed from springs beneath the surface, and the solution has been
offered and quite generally believed that much of this fresh water flows
in subterranean channels having their source far distant in the White
Mountains.
So plentiful is the supply that wells and pipes, driven a few feet into
the soil at almost any spot, furnish clear, pure water in ample supply
for household needs. A more remarkable fact is that at low tide in many
of the harbors and inlets fresh water can be found between the high and
low stretches, oozing through the salty surface of sand and mud. And so
the Cape, for all its salt qualities, has fresh water in profusion and
ponds without number. In Plymouth County alone there are 365 ponds, many
of them of substantial size, while the lower Cape is almost equally well
provided.
A generation ago, many of the residents of Plymouth passed their summers
on the largest of these—Long Pond. Having the salt breezes most of the
year they wisely sought a change to inland waters.
Last year I met a gentleman fishing in Wakeby Pond—made famous by
Cleveland and Joe Jefferson—who told me he came on from Chicago every
year to pass a month bass fishing. He was probably ten miles from the
coast, and might have been a hundred for all the good it did him; but on
the other hand, why not a pond on the Cape as well as a Rangeley Lake
in Maine? The life is much the same—the air refreshing and the scenery
delightful.
These larger ponds are fully as large as many of the Maine lakes. Long
Pond at Plymouth is said to be ten miles long, and I have seen the water
at Great Herring Pond as rough as one would care to have it when canoeing.
To be sure the fishing is not perhaps so very exciting—few trout, except
in the occasional streams which have been stocked, but land-locked
salmon, perch, and pickerel to be had with a little patience, and a
shrimp or so. The real pleasure which these ponds offer is the surprise
and delight of coming upon them as one does frequently and quickly while
motoring through the less-frequented roads. From Plymouth down the Cape
through Sandwich nearly every road and by-path leads to some picturesque
little sheet of water often closely wooded to its shores and without a
sign of habitation.
From Wareham or Cotuit, from Pocasset or Falmouth, from Hyannis or
Chatham—in short, from nearly every one of the many Cape towns, a ride
of fifteen or twenty minutes will take one to a pond which might as well
be fifty miles from any center of human activity. One rarely meets other
adventurers upon such trips, and the silence and peace which reign form
excellent foils to the summer life so near at hand.
Those who are wise in Cape ways possess small canoes mounted upon two
wheels, which are fastened on behind their cars, so that, when touring
the ponds, they are not limited in their fishing to the shore or to the
chance of finding a boat.
There are a number of gentlemen who have built small camps upon certain
of these secluded spots for casual excursions and for spring and fall
use. They are wise. By leaving Boston at noon they can always be in camp
by sundown ready to enjoy a full Sunday, while the mighty fisherman who
depends entirely upon the Maine lakes or the more remote places must plan
a week’s vacation, with the chance of better sport, to be sure, but no
better life, for the life of a sportsman in the open is much the same.
The great outdoors is universal in its appeal to the sane-minded and
healthy-bodied.
I have experienced as much heat and poorer fishing in Nova Scotia during
July as I have on our ponds of the Cape, and in addition I have noticed
more mosquitoes and midges to the cubic inch in Canada than on these same
ponds; but of that perhaps the less said the better.
I have in mind a little excursion which illustrates these extremes of
Cape life, and it is but one of many. In early July, when the children,
freed from school restraint, were on the rampage, and our cottage was
bearing the brunt of an onslaught of youthful visitors, each of our
neighbors having one or two boys and girls as guests for their children,
life seemed to me an unending series of activities coupled with ceaseless
slang. In fact, I was “fed up” with it all, so that when my classmate
and old friend R⸺ telephoned to say that he was going up to the pond for
a day or so, I clung to the receiver in my joy to escape.
The preparations for such a trip are simple—a blanket, a change of
clothing, a toothbrush, no razor, food enough to fill a small basket,
and—yes, I suppose it must be confessed—a bottle.
My fishing tackle is always ready. The bait, however, is more difficult
to secure. With net and pail I hastened to the creek which enters the
harbor near our cottage, and, it being fortunately low tide, I was able,
in the twenty minutes left before R⸺’s arrival, to secure a fair supply
of shrimp. That was all there was to it. We were off well within an hour
from the time of his message, and well within another hour we had arrived
at his little shack perched high above the shore of one of the loveliest
ponds on the Cape, and were settled for the night.
The camp was well stocked with wood and simply furnished with camp beds,
the ordinary cooking-utensils, and such comforts as may be gathered about
a broad hearth and a roaring fire.
Outside, the wind had died down and not a ripple disturbed the mirrored
surface of the water, which reflected the delicate outline of cedar,
pine, and oak, a lacy filament which shielded the setting sun from the
already silvered reflection of the half-moon.
“A perfect time of a perfect day, in a well-nigh perfect spot,” I said,
by way of expressing the joy of my escape.
“Such a burst of eloquence demands a toast,” remarked my friend.
So we forthwith resorted to the aforesaid bottle, and then turned to and
prepared supper—the inevitable scrambled eggs, deviled ham, bread and
marmalade, and coffee.
“To think of that howling mob at home only twenty minutes away,” I mused,
puffing contentedly at my pipe and reveling in the silence.
“To think of what a motor will do!” replied my friend, who was not
unaware of my opinion of cars.
I muttered something incoherently, and squirmed a bit at the thought of
some of my notions.
The next morning we were up with the sun, and after a hasty bite, put our
canoe into the water and set about our main task.
We were both fairly familiar with the haunts of the wily bass. In summer
they lie close to the bottom, the laziest of fellows, sucking in the
bait, if they notice it at all, in a dreamy fashion, but, once hooked,
they show their mettle, and so, when I finally felt a slight strain on my
line, I held back until I was sure of my fish. Yes, I had him, and a good
big one at that.
There is little or no casting in midsummer, so that I had brought a
stouter trolling-rod, and it was just as well. I played that fellow for
ten minutes, and when R⸺ finally netted him for me, we sat and looked at
each other speechless.
“By gad, he’s a five-pounder!” said my friend excitedly.
“Hum—about four and three quarters,” I replied in a matter-of-fact tone
to cover my excitement.
We caught twelve that morning, several weighing two pounds or
more,—splendid fishing, the best we had ever had on the pond.
When we reached the camp and weighed my prize, he tipped the scales at
five and three ounces—a record fish.
Late in the afternoon the clouds began to gather and the wind turned
northeast, so we decided to run for cover.
I was at home in time for dinner, and found the spell broken. It was I
who did the talking, an amazing amount of it, while the youngsters sat
open-mouthed when my bass was brought onto the table in a platter all
to himself, garnished by our cook, who, so says my wife, is proud of my
ability as a provider.
What more versatile land of summer, then, can one imagine than the
seashore with an almost permanent breeze, with a chain of inland ponds
remote and wild in character almost at one’s back door, motorively
speaking?
If variety is truly the spice of life, what better seasoned offering has
any locality to show than Cape Cod?
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
IX
AL FRESCO
Before you pass judgment upon any man or woman of your acquaintance, ask
him or her to a picnic. Then if you are not ready to form a decision,
they will probably have made up their minds about you. A picnic, so
the Dictionary has it, is an entertainment in a grove, an ominous and
hazardous place at best for a good time, and one to be avoided except
by sentimental couples, and therefore the Dictionary may be considered
narrow-minded in naming the locality. Furthermore, its advice is rarely
followed in these days, and the picnics which I prefer, and they are
countless, are held upon the seashore and, for the most part, in the sea
itself.
There is a white, sandy beach of a mile or more, banked by great
sand-dunes and bordering a section of Buzzard’s Bay which is
comparatively unknown, where there are no houses, not even bath-houses,
and where the delighted squeal of the noisy girl or the guffaw of the
blatant youth is rarely heard. It is here that we frequently gather with
a few good friends upon pleasant warm days, for an impromptu meal _al
fresco_, preceded by a joyous bath in water as clear as crystal, warm and
yet with a spiciness that clears the head from all drowsiness and whets
the appetite to a keen edge.
There are problems to every picnic. The conventions of life grip hard,
and yet it is curious and sometimes amusing to see how thin the veneer
really is when the primitive necessities of a picnic are faced.
The sand-dunes are conveniently rolling, every now and then dipping into
bowl-like formations, and in these sequestered or semi-sequestered nooks
we don our bathing-suits and sally forth to the sea. One of our friends,
a man somewhat particular as to his appearance and the soul of modesty,
was directed to the appointed place, but his love for the view led him up
the slope, so that, innocently turning our gaze shoreward, the feminine
portion of our gathering was considerably disconcerted to see the apostle
of Beau Brummel in nature’s garb innocently viewing the horizon and
giving little heed to his natty bathing-suit, a black and orange affair
with immaculate white belt which lay at his feet.
The women, too, those who but a few moments before would have tried
in every way to conceal a hole in their stockings, were glad to borrow
bathing-dresses of any reasonable style if by chance they had forgotten
to pack their own, and stockings seemed of no importance.
To line up twenty or more on the beach and rush for a plunge, to breast
the billows or to grope amid the sands for sea clams, to race along
the beach for the sheer joy of life, is the glad part of what I call
a picnic. And then the food! No meal which must be coaxed along by a
cocktail or other appetizer, to prepare the way for course after course
of indigestible concoctions planned by fertile-minded chefs, but honest
beef and chicken and ham sandwiches, delicately prepared and tastefully
arranged. Sandwiches of lettuce and cheese and paprika; sandwiches with
sardines, with olives; graham sandwiches with a thin layer of marmalade
or guava intended for the children, but partaken of by all. And stuffed
eggs, the variety only to be found at a picnic and eaten in two gulps,
the one place where such table manners are tolerated.
And it is on picnics that the thermos bottle is most thoroughly
appreciated. The miracle of hot bouillon, hot coffee, iced tea, and a
variety of beverages, suitably chilled or heated, seems ever to be a
source of fresh surprise and pleasure.
Toward autumn, the picnics offer a new variety, for the children thrill
at the expectation of cooking their own dinner. The joys of a bonfire,
the excitement of burying potatoes, corn, and clams in seaweed, the
frying of ham and eggs, and the occasional treat of flapjacks when one
of our nautical friends happens to be of our number. These are but a few
of the pleasures of a picnic such as one encounters on the shores of
Buzzard’s Bay in August and September.
It must be admitted that there are certain drawbacks which seem serious
to the individual of fixed habits, tender feet, and uncertain digestion.
There is, for example, the beautiful white sand, glistening in the
sun, smooth as a billiard table and fine as powder. It must be admitted
that after the bath one is conscious of the pervading quality of its
particles. It is in one’s hair, one’s shoes, and often elsewhere about
the person. It is discovered invading the aforesaid sandwiches, which
seem well named at such times. A brisk wind slaps it into your eye or
your mouth in disconcerting fashion, and you become aware of its grating
presence. Then, again, there are clouds upon the horizon. To those who
are seriously affected by the sand, these clouds look ominous. They may
forebode a storm and a wetting. A certain clamminess of hands and feet,
occasioned by the bath, remind one that a change in the weather precedes
a cold in the head. These feelings mark the man of creature comforts and
he fails to join in the part-singing which comes after the hearty meal,
when pipes are lighted and the entire gathering stretch themselves upon
the sands for a lazy half-hour before the inevitable cleaning-up process
begins. This same individual declines to tell his best story, and should
a ball game be suggested, he will be found callous to all coaxing. He
has enough sand in his shoes as it is, or he has eaten too much for
exercising, or possibly the clouds on the horizon lower more formidably.
Yes, a picnic discloses the strength and weakness of character which
mark our friends, and yet, after all, it does more, for it brings out the
best in most of us, and few, even of our habitually conventional friends,
fail to respond to the delights of a seashore picnic or lack in the
essential philosophy of an outdoor, care-free existence.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
X
MODELS
Long before the Old Colony Railroad thought of running a line to Cape
Cod—although that in itself was not so very long ago, well within the
memory of man—there was one charm of the Cape which is fast vanishing and
entirely unknown to the casual visitor and unappreciated by the perennial
summer residents. In those days there was a host of rugged, sturdy men,
intelligent, courageous, upright, and keen-minded. They were the Cape
captains, the men who grew up among the sand-dunes, to the rote of the
sea. The men who carried the good name of Cape Cod to the ends of the
earth and who brought back with them the fortunes which made the little
towns, dotted here and there along the shore, havens of comfort and rest.
Such men could tell stories which would vie with those of Conrad and
Stevenson, but for the most part their deeds go unrecorded except in
their ships’ logs, for they were a simple, reserved company. Of this
epoch there remains but one relic which is sought after by the present
generation, and it savors of the antique. In fact, it is the antiquarian
rather than the adventurer who ransacks the Cape at present for ships’
models.
In those early days there were months at a time when the ship’s company
were idle, and it grew to be a custom for those clever with their hands
to fashion models of the schooners in which they sailed or of seacraft
notable for beauty of line or complexity of rig.
Many an old sea captain would pass his idle moments in fashioning these
miniature boats, and many members of the ships’ crews became adept at
the hobby, for a knowledge of tools was almost an essential for every
man on the Cape, where the trades of carpenter, painter, and plumber
were generally performed by the householder. Furthermore, a sailor would
infinitely prefer to whittle out a model than to swab down the deck, and
frequently a clever mechanic would be relieved by his captain from this
menial work, if he devoted his time to the perfection of a model which
was destined for the mantel of the captain’s best parlor.
Therefore, in the old days, there was scarcely a Cape family of saltwater
ancestry which did not boast of at least one model and often more, the
trademark of an honorable and hazardous occupation and a relic of former
days of plenty when the Cape was peopled only by the native Cape-Codders
and before steam took from them the vocation to which they were reared.
To-day the captain of a full-rigged ship is as hard to find as the
vessel herself, and the Cape exists upon the summer residents and upon
the less productive occupation of fishing, which is largely in the hands
of the Portuguese, who have come in droves to settle upon our land of
Bartholomew Gosnold and his company of adventurers. And so the interest
in ships and in tales of the sea has disappeared along with those who
upheld the trade; and the models, familiar sights to the descendants,
have been relegated to the attic or have been sold as curiosities to the
ubiquitous dealers in antiques, who persistently come to the Cape for old
furniture, pewter, china—anything, in fact, which can be palmed off on
that voracious type of collector, the lover of antiques.
During the last few years, for some reason or other, these models have
become very popular. Just why it is not easy to explain. It is true
that they typify a lost trade which was full of adventure. It is also
true that they are decorative, many of them, but that hardly explains
the ravenous appetite which many collectors of antiques have recently
developed to obtain a genuine model. Dealers have secured agents in
every town on the Cape who are ransacking their neighborhoods for models,
half-models, pictures of boats made in bas-reliefs, weather vanes in the
shape of ships, and the prices are increasing by leaps and bounds. In
fact, so popular has this fad become that ex-sailors and carpenters with
some slight acquaintance with the sea are now developing quite a business
in fashioning models of special designs or of former famous ships. A few
years ago the model of a schooner about two feet in length fully rigged
would bring in the neighborhood of twenty-five dollars; to-day the same
model could not be secured for less than one hundred dollars. Often the
smaller, more exquisitely made specimens will bring more. The descendants
of the old captains have lost any sentimental regard for these relics
and gladly part with them for a comparatively small sum, but only to the
patient and skillful, who know Cape ways and Cape people, and so it is
almost impossible for the tourist to secure a model except from a dealer.
Should the casual summer visitor attempt to bargain with his native Cape
neighbor, he would find him a wily bird, suspicious of being imposed upon
and as likely as not to put an absurd valuation upon his possession; and
yet that same Cape neighbor might part with the model the next day to a
total stranger for a smaller sum, for such is the nature of the denizen
of the Cape. This contrary-mindedness and disinclination to do a favor is
not unusual, but as against this trait, he will be found to be a genial
host and a kindly acquaintance often generous beyond his means.
And so to-day we witness the passing of the models, last relic of the
olden days, the golden days of Cape Cod, from those tiny Cape cottages
built by these same sturdy sea captains to the comfortable mansions of
the summer people whose knowledge of the sea is secured in July and
August by an occasional dip, a sail in a knockabout, and a glimpse of a
glorious sunset over the shining waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
XI
“A WET SHEET AND A FLOWING SEA”
In my youthful days I often wondered at the regularity with which elderly
people would go out to drive day after day, sitting in the same seat in
the same carriage, behind the same horses, driven by the same coachman
along the same roads. It seemed to me a lamentable waste of time. And now
I have more or less (less as the years advance) the same feeling toward
those couples whose chief relaxation is a spin along the state roads of
their district in a well-appointed limousine, for I belong to that class
of motorists who use their cars purely for convenience and prefer the
fresh-air variety.
Yet, when it comes to sailing, for some reason which I am at a loss to
explain, my views are diametrically opposite. I am content to clamber
into my knockabout and to perform the routine labor of pumping “her” out,
unfurling and hoisting the sail, and casting off, then to cruise lazily
about our harbor, sailing over the same course day in and day out with
little variation, and to do this either alone or with a kindred spirit
as the case may be.
To many these cases may seem parallel, but to me they are widely variant.
There is a formality to a drive or a motor ride which starts with the
costume worn and ends with the character of conversation.
On a boat—and I am speaking entirely of small boats—the costume is of a
heterogeneous variety and the conversation of the freest. In fact, there
is something so thoroughly unconventional about life on the water that
even the stiffest of Brahminian Bostonians may occasionally be heard to
indulge in slang and to assume a rakish attitude, perched upon deck.
But such criticism, or rather comparison, is highly superficial. There
is more to it than external appearance; for sailing brings out the best
in human nature, encourages philosophy, develops independence of thought
and act, and largely so because those who sail shed their coating of
reserve and allow their natural feelings fair play. There is no quicker
way to know and size up one’s friends than to go on a cruise for a few
days. There is no better way of enjoying and extending one’s friendships
with both sexes than spending a few afternoons sailing together, skirting
along the shore with a fair breeze, nor is there any quicker way of
learning the weaknesses of certain individuals than by observing their
conduct under perhaps less peaceful conditions at sea. For the best of
skippers cannot predict weather conditions, and there are times when wind
and storm will come upon one with surprising quickness.
Here in New England, the sailing fraternity may be divided into those
who prefer the Maine coast and those who cling to the Cape and Buzzard’s
Bay. As one of the latter class, I always claim our supremacy by stating
two points which I believe to be true: first, that we have more wind, and
second, that we have less fog. To me this is convincing. The southwest
wind which cools the Cape, blows nearly every day in summer and with a
strength that often requires reefing. Rarely between ten in the morning
and five at night will the mariner find himself becalmed in Buzzard’s
Bay. In fact, the stranger is generally amazed to see girls and young
boys sailing without the presence of an older person, in what looks to
him a three-reef breeze.
They have been brought up to it and realize that vigilance must always be
exercised on the water, and they know the qualities of their boat and the
power of the wind. I know of no better training for youngsters who are
proficient in swimming than to learn to sail and race their own little
boats. The development of a power of observation, accurate judgment,
prompt action, and steady nerve comes more quickly with the handling of a
boat than in any other way for those who lead our kind of life.
Sailing is confined to boats, but boats are not by any means confined to
sailing, for latterly there are almost as many motor-boats to be found
chugging along the shores of the Cape as there are sailboats, although
I personally always pity the groups in the stern of one of these modern
affairs which makes its noisy passage leaving an odorous wake of oil and
smoke. But doubtless I am extreme in my views and old-fashioned in my
taste.
Give me a knockabout—a fifteen-footer for real comfort for a daily sail,
a stiff member of the twenty-one-foot class for cruising along shore.
Give me a comfortable catboat, broad of beam, for a family boat or for
a day’s fishing, or let me idle about in one of our little twelve-foot
Herreshoff class with my small son. In any one of them I shall find the
same sense of freedom, the same sort of pleasure, and the same love for
the salt sea, and from each I shall look at the windy, sandy shores of
the Cape with the same loyal affection.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
XII
MY CAPE FARM
If I have thought of it at all, I have thought of myself as a sociable
cuss. Not that I like sociables; I hate them, and that is probably why
they have gone out of fashion. What to my mind defines sociability is the
quality of enjoying and giving enjoyment to others, singly, in pairs, or
in groups; and in present days sociability is generally put to the test
either at dinners or at week-end parties, for these are the principal
points of contact between friends.
Latterly, however, my social bent has been somewhat warped by the growing
desire on the part of my friends to boast of their success as producers
of food. Whether it be premature senility, the result of conservation, or
merely the acquisition of wealth, which is being rapidly returned to its
own through the purchase of land and the ingenuity of gardeners, it is a
fact that at dinners of the cut-and-dried variety or a family gathering,
or, more especially, over a week-end, my host invariably calls attention
to the asparagus with a modest cough as prelude, or my hostess mentions
the number of eggs the farmer brought in yesterday to be put down in
water-glass. Sometimes it is not asparagus, but peas, or corn, or perhaps
a chicken, or even a ham. This the host. His wife more generally dilates
upon the milk products and the preserving end of the bill of fare; but,
for whatever cause, the thing got a bit on my nerves, so that I found
myself thinking of reasons for not visiting So-and-So or for not dining
with the Thing-um-Bobs on Friday week, when I knew we hadn’t a thing on
earth to do.
This frame of mind was, of course, all wrong. In the first place, these
friends were as good and as loyal as they were ten years ago, when,
if they had any garden at all, it consisted of a half-dozen radishes
that no one could eat without summoning a physician within four hours.
Furthermore, the aforesaid asparagus, with its accompaniments, was
better than the ordinary variety which has decorated the entrance to the
greengrocer’s establishment for the better part of a week. And lastly, as
I had no garden myself, why not enjoy the best and be thankful?
Probably the reason was envy and the season spring, when, contrary to
budding nature, one’s own physical being is not as blooming as it should
be.
Be this as it may, the final result has probably made me more of a bore
to my friends than they ever were to me, for to get even with them I
conceived the happy idea of catering to their epicurean tastes from my
own farm, which consisted of a scant two acres of shore line in that
section of Cape Cod which is renowned for its scarcity of soil.
The idea came to me soon after we had moved down for the summer months,
and my wife became so enthusiastic that it really became our hobby for
the season. We had planned for a succession of week-ends, and many of
these agricultural intimates were coming to us for return visits. We
would feed them upon the fat of our land or in this case largely the fat
of the sea.
It is interesting and instructive to learn just what varieties of food
can be secured from the immediate vicinity of any place, and to me
especially so of our Cape Cod.
During the entire summer I felt so personal an interest in our section
of the country that my small son exclaimed one day that I talked as if I
owned the entire Cape. I know I felt a proprietary interest in certain
fishing grounds, the whereabouts of which I would not confess even on
the rack. And it amuses me now to think of the circuitous routes I used
in getting to certain berry patches and stretches where mushrooms grew
overnight. In variety our dinners, or high teas (as we always called
them), were infinite as compared with those of our asparagus associates.
I remember one little repast which pleased me mightily, because it came
at the end of one of those hot days—they are rare on the Cape—when the
wind refused to blow from the southwest. We had had our swim, but even
golf was a bit too strenuous and food does not have its usual appeal on
such occasions even on the Cape. It also happened that our friends of
this particular week-end were literally congested with land and its more
generous offerings, and so when I practiced the usual humiliatory cough
and remarked that our simple repast came from my Cape farm and they must
excuse its simplicity, I was just a trifle nervous.
The melons were a gift from my plumber, a curious combination. If only
the plumber could plumb as well as he grows melons upon his barren
sandpile, our summer comfort would be increased by fifty per cent. No
better melons can be found than these little fellows. The clam-broth,
from my own clam-bed, was an appetizer. I seriously believe that there
is real energizing value in such clam-broth as this, boiled down almost
to a _liqueur_ from newly dug clams. Then came scallops plucked that
day from the seaweed, where they lie at low tide blowing like miniature
whales. We all know how delicious they are in the autumn served with
_tartare_ sauce, but have you ever tasted them creamed with a dash of
brown sherry and served with fresh mushrooms?
Just as the plumber supplies us with melons, so the fishman is the local
authority on lettuce. Our salad, therefore, came from Captain Barwick,
crisp and white with slices of early pears from a near-by tree, and with
it my favorite muffins of coarse, white cornmeal toasted, thin, and eaten
with beach-plum jam made from our own bushes in the bramble patch close
by the lane, and cottage cheese which our cook positively enjoys making.
My wife had felt this to be a rather scant repast for those used to
dinners of six or eight courses, and so the dessert was a substantial
huckleberry pudding served cold from the ice-chest with whipped
cream, and to take the chill off we had a small glass of my home-made
wild-cherry brandy with our coffee; and while there are other beverages
which are preferable I confess it gave us a delightfully comforting
sensation.
The hearty, genuine praise from my guests gave me a fleeting feeling of
shame at the way I had criticized their asparagus and numberless eggs,
but the pride of success carried me with it.
“Oh, this is not anything; wait until to-morrow and let me show you the
varieties which my farm offers. In the catboat, I have a well in which we
keep fish alive. What say you to a butterfish for breakfast? For dinner
we can either go out to the fishing grounds for something with a real
pull to it, or we can motor over to Turtle Pond for a try at a bass, or
we can golf and take a couple of lobsters out of my pots bobbing up and
down out there by the point.”
“Hold on,” my friend interjected. “What I want to know is whether every
one on the Cape lives in this way, for if they do I think I shall be
moving down here by another season.”
“No,” I replied, “very few. In the first place, most people continue to
do just what their neighbors do—tennis, golf, swimming, sailing. The
fishing is poor unless you know where to go. The natives are not helpful
unless you know how to take them, and that is why I call it all _my_
farm, because I have taken it all unto myself and I reap a reward much
richer than I deserve.
“I pass much of my time hunting up new fishing grounds or the lair of
the soft-shell crab, or even the quiet, muddy recesses of the ‘little
necks.’ I wander about the country exploring new berry patches, for there
is a great variety of these. And if you must know, I fraternize with
certain delightfully conversational individuals who sell me delicious
fruit and vegetables as well as ducks and chickens and a variety of odds
and ends, as, for instance, that little model over there. But you could
not buy them. No, sir, not until you learned the art of negotiation to
perfection. You may manage your estates to the Queen’s taste, but when it
comes to managing a Cape-Codder, ah, that’s not done so easily.”
I see my friends leading the conventional summer life and wonder at
times how they can come to the Cape year after year and yet be strangers
to its real fascination, because it has many other hidden allurements
besides this quest for food.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
XIII
SCALLOPS
Sport, according to our highest authorities, is “that which diverts
and makes mirth,” and from this general interpretation the term has
been applied to games, and to the various forms of hunting and fishing
commonly known, but I have yet to hear the word applied to the pursuit
of the scallop. And yet, scalloping more nearly approaches the original
meaning of sport than most of the games which are commonly classed under
this heading, for not only does the scallop divert and provoke the mirth
of his pursuer, but the pursuer in turn evokes a similar feeling and
impression upon those who chance to see him in action. Those who have
never tasted the joys and excitement of a scallop hunt have not completed
their education as real sportsmen. It is true that Badminton does not
devote a volume to this particular pastime; it is equally true that the
progressive American journalist, whose duty it is to supply the sporting
columns of his paper with all the news of current athletic events,
invariably ignores this important item, and our mighty Nimrods fail to
include scalloping among their feats of prowess; but in each case the
cause of the omission invariably can be traced to ignorance, and to the
fact that your scallop-hunter is a wary fellow who says but little and
boasts less, fearing inadvertently to disclose the favored haunts of his
favorite prey. And so, for these and divers causes, the pursuit of the
scallop lies in obscurity.
On the other hand, the scallop has been a friend to man for generations
in many and varied ways. In the days of the Crusaders, the pilgrims
returning from the Holy Land wore scallop shells, gathered upon the coast
of Palestine, as a badge or mark of the success of their wanderings.
At an equally early period the scallop shell became an important factor
in design, from architecture, through the various stages, to the
adornment of women’s clothes. The scallop shell is discovered embedded
in the capitals of many famous columns. It will be found chiseled upon
the keystones of countless arches. Scarcely a theater but possesses it
among its mural decorations. Upon the title-pages of books it serves in
an equally decorative capacity, while the scalloping upon the hems of
dresses brings the scallop’s shell familiarly into our family life.
In addition to all this, certain families of ancient lineage have
adopted the shell as a part of their crest. Heraldry traces the cause to
the days of the Knights of the Holy Land.
The scallop, therefore, has been sought by generations, and is no marine
upstart basing his claims to popularity upon his flavor as a savory dish
for a modern Lucullus. In short, the scallop is historic, artistic,
decorative, and delicious. In real life, however, he is one of the
numerous marine bivalve mollusks of the genus _Pecten_, and to those who
have not already recognized the symmetrically ribbed shells so often
found upon our beaches, a dictionary is recommended.
Although his past is buried in the annals of the Holy Land, in Ægean
waters, and upon the banks of the Red Sea, just at present he is rampant
upon the shoals of Cape Cod, and it is here that our scallopers pursue
him during the weeks previous to early autumn days, when the Cape
fisherman wages destruction with sea-rakes, seines, and nets.
Imagine the tide running low, disclosing the bright, sandy bottoms of
countless inlets, the ripple of the waters making dim the outlines of
the corrugated surfaces of the submerged shore. At such times, and in
certain localities which shall be nameless, the wily hunter issues forth
in bathing-suit or rubber-booted, or even—in the enthusiasm of the
moment—fully clothed, with pail or basket sometimes attached to his waist
by a cord. He wades in at a slow pace, gazing searchingly into the depths
of the water for a sign of his prey, choosing at first the shoals where
it is easier to see, and as likely a spot as others for fine shellfish.
And here a curious phenomenon is discovered; his eye catches the glint
of a shining shell and he stoops to secure it, only to find a half shell
without life. The brighter the shell, the less chance of its being
inhabited. The scallop covers himself when possible with a few strands
of seaweed, or buries himself in the mud or sand, and therefore, when
in the full bloom of life, he looks like a hoary, hairy thing of past
history, an encrusted shell from which life might have departed a century
ago. If, by good fortune, the hand comes in contact with him, however,
his vitality is made quickly evident by a savage snap of his shell, as
the large muscle expands and contracts in self-defense, and should a
finger become caught between the upper and lower shells, the hunter is
in for a sharp nip. The quest leads from spot to spot, from shoal water
out into deeper parts, until one finds one’s self waist-deep, bending and
stooping, raking the bottom with frenzied hand groping for these tufted
prizes, and when one is fortunate to secure a good spot, the hand never
fails to bring up one, two, and sometimes more, of these irate creatures
whose antics evoke admiration and whose strength seems almost abnormal.
There are bright, warm days in the latter part of August when on many
parts of the shore may be seen men, women, and children by scores,
curiously and wonderfully garbed, grotesquely postured, wading the
waters in this fascinating pursuit, which, after the quiet glamor of
clam-digging, possesses the excitement of big-game hunting. Were it not
for a strict law these same hardy hunters would, undoubtedly, be found in
dories, plying a small net for the same purpose, but the very crudity
of the chase has its advantages, for one comes close to the life of the
sea bottom, and all that goes on there, from the waving masses of seaweed
of many varieties to the countless forms of life clinging to the rocks,
embedded in the mud or darting through the water. The sea bottom is as
busy as Broadway, and as full of mystery.
The reader must not for a moment imagine the scallop, however, as
belonging to a sedentary type of life. Often he is found moving at a high
rate of speed through the water, propelled by this same muscle which
provides his defense. By opening and closing his shell he moves forward
and upward or downward, apparently at will, digging himself into the mud
and effectually hiding himself from his pursuers. He deserves the respect
of his superiors in the animal kingdom, and at the same time proves
himself fair game by his prowess.
And so one is led out and out still farther, until, bent upon securing
one more victim, a mouthful of water and smarting eyes give notice that
those beyond are safe for the time being, and the successful hunter
returns to his boat with a full pail, while the sun, enormous and a deep
orange red, is just touching the horizon.
The conquest is not complete, for it is no easy task to open these
snapping bivalves, and thus to extract the muscle that is the edible
portion, and the full reward is by no means reaped. That is left for the
evening meal, when the scallop becomes the _pièce de résistance_ cooked
in one of a hundred ways. But of this let a _cordon bleu_ convince you,
whose best efforts are secured and deserved by the scallop.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
_AFTERMATH_
And now comes the fall of the year with days gorgeous in coloring, from
the clear crystal blue of the sky reflected in sparkling waters to the
flame-tinted stretches of woodland watched over by tall pines and guarded
by stately cedars. The sandy roads glisten in the distances, marking off
sections of the Cape country as a huge picture puzzle. The atmosphere
seems purged of all imperfection, giving to every town and hamlet a
spotless appearance bright with late flowers and fresh fruit awaiting
the harvest. Azure days of October, the most perfect of the year. It is
then that regretfully we say “au revoir” to our beloved Cape in all its
glory.
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS
U.S.A
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