AN AMERICAN SUMMER RESORT
I have no quarrel with American summer resorts as such—they are as good
as any—but I must confess that scenes like this do not move me as they
once did. I can well recall the time—and that not so many years ago—when
this one would have set me tingling, left me yearning with a voiceless,
indescribable pain. Life does such queer things to one. It takes one’s
utmost passions of five years ago and puts them out like a spent fire.
Standing in this almost operatic street, I did my best to contrast my
feelings with those of twenty, fifteen and even ten years before. What
had come over the spirit of my dreams? Well, twenty years before I knew
nothing about love, actually—ten years before I was not satisfied. Was
that it? Not exactly—no—I could not say that it was. But now at least
these maidens and this somewhat banal stage setting were not to be
accepted by me, at least, at the value which unsophistication and youth
place on them. The scene was gay and lovely and innocent really. One
could feel the wonder of it. But the stage-craft was a little too
obvious.
Fifteen years before (or even ten) these gauche maidens idling along
would have seemed most fascinating. Now the brow bands and diaphanous
draperies and pink and blue and green slippers were almost like trite
stage properties. Fifteen or twenty years before I would have been ready
to exclaim with any of the hundred youths I saw bustling about here,
yearning with their eyes: “Oh, my goddess! Oh, my Venus! Oh, my perfect
divinity! But deign to cast one encouraging glance upon me, your devoted
slave, and I will grovel at your feet. Here is my heart and hand and my
most sacred vow—and my pocket book. I will work for you, slave for you,
die for you. Every night for the next two thousand nights of my life,
all my life in fact, I will come home regularly from my small job and
place all my earnings and hopes and fears in your hands. I will build a
house and I will run a store. I will do anything to make you happy. We
will have three, seven, nine children. I will spade a garden each
spring, bring home a lawnmower and cut the grass. I will prove
thoroughly domesticated and never look at another woman.”
That, in my nonage, was the way I used to feel.
And as I looked about me I could see much the same emotions at work
here. These young cubs—how enraptured they were; how truly like young
puppies with still blinded eyes! The air was redolent of this illusion.
That was why the windows and balconies were hung with Japanese lanterns.
That was why the orchestras were playing so—divinely! To me now it
tanged rather hollowly at moments, like a poor show. I couldn’t help
seeing that the maidens weren’t divinities at all, that most of them
were the dullest, most selfish, most shallow and strawy mannikinesses
one could expect to find. Poor little half-equipped actors and
actresses.
“But even so,” I said to myself, “this is the best the master of the
show has to offer. _He_ is at most a strolling player of limited
equipment. Perhaps elsewhere, in some other part of the universe, there
may be a showman who can do better, who has a bigger, better company.
But these——”
I returned to the hotel and waited for Franklin. We were assigned a
comfortable room on the second or third floor, I forget which, down a
mile of corridor. Supper in the grill cost us five dollars. The next
morning breakfast in the Persian breakfast room cost us three more. But
that evening we had the privilege of sitting on a balcony and watching a
herd of deer come down to a wire fence and eat grass in the glare of an
adjacent arc light. We had the joy of observing the colored fountains
(quenched at twelve) and seeing the motoring parties come tearing up or
go flying past, wild with a nameless gayety. In the parlors, the music
rooms, the miles of promenade balconies, were hosts of rich mammas and
daughters—the former nearly all fat, the latter all promising to be, and
a little gross. For the life of me I could not help but think of
breweries, distilleries, soap factories, furniture factories, stove
companies and the like. Where did all these people come from? Where did
they all get the money to stay here weeks and weeks at six, eight, and
even fifteen and twenty a day a person? Our poor little six dollar
rooms! Good Heavens! Some of them had suites with three baths. Think of
all the factories, the purpose of which (aside from supplying the world
with washtubs, flatirons, sealing wax, etc.) was to supply these elderly
and youthful females with plumpness and fine raiment.
While we were in the grill eating our rather late dinner (the Imperial
Egyptian dining room was closed), several families strolled in, “pa,” in
one case, a frail, pale, meditative, speculative little man who seemed
about as much at home in his dressy cutaway coat as a sheep would in a
lion’s skin. He was so very small and fidgety, but had without doubt
built up a wholesale grocery or an iron foundry or something of that
sort. And “ma” was so short and aggressive, with such a firm chin and
such steady eyes. “Ma” had supplied “pa” with much of his fighting
courage, you could see that. As I looked at “pa” I wondered how many
thousand things he had been driven to do to escape her wrath, even to
coming up here in August and wearing a cutaway coat and a stiff white
shirt and hard cuffs and collars. He did look as though he would prefer
some quiet small town veranda and his daily newspaper.
And then there was “Cerise” or “Muriel” or “Albertina” (I am sure she
had some such name), sitting between her parents and obviously
speculating as to her fate. Back at Wilson’s Corner there may have been
some youth at some time or other who thought her divine and implored her
to look with favor on his suit, but behold “pa” was getting rich and she
was not for such as him.
“Jus' you let him be,” I could hear her mother counseling. “Don’t you
have anything to do with him. We’re getting on and next summer we’re
going up to the Kittatinny. You’re sure to meet somebody there.”
And so here they were—Cerise dressed in the best that Scranton or
Wilkes-Barré or even New York could afford. Such organdies, voiles,
swisses, silk crepes—trunks full of them, no doubt! Her plump arms were
quite bare, shoulders partly so, her hair done in a novel way, white
satin shoes were on her feet—oh dear! oh dear! She looked dull and
uninteresting and meaty.
But think of Harvey Anstruther Kupfermacher, son of the celebrated trunk
manufacturer of Punxsutawney, who will shortly arrive and wed her! It
will be a “love match from the first.” The papers of Troy, Schenectady,
and Utica will be full of it. There will be a grand church wedding. The
happy couple will summer in the Adirondacks or the Blue Ridge. If the
trunk factory and the iron foundry continue successful some day they may
even venture New York.
“Wilson’s Corner? Well I guess not!”
There was another family, the pater familias large and heavy, with big
hands, big feet, a bursting pink complexion, and a vociferous grey suit.
“Pa” leads his procession. “Ma” is very simple, and daughter is
comparatively interesting, and rather sweet. “Pa” is going to show by
living at the Kittatinny what it means to work hard and save your money
and fight the labor unions and push the little fellow to the wall. “Pa”
thinks, actually, that if he gets very rich—richer and richer—somehow he
is going to be supremely happy. Money is going to do it. “Yessiree,
money can do anything, good old American dollars. Money can build a fine
house, money can buy a fine auto, money can give one a splendid office
desk, money can hire obsequious factotums, money can make everyone
pleasant and agreeable. Here I sit,” says Pa, “right in the grill room
of the Kittatinny. Outside are colored fountains. My shoes are new. My
clothes are of the best. I have an auto. What do I lack?”
“Not a thing, Pa,” I wanted to answer, “save certain delicacies of
perception, which you will never miss.”
“'Soul, take thine ease; eat, drink and be merry.'”
The next morning we were up bright and early for a long drive. Owing to
my bumptiousness in having set aside the regular route of the trip I
could see that Franklin was now somewhat depending on me to complete my
career as a manager and decide when and where to go. My sole idea was to
cut direct through Pennsylvania, but when I consulted a large map which
hung on the wall of the baggage room of the Kittatinny I was not so
sure. It was about six feet long and two feet high and showed nothing
but mountains, mountains, mountains, and no towns, let alone cities of
any size. We began to speculate concerning Pennsylvania as a state, but
meanwhile I consulted our “Scenic Route” map. This led us but a little
way into Pennsylvania before it cut due north to Binghamton, and the
socalled “good roads” of New York State. That did not please me at all.
At any rate, after consulting with a most discouraging porter who seemed
to be sure that there were no good roads in Pennsylvania, I consoled
myself with the thought that Wilkes-Barré and Scranton were west of us,
and that the “Scenic Route” led through these places. We might go to
Wilkes-Barré or Scranton and then consult with the local automobile
association, who could give us further information. Quite diplomatically
I persuaded Franklin to do that.
The difficulty with this plan was that it left us worrying over roads,
for, after all, the best machine, as anyone knows who has traveled much
by automobiles, is a delicate organism. Given good roads it can
seemingly roll on forever at top speed. Enter on a poor one and all the
ills that flesh or machinery is heir to seem at once to manifest
themselves. A little mud and water and you are in danger of skidding
into kingdom come. A few ruts and you feel momentarily as though you
were going to be thrown into high heaven. A bad patch of rocks and holes
and you soon discover where all the weak places in your bones and
muscles are. Punctures eventuate from nowhere. Blowouts arrive one after
another with sickening frequency. The best of engines snort and growl on
sharp grades. Going down a steep hill a three-thousand-pound car makes
you think always—"My God! what if something should break!" Then a spring
may snap, a screw work loose somewhere.
But before we left the Water Gap what joys of observation were not mine!
This was such an idle tour and such idle atmosphere. There was really no
great need for hurry, as we realized once we got started, and I was
desirous of taking our time, as was Franklin, though having no wish to
stay long anywhere. We breakfasted leisurely while Speed, somewhere, was
doctoring up our tires. Then we strolled out into this summer village,
seeing the Water Gappers get abroad thus early. The town looked as kempt
by day as it did by night. Our fat visitors of heavy purses were still
in bed in the great hotels. Instead you saw the small town American busy
about his chores; an ancient dame, for instance, in black bonnet and
shawl, driving a lean horse and buggy, the latter containing three milk
cans all labeled “Sunset Farm Dairy Co.”; a humpnosed, thinbodied,
angular grocer, or general store keeper, sweeping off his sidewalk and
dusting off his counters; various citizens in “vests” and shirt sleeves
crossing the heavily oiled roads at various angles and exchanging the
customary American morning greetings:
“Howdy, Jake?”
“Hi, Si, been down t' the barn yet?”
“Did Ed get that wrench he was lookin' for?”
“Think so, yep.”
“Well, look at old Skeeter Cheevers comin' along, will yuh”—this last
apropos of some hobbling septuagenarian with a willow basket.
I heaved a kind of sigh of relief. I was out of New York and back home,
as it were—even here at the Delaware River—so near does the west come to
the east.
Sitting in willow chairs in front of a garage where Speed was looking
for a special kind of oil which evidently the more pretentious hotel
could not or would not supply, Franklin and I discussed the things we
had heard and seen. I think I drew a parallel between this hotel here
and similar hotels at Monte Carlo and Nice, where the prices would be no
higher, if so high.
It so happened that in the morning, when I had been dressing, there had
been a knocking at the door of the next room, and listening I had heard
a man’s voice calling “Ma! Ma! Have you got an undershirt in there for
me?”
I looked out to see a tall, greyheaded man of sixty or more, very
intelligent and very forceful looking, a real American business chief.
“Yes,” came the answer after a moment. “Wait a minute. I think there’s
one in Ida’s satchel. Is Harry up yet?”
“Yes, he’s gone out.”
This was at six A. M. Here stood the American in the pretentious hall,
his suspenders down, meekly importuning his wife through the closed
door.
Imagine this at Nice, or Cannes, or Trouville!
And then the lackadaisical store keeper where I bought my postcards.
“Need any stamps, cap?” was his genial inquiry.
Why the “cap”? An American civility—the equivalent of Mister, Monsieur,
Sir,—anything you please.
I had of late been reading much magazine sociology of the kind that is
labeled “The Menace of Immigration,” etc. I was saying to Franklin that
I had been fast coming to believe that America, east, west, north, and
south, was being overrun by foreigners who were completely changing the
American character, the American facial appearance, the American
everything. Do you recall the Hans Christian Andersen story of the child
who saw the king naked? I was inclined to be that child. I could not
see, from the first hundred miles or so we had traveled, that there was
any truth in the assertions of these magazine sociologists. Franklin and
I agreed that we could see no change in American character here, or
anywhere, though it might be well to look sharply into this matter as we
went along. In the cities there were thousands of foreigners, but they
were not unamericanizing the cities, and I was not prepared to believe
that they are doing any worse by the small towns. Certainly there was no
evidence of it here at the Water Gap. All was almost “offensively
American,” as an Englishman would say. The “caps,” “docs,” and “howdys”
were as common here as in—Indiana, for instance—so Franklin seemed to
think—and he lives in Indiana a goodly part of the year. In the Water
Gap and Stroudsburg, and various towns hereabout where, because of the
various summer hotels and cottages, one might expect a sprinkling of the
foreign element, at least in the capacity of servitors, in the streets
and stores, yet they were not even noticeably dotted with them. If all
that was American is being wiped out the tide had not yet reached
northern New Jersey or eastern Pennsylvania. I began to take heart.