They took the steamer for Massachusetts at five o'clock. When the band
started to play, when Mother feared that a ferry was going to collide
with them, when beautiful youths in boating hats popped out of
state-rooms like chorus-men in a musical comedy, when children banged
small sand-pails, when the steamer rounded the dream-castles of lower
New York, when it seemed inconceivable that the flag-staff could get
under Brooklyn Bridge--which didn't clear it by much more than a hundred
feet--when a totally new New York of factories and docks, of steamers
bound for Ceylon and yachts bound for Newport, was revealed to these old
New-Yorkers--then Mother mingled a terrific apprehension regarding ships
and water with a palpitating excitement over sailing into the freedom
which these two gray-haired children had longed for all their lives, and
had found during two weeks of each year.
Father was perfectly tremendous. He apprehensive? Why, he might have
been the original man to go down to the sea in ships. Mother wailed that
all the deck-chairs had been taken; Father found mountains of chairs and
flipped a couple of them open as though he were a steward with service
stripes. He was simply immense in his manner of thrusting Mother and
himself and his chairs and a mound of shawls and coats into the midst of
the crowd gathered at the bow. He noted Mother's nervousness and
observed, casually, "Mighty safe, these boats. Like ferries. Safer 'n
trains. Yes, they're safer 'n staying home in bed, what with burgulars
and fires and everything."
"Oh, do you really think they are safe?" breathed Mother, comforted.
Admirable though Father was, he couldn't sit still. He was wearing a
decorative new traveling cap, very smart and extensive and expensive,
shaped like a muffin, and patterned with the Douglas tartan and an
Etruscan border. He rather wanted to let people see it. He was no
Pilkings clerk now, but a world-galloper. With his cap clapped down on
one side and his youthful cigarette-holder cocked up on the other, and
in his buttonhole a carnation jaunty as a red pompon, with the breeze
puffing out the light silver hair about his temples and his pink cheeks
glowing in the westering sun, he promenaded round and round the
hurricane-deck and stopped to pat a whimpering child. But always he
hastened back, lest Mother get frightened or lonely. Once he imagined
that two toughs were annoying her, and he glared at them like a sparrow
robbed of a crumb.
As he escorted her into the dining-saloon Father's back was straight,
his chin very high. He was so prosperous of aspect, so generous and
proudly affectionate, that people turned to look. It was obvious that if
he had anything to do with the shoe business, he must be a manufacturer
in a large way, with profit-sharing and model cottages.
The sun went down; Long Island Sound was shot with red gold as little
waves reached up hands at the wonder of light. Father and Mother gazed
and ate chocolate ice-cream and large quantities of cake, with the naive
relish of people who usually dine at home.
They sat on deck till Mother yawned and nodded and at last said the
"Wel-l--" which always means, "Let's go to bed." Father had so inspired
her with faith in the comparative safety of their wild voyaging that
she was no longer afraid, but just sleepy. She nestled in her chair and
smiled shamefacedly and said, "It's only half-past nine, but somehow--".
In her drowsiness the wrinkles smoothed away from round her eyes and
left her face like that of a plump, tired, happy little girl.
When they were at home Father's and Mother's garments had a way of
getting so familiarly mixed that even Mother could scarcely keep their
bureau drawers separate. But when they traveled they were aristocrats,
and they had entirely separate suit-cases and berths. From the pompous
manner in which Father unpacked his bag you would have been utterly
beguiled, and have supposed him to be one of those high persons who have
whole suites to themselves and see their consorts only at state
banquets, when there are celery and olives, and the squire invited to
dinner. There was nothing these partners in life more enjoyed than the
one night's pretense that they were aloof. But they suddenly forgot
their roles; they squealed with pleasure and patted each other's
shoulders fondly. For simultaneously they had discovered the surprises.
In Mother's suit-case, inside her second-best boots, Father had hidden
four slender beribboned boxes of the very best chocolate peppermints;
while in Father's seemly nightgown was a magnificent new mouth-organ.
Father was an artist on the mouth-organ. He could set your heart
prancing with the strains of "Dandy Dick and the Candlestick." But his
old mouth-organ had grown wheezy. Now he sat down and played softly till
their tiny inside state-room was filled with a tumbling chorus of happy
notes.
When Mother was asleep in the lower berth and Father was believed to be
asleep in the upper he slipped on his coat and trousers and
kitten-footed out of the state-room to a dark corner of the deck. For,
very secretly, Father was afraid of the water. He who had insouciantly
reassured Mother had himself to choke down the timorous speculations of
a shop-bound clerk. While the sun was fair on the water and there were
obviously no leviathans nor anything like that bearing down upon them he
was able to conceal his fear--even from himself. But now that he didn't
have to cheer Mother, now that the boat rolled forward through a black
nothingness, he knew that he was afraid. He sat huddled, and remembered
all the tales he had heard of fire and collision and reefs. He vainly
assured himself that every state-room was provided with an automatic
sprinkler. He made encouraging calculations as to the infrequency of
collisions on the Sound, and scoffed at himself, "Why, the most shipping
there could be at night would be a couple of schooners, maybe a
torpedo-boat." But dread of the unknown was on him.
Father went through this spasm of solitary fear each first night of
vacation. It wasn't genuine fear. It was the growing-pain of freedom.
The cricket who chirped so gaily when he was with Mother was also a
weary man, a prisoner of daily routine. He had to become free for
freedom.
Laughingly, then bitterly, he rebuked himself for fear. And presently he
was bespelled by the wonder of the unknown. Beyond the water through
which they slid, black and smooth as polished basalt, he saw a
lighthouse winking. From his steamer time-table he learned that it must
be Great Gull Island light. Great Gull Island! It suggested to him
thunderous cliffs with surf flung up on beetling rock, screaming gulls,
and a smuggler on guard with menacing rifle. He lost his fear of fear;
he ceased to think about his accustomed life of two aisles and the
show-case of new models and the background of boxes and boxes and boxes
of shoes--tokens of the drudgery that was ground into him like grit. The
Father who worried was changing into the adventurous wanderer that
henceforward he would be--for two weeks. He stretched out his short arms
and breathed deeply of the night wind.
Half an hour later he was asleep. But not, it must be confessed, in the
aristocratic seclusion of his own berth. He was downily curled beside
Mother, his cheek nuzzled beside her delicate old hand.