SIDNEY TELLS "DOROTHEA"
After all Sidney never sent the telegram to Trude. But it must not be
thought that all in a moment she adapted herself to her new
surroundings, or saw Cousin Achsa as the "boarder" had pictured her;
her anticipations had soared too high, on the wings of too agile an
imagination, to surrender at once to their downfall. Even Dugald Allan
she regarded with inward skepticism.
How she rebuilt her small world can be chronicled best by peeping over
her shoulder one afternoon, the third day after her coming, as she
wrote in her precious "Dorothea" book. At the last moment she had
brought this with her, moved by a doubt as to the wisdom of leaving it
behind; there was no knowing what liberties the Leaguers, left alone,
might take.
"Dorothea Mine, you do not know how it comforts me to feel your dear
pages. I am not alone for you are with me. And when I think how I
almost left you at home. There is so much to write that I scarcely know
where to begin and must needs sit with my pen suspended. This is the
funniest place I ever saw but no one, absolutely no one but you, dear
bosom friend, shall ever know that. I mean it is funny because
everything is just the opposite of what I expected it to be. I had
thought, you see, that our relatives probably lived in a big white
square house high up on a rock-bound coast against which the waves
dashed in foamy crests. That's the way I wanted the house to look. And
instead it is very small and all wigglety, with sand hills around it.
But it is cute for the rooms are small like a doll's house. There is a
kitchen in which we do everything which I did not like at first only it
is a different kitchen and there is not any other place anyway for the
parlor is so stiff and dressed-up looking that it would be shocking to
muss it up. The kitchen smells good and shines it is so clean and there
is a door that opens right out into the flowers. I shall not say much
about Cousin Achsa because Dugald, who is the boarder, says that she is
an aristocrat of solid material and he must know because he has lived
here summers for a very long time. But she talks bad English like
Huldah only she says 'I swum,' instead of 'Yah!' And she is queer
looking but then all is not gold that glitters. But she is very kind to
me and I think likes me and she cooks the grandest things and so much.
She works all the time. I do not think I ever saw anyone who could work
so fast. She is like she was wound up inside and had to keep working
until she ran down.
"But pour out my heart I must about Lavender who is my cousin. You see
I did not know I had a young cousin until Phin Davies (of him I will
record later), told me of the benefit and of the baby who would be
sixteen now, he said. Then I became greatly excited in anticipation of
a cousin about my own age to play with. And oh, what did I find! But
only once will I truly describe him for I have promised Mr. Dugald to
think of Lavender as the poor flower on the crooked stem and I make
myself shut my inside eyes so that I cannot see that he is different.
He is small for he only comes to my ears and his arms hang way down and
he has funny, long fingers and one shoulder is higher than the other
and he has a hump on his back. There, I have written the truth. Now I
will remember the flower. Lavender has beautiful and very wise eyes and
a low voice that sounds like music and a lovely name, like a name in a
languishing novel. And he is dreadfully smart, and gets it all from the
lots and lots of books which he reads to make up for not going to
school. I suppose he hates to go to school and anyway his mind is
working all the while other boys are playing ball and doing things he
can't do. At least Mr. Dugald thinks it's that way. Mr. Dugald told me
how to win Lavender's affection for he is terribly shy and that was by
making a great fuss over Nip and Tuck who are the cats and Lavender is
passionately fond of the cats. That was hard, too, for we never had any
cats as you know and the only cat I ever touched was Mrs. Jordan's old
Tommy when I wanted him in a play Nancy and I were going to give in the
attic and he scratched me. But I bravely took Nip and Tuck in my arms
and you would have been surprised if you could have seen how beatified
Lavender looked. At least that's the way Mr. Dugald said he looked
afterwards. And he has liked me ever since. I mean Lavender, of course.
I must digress to say a word of Nip and Tuck. They are extraordinary
cats. They are quite old and big and black and I think they are solid
aristocrats, too, and you can only tell them apart by a nick in Nip's
ear that he got in a fight. They can lick any dog or cat in this part
of Provincetown. They are terrors. And they are twins, I forgot to say.
And they do the same things all the time like the Crooker twins at
school. Lavender loves all animals. He is always bringing home some
stray thing only Nip and Tuck will not let them stay and that makes
Lavender sad.
"But I must not spend all my time telling you of my cousins and the
cats when there is so much terribly exciting to write about. This is
the most different place I ever knew. It is all sand and the houses
look like doll's houses most of them and come right out to the funniest
little streets that are not much wider that our sidewalks at home and
all the nice houses have flowers around them somewhere. And they are
mostly a lovely shiny gray that is pinky in the sun. Mr. Dugald says
they get that way from the salt in the air and that most of the old
houses were shingled from the wood that was in old masts. And he says
the reason flowers grow brighter and bigger here is because years ago
the ships used plain earth for ballast and changed it when they got
into the harbor and that there is soil right here in Provincetown from
almost every corner of the world. I held a handful from Cousin Achsa's
garden and pretended I knew it was from Algiers. There are a lot of
stores on the Main street and some are like the stores home and Mr.
Dugald says they are a shame. It is hard to walk on the sidewalk
because it is so narrow and most of the time you have to walk in the
street. And everybody talks to everybody else whether they know them or
not or if they do not talk they smile. There are lots of Portuguese and
they have beautiful eyes and lovely voices like Isolde's. I think Mr.
Dugald means it's them who have crowded out the solid aristocracy, but
they are nice for they make it seem just like I was in a foreign land.
But most, most of all, I like the docks. Mr. Dugald laughs at me when I
call them docks; but I always forget to call them wharves. They are all
gray and crookedy, as though they were leaning against one another and
when the tide goes out it leaves the posts all shiny and green. And
there are funny little houses all along the edge of the beach that are
something like the boathouses of Cascade Lake, only more interesting
and people live right in them and have flower boxes all around them and
fix up weeny verandas over the water and go in bathing right out of
their front doors. And some of them are fish lofts only Mr. Dugald says
that consolidated companies (I do not exactly know what he means but
will write it because he said it) have bought out all the small fish
companies and that means that the men do not get enough for their
'catch' to pay for the expense and danger of their going out to sea. He
says the Portuguese are satisfied to only get a little. Everyone knows
Lavender and they let him go anywhere and on to the boats and
everything and I follow him, though at first the little rowboats which
Mr. Dugald calls dorys smelled so that it made me sick. But I did not
want even Lavender to think I was afraid so I held my nose inside and
went wherever he did. I cannot wear anything but my old clothes--but no
one dresses up here like Pola probably does, which is a disappointment,
for Vick let me bring her cherry crêpe de chine for she is very sure
Godmother Jocelyn will get her some new dresses and I am simply dying
to wear it.
"And now I must tell you about the good ship _Arabella_. It is a very
old boat--I think it is a schooner--and Mr. Dugald says it has probably
been in every port in the world. When it got too old to sail any more
Mr. Dugald bought it for Lavender. And it is all Lavender's own. I am
sure I never heard of anyone before having a real big boat just to play
on. But, then, Lavender is different. It is fastened with a great big
anchor and can't move only when the water is in it swings around on it
just as though it was going. And when the water is out the boat is up
real high and looks so funny and lopsided, like that dreadful old
drunken man who walked past school one day. Mr. Dugald and Lavender
took me out to the _Arabella_ the very first day. We went out in a
rowboat--I mean dory, and Mr. Dugald rowed. Oh, it was so thrilling, my
heart sang within my breast. It seemed as though I was going far out to
sea and the little waves danced and were so blue and everything smelled
so salty and there were boats all around and some of them moving with
big sails and a three-masted schooner went right close to us--I mean we
went right close to it because it was fastened--and I could breathe
only with difficulty I was so excited. Dear friend--at that moment I
said to myself I did not mind my relatives not living in a big house on
an eminence. This, meaning all the boats and the lovely docks and
things, is worth my quest. It was very hazardous climbing on to the
_Arabella_ for it wiggled so but at last we were on and then!--Oh! Do
you know, it was like a pirate's ship. And it has a wheel and a little
house and the cutest cabins downstairs and a funny little kitchen. I am
going to ask Aunt Achsa--I have decided to call her that because she
seems too old to be a cousin--to let me cook out on the _Arabella_. Mr.
Dugald will not let Lavender cook on it for fear he will set the boat
on fire. It would be funny to have a boat burn right in the water, but
then I have read of ships that burned at sea. Mr. Dugald has fixed
everything up real nice and he goes out a lot and draws. He says that
as long as I know how to swim I can go out anytime with Lavender. It is
certainly the most different thing I ever dreamed of doing and next
best to sailing far away on a young boat. The boat rocked like a cradle
and we laid down on the deck in the sun and it was a delightful
sensation. I am going to take books out there and I will sometime take
you, dear friend, and write in you as I rock upon the bosom of the
ocean--though this is a bay it is ocean water.
"Next most exciting to the _Arabella_ was going to the backside which
is what they call the other side of the Cape the side that is on the
outside on the map. We tramped over for Mr. Dugald says that is the
only way to navigate on Cape Cod. It was not the least bit hot for
there was such a lovely breeze and the road is hard and right through
sand hills that looked awfully big and just have a little grass on them
and funny little trees. Mr. Dugald told me that the heavy winds keep
shifting the sand and that after ever and ever so many years the whole
Cape will be moved and maybe was somewhere else a long time ago and the
State of Massachusetts is planting a lot of pine trees to hold it where
it is now and that the reason the trees look so small is that every
fall and winter when the big storms come they blow the sand over them
until they are almost buried. I suppose if one could dig down you would
find a big tree. Mr. Dugald told me all this as we walked over the
dunes. He told me how after one big storm years and years ago the
school children went to school and found it buried under sand right up
to the roof. I wish that would happen to my school. But that is how
different this place is. Well, we finally came to a ridge of sand that
was bigger and higher than any of the others so that it took my breath
to climb it like the trail back of Cascade and then when I got to the
top it was so beautiful that I felt hurt inside and felt afraid. Before
me, dear friend, swept the endless ocean. And as far as eye could see
there was naught but sand. And you seemed close enough to the blue in
the sky to touch it. You felt it the way you do the furnace when you go
into the furnace room. And not a living being anywhere around, except
us. And the beach is the loveliest beach I ever dreamed of--and you see
it is the first real beach I have ever seen. It is wide and hard and
part of it is wet where the big waves roll in and it moans beautifully.
And there are lots of little funny flowers, like wild sweet peas, and
pretty grasses grow on it and the sand up away from the water is white
and glistens like jewels. I did not like to go near the water at first
for the waves looked like angry monsters with tossing white manes
tearing in at me with their arms raised to clutch me. But I kept close
to Mr. Dugald who sometimes goes in swimming right in the breakers. And
he pointed out the Coast Guard Station which was a cute little white
house nestled in the sand dunes and he told me there was a man up in
the square tower who was watching us and every move we made and if a
wave did catch us he'd give the alarm and a lifeguard would dash out in
a minute and save us. That would be very exciting but it did not tempt
me. We picked up beautiful shells on the beach and I poked a horrid
jelly fish and then we visited the Station where the men were very nice
and showed us everything. The big man who is Commander Nelson told us
how the sand when it blows against the windows of the house turns the
glass all funny and frosted so that you cannot see out of it, and he
said they have to keep putting in new glass every few days. And Mr.
Dugald told me as we walked back how the men from the Coast Guard
Stations patrol the shores of our country so that there is not a bit of
our seacoast that is not guarded. One starts out from one station and
meets another from another station and they exchange little checks
which they take back so that their commanders know they have been all
the way. Is it not a lovely feeling to think that as we sleep someone
is watching our shores by night? Only I wonder how if there are any
pirates, and Captain Davies said there still were, they can land
anywhere without one of these guards seeing them. Maybe they wait until
the watchmen start back with their checks.
"I must now tell you of my new acquaintances.
"First there is Aunt Achsa and Lavender of whom I have written. Second,
there is the boarder. His name is Dugald Allan which I think is a
perfectly lovely name. I am sorry to say he is an artist. I would have
preferred that he had been a fisherman. When I told him that he laughed
very hard. He laughs at me a great deal which I did not like at first
and then I decided it is his nature and he cannot help it. He spends
every summer with Aunt Achsa and says he is her half-nephew. Even
though he gave the _Arabella_ to Lavender I think he must be a poor
artist because his clothes look old and have no style. He knows
everyone and everyone calls him Dug. At first I thought it was horrid
visiting a relative who kept boarders but afterwards I learned that
here in Provincetown someone else lives in nearly all the houses
besides the families, because they are not nearly enough houses for all
the people who want to come to Provincetown. Mr. Dugald says that
artists and poets and musicians come here from all over the world for
the inspiration. I cannot tell the men artists from the fishermen for
they wear things like sailors but the women artists all wear big hats
and smocks all covered with paint. I am sure I saw a poet yesterday and
I do not know what a musician would look like and Mr. Dugald said he
did not know, either. That was one of the times when he laughed. But I
said then and repeat now that there are enough other people around so
that I do not mind the artists and poets.
"Third of my acquaintance is Captain Phin Davies. Aunt Achsa says he is
very rich, that he was smart enough to buy up a lot of fishing boats
and a storage house of his own and he could laugh at the Boston and New
York people. But he used to sail a boat like Cousin Zeke's which is
what they call my relative. And he is very, very nice and invited me to
go to Wellfleet and visit him and his wife and Aunt Achsa says she does
not see no harm in my going. Aunt Achsa's grammar is so bad that I
blush to write it here.
"Fourth, Martie Calkins who is Mrs. Eph Calkins' granddaughter and
lives in the house next to Aunt Achsa's. She is very different from the
girls I know at school and Nancy would shudder if she saw her for Nancy
is so sensitive, but then this is not Middletown and I am sensitive
like Nancy and Mart is just my age and she can go out on the _Arabella_
with us, though she told me confidentially that her grandmother thought
Achsa Green stark daffy to trust Lavender out of her sight. Mart does
not think about Lavender the way Mr. Dugald taught me to think. She can
tell the grandest stories of the sea because her father and grandfather
were fishermen who went out on big boats and her father was lost at sea
so she is an aristocrat, too. She is going to show me how to dig clams
tomorrow. And we are going to the moving pictures on Saturday. It seems
very queer and like home to have moving pictures here but Mr. Dugald
says they are like the poor. To quote him exactly, 'Alas, the
movies--like the poor, we have always with us!' He says very queer
things.
"Fifth, Miss Letitia Vine, a most picturesque character. I quoted Mr.
Dugald then for I did not know people could be picturesque. No one but
Miss Letty herself knows how old she is and she won't tell. Aunt Achsa
said she paid to have the date and year of her mother's death scratched
off her tombstone so folks couldn't figure out her age. But she is very
cultured and is a music teacher, only a funny one. She drives all over
this part of the Cape and gives music lessons. She has done it for
years and years, Aunt Achsa calculates she has worn out three horses
teaching folks their notes. She stays in one town two or three days
sleeping round with her pupils and then hitches up and drives to the
next. She scorns a Ford. Mr. Dugald says he's thankful for that for a
Ford would spoil the most perfect thing on the Cape. She looks like the
figurehead of a ship (again quoting Mr. Dugald) and she isn't afraid of
man or beast. She and Mr. Dugald are very good friends and Mr. Dugald
took me there to call and I think he told her that I was the daughter
of a poet, because she looked at me like that though he had promised
not to and I hate to think he broke his promise. She has very
interesting things in her house that she has picked up from all over
the Cape as she gave her music lessons. I guess she does not have many
pupils now but Aunt Achsa said Letty Vine would have to die in the
harness so that is probably why she keeps going.
"Sixth is Mr. Commander Nelson at the Coast Guard Station who invited
me to come to see him again. He said if he needed a hand at any time
he'd send for me. It would be exciting to help save souls from a wreck
at sea. I would like to even see one though that sounds wicked and I
must curb my thirst for adventure.
"Jed Starrows is not an acquaintance but I intend to know more about
him. When anyone speaks of him they put such a funny tone in their
voices. I asked Mr. Dugald if he is aristocratic too and he laughed and
said he most certainly is not. But he owns a big boat--an auxiliary
schooner that is the fastest one here and he has just bought out a fish
company and Aunt Achsa says it beats everything where he gets his money
because he wasn't much more than a common clam-digger a year or so ago.
But I will record here that Captain Davies spoke of Jed Starrows as
though he might know something about pirates and I mean to find out if
I can.
"Enough now, dear friend--my arm aches and I must stop. Adieu for the
nonce--"