The anfractuosities of legal procedure having caused us to wonder
whether there really were any such place as the home we have just
bought, we thought we would go out to Salamis, L. I., and have a look at
it. Of course we knew it had been there a few weeks ago, but the title
companies do confuse one so. We had been sitting for several days in the
office of the most delightful lawyer in the world (and if we did not
fear that all the other harassed and beset creatures in these parts
would instantly rush to lay their troubles in his shrewd and friendly
bosom we would mention his name right here and do a little metrical
pirouette in his honour)--we had been sitting there, we say, watching
the proceedings, without the slightest comprehension of what was
happening. It is really quite surprising, let us add, to find how many
people are suddenly interested in some quiet, innocent-looking shebang
nestling off in a quiet dingle in the country, and how, when it is to be
sold, they all bob up from their coverts in Flushing, Brooklyn, or Long
Island City, and have to be "satisfied." What floods of papers go
crackling across the table, drawn out from those mysterious brown
cardboard wallets; what quaint little jests pass between the emissaries
of the title company and the legal counsel of the seller, jests that
seem to bear upon the infirmity of human affairs and cause the
well-wishing adventurer to wonder whether he had ever sufficiently
pondered the strange tissue of mortal uncertainties that hides behind
every earthly venture ... there was, for instance, occasional reference
to a vanished gentleman who had once crossed the apparently innocent
proscenium of our estate and had skipped, leaving someone six thousand
dollars to the bad; this ingenious buccaneer was, apparently, the only
one who did not have to be "satisfied." At any rate, we thought that we,
who entered so modestly and obscurely into this whole affair, being only
the purchaser, would finally satisfy ourself, too, by seeing if the
property was still there.
Long Island and spring--the conjunction gives us a particular thrill.
There are more beautiful places than the Long Island flats, but it was
there that we earned our first pay envelope, and it was there that we
first set up housekeeping; and as long as we live the station platform
of Jamaica will move us strangely--not merely from one train to another,
but also inwardly. There is no soil that receives a more brimming
benison of sunshine than Long Island in late April. As the train moves
across the plain it seems to swim in a golden tide of light. Billboards
have been freshly painted and announce the glories of phonographs in
screaming scarlets and purples, or the number of miles that divide you
from a Brooklyn department store. Out at Hillside the stones that
demarcate the territory of an old-fashioned house are new and snowily
whitewashed. At Hollis the trees are a cloud of violent mustard-yellow
(the colour of a safety-matchbox label). Magnolias (if that is what they
are) are creamy pink. Moving vans are bustling along the road. Across
the wide fields of Bellaire there is a view of the brown woods on the
ridge, turning a faint olive as the leaves gain strength. Gus Wuest's
roadhouse at Queens looks inviting as of old, and the red-brown of the
copper beeches reminds one of the tall amber beakers. Here is the little
park by the station in Queens, the flag on the staff, the forsythia
bushes the colour of scrambled eggs.
Is it the influence of the Belmont Park race track? There seem to be, in
the smoking cars, a number of men having the air of those accustomed to
associate (in a not unprofitable way) with horses. Here is one, a
handsome person, who holds our eye as a bright flower might. He wears a
flowing overcoat of fleecy fawn colour and a derby of biscuit brown. He
has a gray suit and joyful socks of heavy wool, yellow and black and
green in patterned squares which are so vivid they seem cubes rather
than squares. He has a close-cut dark moustache, his shaven cheeks are a
magnificent sirloin tint, his chin splendidly blue by the ministration
of the razor. His shirt is blue with a stripe of sunrise pink, and the
collar to match. He talks briskly and humorously to two others, leaning
over in the seat behind them. As he argues, we see his brown low shoe
tapping on the floor. One can almost see his foot think. It pivots
gently on the heel, the toe wagging in air, as he approaches the climax
of each sentence. Every time he drives home a point in his talk down
comes the whole foot, softly, but firmly. He relights his cigar in the
professional manner, not by inhaling as he applies the match, but by
holding the burned portion in the flame, away from his mouth, until it
has caught. His gold watch has a hunting case; when he has examined it,
it shuts again with a fine rich snap, which we can hear even above the
noise of the car.
On this early morning train there are others voyaging for amusement.
Here are two golfing zealots, puffing pipes and discussing with amazing
persistence the minutiae of their sport. Their remarks are addressed to a
very fashionable-looking curate, whose manners are superb. Whether he is
going to play golf we know not; at any rate, he smiles mildly and
politely to all they say. Perhaps he is going round the course with
them, in the hope of springing some ecclesiastical strategy while they
are softened and chastened by the glee of the game. The name of their
Maker, it is only fair to suspect, has more than once been mentioned on
the putting green; and if it should slip out, the curate will seize the
cue and develop it. In the meantime, one of the enthusiasts (while his
companion is silenced in the act of lighting his pipe) is explaining to
the cloth how his friend plays golf. "I'll tell you how he plays," he
says. "Imagine him sitting down in a low chair and swinging a club. Then
take the chair away and he still keeps the same position. That's what he
looks like when he drives." The curate smiles at this and prepares his
face to smile with equal gentleness when the other retorts.
After Floral Park the prospect becomes more plainly rural. The Mineola
trolley zooms along, between wide fields of tilled brown earth. There is
an occasional cow; here and there a really old barn and farmhouse
standing, incongruously, among the settlements of modern kindling-wood
cottages; and a mysterious agricultural engine at work with a spinning
fly-wheel. Against the bright horizon stand the profiles of Garden City:
the thin cathedral spire, the bulk of St. Paul's school, the white
cupola of the hotel. The tree-lined vistas of Mineola are placidly
simmering in the morning sun. A white dog with erect and curly tail
trots very purposefully round the corner of the First National Bank. We
think that we see the spreading leaves of some rhubarb plants in a
garden; and there are some of those (to us very enigmatic, as we are no
gardener) little glass window frames set in the soil, as though a whole
house, shamed by the rent the owner wanted to charge, had sunk out of
sight, leaving only a skylight.
As we leave East Williston we approach more interesting country, with a
semblance of hills, and wooded thickets still brownly tapestried with
the dry funeral of last year's leaves. On the trees the new foliage
sways in little clusters, catching the light like the wings of perching
green butterflies. Some of the buds are a coppery green, some a burning
red, but the prevailing colour is the characteristic sulphur yellow of
early spring. And now we are set down at Salamis, where the first and
most surprising impression is of the unexpected abundance of competitive
taxicabs. Having reached the terminus of our space, we can only add that
we found our estate still there--and there are a few stalks of rhubarb
surviving from an earlier plantation.