We have heard it said that one of the charms, of Narragansett Pier is
that you can see Newport from it. The summer dwellers at the Pier talk a
good deal about liking it better than Newport; it is less artificial and
more restful. The Newporters never say anything about the Pier. The
Pier people say that it is not fair to judge it when you come direct from
Newport, but the longer you stay there the better you like it; and if any
too frank person admits that he would not stay in Narragansett a day if
he could afford to live in Newport, he is suspected of aristocratic
proclivities.
In a calm summer morning, such as our party of pilgrims chose for an
excursion to the Pier, there is no prettier sail in the world than that
out of the harbor, by Conanicut Island and Beaver-tail Light. It is a
holiday harbor, all these seas are holiday seas--the yachts, the sail
vessels, the puffing steamers, moving swiftly from one headland to
another, or loafing about the blue, smiling sea, are all on pleasure
bent. The vagrant vessels that are idly watched from the rocks at the
Pier may be coasters and freight schooners engaged seriously in trade,
but they do not seem so. They are a part of the picture, always to be
seen slowly dipping along in the horizon, and the impression is that they
are manoeuvred for show, arranged for picturesque effect, and that they
are all taken in at night.
The visitors confessed when they landed that the Pier was a contrast to
Newport. The shore below the landing is a line of broken, ragged, slimy
rocks, as if they had been dumped there for a riprap wall. Fronting this
unkempt shore is a line of barrack-like hotels, with a few cottages of
the cheap sort. At the end of this row of hotels is a fine granite
Casino, spacious, solid, with wide verandas, and a tennis-court--such a
building as even Newport might envy. Then come more hotels, a cluster of
cheap shops, and a long line of bath-houses facing a lovely curving
beach. Bathing is the fashion at the Pier, and everybody goes to the
beach at noon. The spectators occupy chairs on the platform in front of
the bath-houses, or sit under tents erected on the smooth sand. At high
noon the scene is very lively, and even picturesque, for the ladies here
dress for bathing with an intention of pleasing. It is generally
supposed that the angels in heaven are not edified by this promiscuous
bathing, and by the spectacle of a crowd of women tossing about in the
surf, but an impartial angel would admit that many of the costumes here
are becoming, and that the effect of the red and yellow caps, making a
color line in the flashing rollers, is charming. It is true that there
are odd figures in the shifting melee--one solitary old gentleman, who
had contrived to get his bathing-suit on hind-side before, wandered along
the ocean margin like a lost Ulysses; and that fat woman and fat man were
never intended for this sort of exhibition; but taken altogether, with
its colors, and the silver flash of the breaking waves, the scene was
exceedingly pretty. Not the least pretty part of it was the fringe of
children tumbling on the beach, following the retreating waves, and
flying from the incoming rollers with screams of delight. Children,
indeed, are a characteristic of Narragansett Pier--children and mothers.
It might be said to be a family place; it is a good deal so on Sundays,
and occasionally when the "business men" come down from the cities to see
how their wives and children get on at the hotels.
After the bathing it is the fashion to meet again at the Casino and take
lunch--sometimes through a straw--and after dinner everybody goes for a
stroll on the cliffs. This is a noble sea-promenade; with its handsome
villas and magnificent rocks, a fair rival to Newport. The walk, as
usually taken, is two or three miles along the bold, rocky shore, but an
ambitious pedestrian may continue it to the light on Point Judith.
Nowhere on this coast are the rocks more imposing, and nowhere do they
offer so many studies in color. The visitor's curiosity is excited by a
massive granite tower which rises out of a mass of tangled woods planted
on the crest of the hill, and his curiosity is not satisfied on nearer
inspection, when he makes his way into this thick and gloomy forest, and
finds a granite cottage near the tower, and the signs of neglect and
wildness that might mark the home of a recluse. What is the object of
this noble tower? If it was intended to adorn the landscape, why was it
ruined by piercing it irregularly with square windows like those of a
factory?
One has to hold himself back from being drawn into the history and
romance of this Narragansett shore. Down below the bathing beach is the
pretentious wooden pile called Canonchet, that already wears the air of
tragedy. And here, at this end, is the mysterious tower, and an ugly
unfinished dwelling-house of granite, with the legend "Druid's Dream"
carved over the entrance door; and farther inland, in a sandy and shrubby
landscape, is Kendall Green, a private cemetery, with its granite
monument, surrounded by heavy granite posts, every other one of which is
hollowed in the top as a receptacle for food for birds. And one reads
there these inscriptions: "Whatever their mode of faith, or creed, who
feed the wandering birds, will themselves be fed." "Who helps the
helpless, Heaven will help." This inland region, now apparently deserted
and neglected, was once the seat of colonial aristocracy, who exercised a
princely hospitality on their great plantations, exchanged visits and ran
horses with the planters of Virginia and the Carolinas, and were known as
far as Kentucky, and perhaps best known for their breed of Narragansett
pacers. But let us get back to the shore.
In wandering along the cliff path in the afternoon, Irene and Mr. King
were separated from the others, and unconsciously extended their stroll,
looking for a comfortable seat in the rocks. The day was perfect. The
sky had only a few fleecy, high-sailing clouds, and the great expanse of
sea sparkled under the hectoring of a light breeze. The atmosphere was
not too clear on the horizon for dreamy effects; all the headlands were
softened and tinged with opalescent colors. As the light struck them,
the sails which enlivened the scene were either dark spots or shining
silver sheets on the delicate blue. At one spot on this shore rises a
vast mass of detached rock, separated at low tide from the shore by
irregular bowlders and a tiny thread of water. In search of a seat the
two strollers made their way across this rivulet over the broken rocks,
passed over the summit of the giant mass, and established themselves in a
cavernous place close to the sea. Here was a natural seat, and the bulk
of the seamed and colored ledge, rising above their heads and curving
around them, shut them out of sight of the land, and left them alone with
the dashing sea, and the gulls that circled and dipped their silver wings
in their eager pursuit of prey. For a time neither spoke. Irene was
looking seaward, and Mr. King, who had a lower seat, attentively watched
the waves lapping the rocks at their feet, and the fine profile and trim
figure of the girl against the sky. He thought he had never seen her
looking more lovely, and yet he had a sense that she never was so remote
from him. Here was an opportunity, to be sure, if he had anything to
say, but some fine feeling of propriety restrained him from taking
advantage of it. It might not be quite fair, in a place so secluded and
remote, and with such sentimental influences, shut in as they were to the
sea and the sky.
"It seems like a world by itself," she began, as in continuation of her
thought. "They say you can see Gay Head Light from here."
"Yes. And Newport to the left there, with its towers and trees rising
out of the sea. It is quite like the Venice Lagoon in this light."
"I think I like Newport better at this distance. It is very poetical. I
don't think I like what is called the world much, when I am close to it."
The remark seemed to ask for sympathy, and Mr. King ventured: "Are you
willing to tell me, Miss Benson, why you have not seemed as happy at
Newport as elsewhere? Pardon me; it is not an idle question." Irene,
who seemed to be looking away beyond Gay Head, did not reply. "I should
like to know if I have been in any way the cause of it. We agreed to be
friends, and I think I have a friend's right to know." Still no
response. "You must see--you must know," he went on, hurriedly, "that it
cannot be a matter of indifference to me."
"It had better be," she said, as if speaking deliberately to herself, and
still looking away. But suddenly she turned towards him, and the tears
sprang to her eyes, and the words rushed out fiercely, "I wish I had
never left Cyrusville. I wish I had never been abroad. I wish I had
never been educated. It is all a wretched mistake."
King was unprepared for such a passionate outburst. It was like a rift
in a cloud, through which he had a glimpse of her real life. Words of
eager protest sprang to his lips, but, before they could be uttered,
either her mood had changed or pride had come to the rescue, for she
said: "How silly I am! Everybody has discontented days. Mr. King,
please don't ask me such questions. If you want to be a friend, you will
let me be unhappy now and then, and not say anything about it."
"But, Miss Benson--Irene--"
"There--'Miss Benson' will do very well."
"Well, Miss--Irene, then, there was something I wanted to say to you the
other day in Paradise--"
"Look, Mr. King. Did you see that wave? I'm sure it is nearer our feet
than when we sat down here."
"Oh, that's just an extra lift by the wind. I want to tell you. I must
tell you that life--has all changed since I met you--Irene, I--"
"There! There's no mistake-about that. The last wave came a foot higher
than the other!"
King sprang up. "Perhaps it is the tide. I'll go and see." He ran up
the rock, leaped across the fissures, and looked over on the side they
had ascended. Sure enough, the tide was coming in. The stones on which
they had stepped were covered, and a deep stream of water, rising with
every pulsation of the sea, now, where there was only a rivulet before.
He hastened back. "There is not a moment to lose. We are caught by the
tide, and if we are not off in five minutes we shall be prisoners here
till the turn."
He helped her up the slope and over the chasm. The way was very plain
when they came on, but now he could not find it. At the end of every
attempt was a precipice. And the water was rising. A little girl on the
shore shouted to them to follow along a ledge she pointed out, then
descend between two bowlders to the ford. Precious minutes were lost in
accomplishing this circuitous descent, and then they found the
stepping-stones under water, and the sea-weed swishing about the slippery
rocks with the incoming tide. It was a ridiculous position for lovers,
or even "friends"--ridiculous because it had no element of danger except
the ignominy of getting wet. If there was any heroism in seizing Irene
before she could protest, stumbling with his burden among the slimy
rocks, and depositing her, with only wet shoes, on the shore, Mr. King
shared it, and gained the title of "Life-preserver." The adventure ended
with a laugh.
The day after the discovery and exploration of Narragansett, Mr. King
spent the morning with his cousin at the Casino. It was so pleasant that
he wondered he had not gone there oftener, and that so few people
frequented it. Was it that the cottagers were too strong for the Casino
also, which was built for the recreation of the cottagers, and that they
found when it came to the test that they could not with comfort come into
any sort of contact with popular life? It is not large, but no summer
resort in Europe has a prettier place for lounging and reunion. None
have such an air of refinement and exclusiveness. Indeed, one of the
chief attractions and entertainments in the foreign casinos and
conversation-halls is the mingling there of all sorts of peoples, and the
animation arising from diversity of conditions. This popular commingling
in pleasure resorts is safe enough in aristocratic countries, but it will
not answer in a republic.
The Newport Casino is in the nature of a club of the best society. The
building and grounds express the most refined taste. Exteriorly the
house is a long, low Queen Anne cottage, with brilliant shops on the
ground-floor, and above, behind the wooded balconies, is the clubroom.
The tint of the shingled front is brown, and all the colors are low and
blended. Within, the court is a mediaeval surprise. It is a miniature
castle, such as might serve for an opera scene. An extension of the
galleries, an ombre, completes the circle around the plot of
close-clipped green turf. The house itself is all balconies, galleries,
odd windows half overgrown and hidden by ivy, and a large gilt clock-face
adds a touch of piquancy to the antique charm of the facade. Beyond the
first court is a more spacious and less artificial lawn, set with fine
trees, and at the bottom of it is the brown building containing ballroom
and theatre, bowling-alley and closed tennis-court, and at an angle with
the second lawn is a pretty field for lawn-tennis. Here the tournaments
are held, and on these occasions, and on ball nights, the Casino is
thronged.
If the Casino is then so exclusive, why is it not more used as a
rendezvous and lounging-place? Alas! it must be admitted that it is not
exclusive. By an astonishing concession in the organization any person
can gain admittance by paying the sum of fifty cents. This tax is
sufficient to exclude the deserving poor, but it is only an inducement to
the vulgar rich, and it is even broken down by the prodigal excursionist,
who commonly sets out from home with the intention of being reckless for
one day. It is easy to see, therefore, why the charm of this delightful
place is tarnished.
The band was playing this morning--not rink music--when Mrs. Glow and
King entered and took chairs on the ombre. It was a very pretty scene;
more people were present than usual of a morning. Groups of half a dozen
had drawn chairs together here and there, and were chatting and laughing;
two or three exceedingly well-preserved old bachelors, in the smart rough
morning suits of the period, were entertaining their lady friends with
club and horse talk; several old gentlemen were reading newspapers; and
there were some dowager-looking mammas, and seated by them their cold,
beautiful, high-bred daughters, who wore their visible exclusiveness like
a garment, and contrasted with some other young ladies who were
promenading with English-looking young men in flannel suits, who might be
described as lawn-tennis young ladies conscious of being in the mode, but
wanting the indescribable atmosphere of high-breeding. Doubtless the
most interesting persons to the student of human life were the young
fellows in lawn-tennis suits. They had the languid air which is so
attractive at their age, of having found out life, and decided that it is
a bore. Nothing is worth making an exertion about, not even pleasure.
They had come, one could see, to a just appreciation of their value in
life, and understood quite well the social manners of the mammas and
girls in whose company they condescended to dawdle and make, languidly,
cynical observations. They had, in truth, the manner of playing at
fashion and elegance as in a stage comedy. King could not help thinking
there was something theatrical about them altogether, and he fancied that
when he saw them in their "traps" on the Avenue they were going through
the motions for show and not for enjoyment. Probably King was mistaken
in all this, having been abroad so long that he did not understand the
evolution of the American gilded youth.
In a pause of the music Mrs. Bartlett Glow and Mr. King were standing
with a group near the steps that led down to the inner lawn. Among them
were the Postlethwaite girls, whose beauty and audacity made such a
sensation in Washington last winter. They were bantering Mr. King about
his Narragansett excursion, his cousin having maliciously given the party
a hint of his encounter with the tide at the Pier. . . Just at this
moment, happening to glance across the lawn, he saw the Bensons coming
towards the steps, Mrs. Benson waddling over the grass and beaming
towards the group, Mr. Benson carrying her shawl and looking as if he had
been hired by the day, and Irene listlessly following. Mrs. Glow saw
them at the same moment, but gave no other sign of her knowledge than by
striking into the banter with more animation. Mr. King intended at once
to detach himself and advance to meet the Bensons. But he could not
rudely break away from the unfinished sentence of the younger
Postlethwaite girl, and the instant that was concluded, as luck would
have it, an elderly lady joined the group, and Mrs. Glow went through the
formal ceremony of introducing King to her. He hardly knew how it
happened, only that he made a hasty bow to the Bensons as he was shaking
hands with the ceremonious old lady, and they had gone to the door of
exit. He gave a little start as if to follow them, which Mrs. Glow
noticed with a laugh and the remark, "You can catch them if you run," and
then he weakly submitted to his fate. After all, it was only an accident
which would hardly need a word of explanation. But what Irene saw was
this: a distant nod from Mrs. Glow, a cool survey and stare from the
Postlethwaite girls, and the failure of Mr. King to recognize his friends
any further than by an indifferent bow as he turned to speak to another
lady. In the raw state of her sensitiveness she felt all this as a
terrible and perhaps intended humiliation.
King did not return to the hotel till evening, and then he sent up his
card to the Bensons. Word came back that the ladies were packing, and
must be excused. He stood at the office desk and wrote a hasty note to
Irene, attempting an explanation of what might seem to her a rudeness,
and asked that he might see her a moment. And then he paced the corridor
waiting for a reply. In his impatience the fifteen minutes that he
waited seemed an hour. Then a bell-boy handed him this note:
"MY DEAR MR. KING,--No explanation whatever was needed. We never
shall forget your kindness. Good-by.
IRENE BENSON"
He folded the note carefully and put it in his breast pocket, took it out
and reread it, lingering over the fine and dainty signature, put it back
again, and walked out upon the piazza. It was a divine night, soft and
sweet-scented, and all the rustling trees were luminous in the electric
light. From a window opening upon a balcony overhead came the clear
notes of a barytone voice enunciating the oldfashioned words of an
English ballad, the refrain of which expressed hopeless separation.
The eastern coast, with its ragged outline of bays, headlands,
indentations, islands, capes, and sand-spits, from Watch Hill, a favorite
breezy resort, to Mount Desert, presents an almost continual chain of
hotels and summer cottages. In fact, the same may be said of the whole
Atlantic front from Mount Desert down to Cape May. It is to the traveler
an amazing spectacle. The American people can no longer be reproached
for not taking any summer recreation. The amount of money invested to
meet the requirements of this vacation idleness is enormous. When one is
on the coast in July or August it seems as if the whole fifty millions of
people had come down to lie on the rocks, wade in the sand, and dip into
the sea. But this is not the case. These crowds are only a fringe of
the pleasure-seeking population. In all the mountain regions from North
Carolina to the Adirondacks and the White Hills, along the St. Lawrence
and the lakes away up to the Northwest, in every elevated village, on
every mountain-side, about every pond, lake, and clear stream, in the
wilderness and the secluded farmhouse, one encounters the traveler, the
summer boarder, the vacation idler, one is scarcely out of sight of the
American flag flying over a summer resort. In no other nation, probably,
is there such a general summer hejira, no other offers on such a vast
scale such a variety of entertainment, and it is needless to say that
history presents no parallel to this general movement of a people for a
summer outing. Yet it is no doubt true that statistics, which always
upset a broad generous statement such as I have made, would show that the
majority of people stay at home in the summer, and it is undeniable that
the vexing question for everybody is where to go in July and August.
But there are resorts suited to all tastes, and to the economical as well
as to the extravagant. Perhaps the strongest impression one has in
visiting the various watering-places in the summer-time, is that the
multitudes of every-day folk are abroad in search of enjoyment. On the
New Bedford boat for Martha's Vineyard our little party of tourists
sailed quite away from Newport life--Stanhope with mingled depression and
relief, the artist with some shrinking from contact with anything common,
while Marion stood upon the bow beside her uncle, inhaling the salt
breeze, regarding the lovely fleeting shores, her cheeks glowing and her
eyes sparkling with enjoyment. The passengers and scene, Stanhope was
thinking, were typically New England, until the boat made a landing at
Naushon Island, when he was reminded somehow of Scotland, as much perhaps
by the wild furzy appearance of the island as by the "gentle-folks" who
went ashore.
The boat lingered for the further disembarkation of a number of horses
and carriages, with a piano and a cow. There was a farmer's lodge at the
landing, and over the rocks and amid the trees the picturesque roof of
the villa of the sole proprietor of the island appeared, and gave a
feudal aspect to the domain. The sweet grass affords good picking for
sheep, and besides the sheep the owner raises deer, which are destined to
be chased and shot in the autumn.
The artist noted that there were several distinct types of women on
board, besides the common, straight-waisted, flat-chested variety. One
girl who was alone, with a city air, a neat, firm figure, in a traveling
suit of elegant simplicity, was fond of taking attitudes about the rails,
and watching the effect produced on the spectators. There was a
blue-eyed, sharp-faced, rather loose-jointed young girl, who had the
manner of being familiar with the boat, and talked readily and freely
with anybody, keeping an eye occasionally on her sister of eight years, a
child with a serious little face in a poke-bonnet, who used the language
of a young lady of sixteen, and seemed also abundantly able to take care
of herself. What this mite of a child wants of all things, she
confesses, is a pug-faced dog. Presently she sees one come on board in
the arms of a young lady at Wood's Holl. "No," she says, "I won't ask
her for it; the lady wouldn't give it to me, and I wouldn't waste my
breath;" but she draws near to the dog, and regards it with rapt
attention. The owner of the dog is a very pretty black-eyed girl with
banged hair, who prattles about herself and her dog with perfect freedom.
She is staying at Cottage City, lives at Worcester, has been up to Boston
to meet and bring down her dog, without which she couldn't live another
minute. "Perhaps," she says, "you know Dr. Ridgerton, in Worcester; he's
my brother. Don't you know him? He's a chiropodist."
These girls are all types of the skating-rink--an institution which is
beginning to express itself in American manners.
The band was playing on the pier when the steamer landed at Cottage City
(or Oak Bluff, as it was formerly called), and the pier and the gallery
leading to it were crowded with spectators, mostly women a pleasing
mingling of the skating-rink and sewing-circle varieties--and gayety was
apparently about setting in with the dusk. The rink and the, ground
opposite the hotel were in full tilt. After supper King and Forbes took
a cursory view of this strange encampment, walking through the streets of
fantastic tiny cottages among the scrub oaks, and saw something of family
life in the painted little boxes, whose wide-open front doors gave to
view the whole domestic economy, including the bed, centre-table, and
melodeon. They strolled also on the elevated plank promenade by the
beach, encountering now and then a couple enjoying the lovely night.
Music abounded. The circus-pumping strains burst out of the rink,
calling to a gay and perhaps dissolute life. The band in the nearly
empty hotel parlor, in a mournful mood, was wooing the guests who did not
come to a soothing tune, something like China--"Why do we mourn departed
friends?" A procession of lasses coming up the broad walk, advancing out
of the shadows of night, was heard afar off as the stalwart singers
strode on, chanting in high nasal voices that lovely hymn, which seems to
suit the rink as well as the night promenade and the campmeeting:
"We shall me--um um--we shall me-eet, me-eet--um um
--we shall meet,
In the sweet by-am-by, by-am-by-um um-by-am-by.
On the bu-u-u-u--on the bu-u-u-u--on the bu-te-ful shore."
In the morning this fairy-like settlement, with its flimsy and eccentric
architecture, took on more the appearance of reality. The season was
late, as usual, and the hotels were still waiting for the crowds that
seem to prefer to be late and make a rushing carnival of August, but the
tiny cottages were nearly all occupied. At 10 A.M. the band was playing
in the three-story pagoda sort of tower at the bathing-place, and the
three stories were crowded with female spectators. Below, under the
bank, is a long array of bath-houses, and the shallow water was alive
with floundering and screaming bathers. Anchored a little out was a
raft, from which men and boys and a few venturesome girls were diving,
displaying the human form in graceful curves. The crowd was an immensely
good-humored one, and enjoyed itself. The sexes mingled together in the
water, and nothing thought of it, as old Pepys would have said, although
many of the tightly-fitting costumes left less to the imagination than
would have been desired by a poet describing the scene as a phase of the
'comedie humaine.' The band, having played out its hour, trudged back to
the hotel pier to toot while the noon steamboat landed its passengers, in
order to impress the new arrivals with the mad joyousness of the place.
The crowd gathered on the high gallery at the end of the pier added to
this effect of reckless holiday enjoyment. Miss Lamont was infected with
this gayety, and took a great deal of interest in this peripatetic band,
which was playing again on the hotel piazza before dinner, with a sort of
mechanical hilariousness. The rink band opposite kept up a lively
competition, grinding out go-round music, imparting, if one may say so, a
glamour to existence. The band is on hand at the pier at four o'clock to
toot again, and presently off, tramping to some other hotel to satisfy
the serious pleasure of this people.
While Mr. King could not help wondering how all this curious life would
strike Irene--he put his lonesomeness and longing in this way--and what
she would say about it, he endeavored to divert his mind by a study of
the conditions, and by some philosophizing on the change that had come
over American summer life within a few years. In his investigations he
was assisted by Mr. De Long, to whom this social life was absolutely new,
and who was disposed to regard it as peculiarly Yankee--the staid
dissipation of a serious-minded people. King, looking at it more
broadly, found this pasteboard city by the sea one of the most
interesting developments of American life. The original nucleus was the
Methodist camp-meeting, which, in the season, brought here twenty
thousand to thirty thousand people at a time, who camped and picnicked in
a somewhat primitive style. Gradually the people who came here
ostensibly for religious exercises made a longer and more permanent
occupation, and, without losing its ephemeral character, the place grew
and demanded more substantial accommodations. The spot is very
attractive. Although the shore looks to the east, and does not get the
prevailing southern breeze, and the beach has little surf, both water and
air are mild, the bathing is safe and agreeable, and the view of the
illimitable sea dotted with sails and fishing-boats is always pleasing. A
crowd begets a crowd, and soon the world's people made a city larger than
the original one, and still more fantastic, by the aid of paint and the
jigsaw. The tent, however, is the type of all the dwelling-houses. The
hotels, restaurants, and shops follow the usual order of flamboyant
seaside architecture. After a time the Baptists established a camp,
ground on the bluffs on the opposite side of the inlet. The world's
people brought in the commercial element in the way of fancy shops for
the sale of all manner of cheap and bizarre "notions," and introduced the
common amusements. And so, although the camp-meetings do not begin till
late in August, this city of play-houses is occupied the summer long. The
shops and shows represent the taste of the million, and although there is
a similarity in all these popular coast watering-places, each has a
characteristic of its own. The foreigner has a considerable opportunity
of studying family life, whether he lounges through the narrow, sometimes
circular, streets by night, when it appears like a fairy encampment, or
by daylight, when there is no illusion. It seems to be a point of
etiquette to show as much of the interiors as possible, and one can learn
something of cooking and bed-making and mending, and the art of doing up
the back hair. The photographer revels here in pictorial opportunities.
The pictures of these bizarre cottages, with the family and friends
seated in front, show very serious groups. One of the Tabernacle--a vast
iron hood or dome erected over rows of benches that will seat two or
three thousand people--represents the building when it is packed with an
audience intent upon the preacher. Most of the faces are of a grave,
severe type, plain and good, of the sort of people ready to die for a
notion. The impression of these photographs is that these people abandon
themselves soberly to the pleasures of the sea and of this packed,
gregarious life, and get solid enjoyment out of their recreation.
Here, as elsewhere on the coast, the greater part of the population
consists of women and children, and the young ladies complain of the
absence of men--and, indeed, something is desirable in society besides
the superannuated and the boys in round-abouts.
The artist and Miss Lamont, in search of the picturesque, had the
courage, although the thermometer was in the humor to climb up to ninety
degrees, to explore the Baptist encampment. They were not rewarded by
anything new except at the landing, where, behind the bath-houses, the
bathing suits were hung out to dry, and presented a comical spectacle,
the humor of which seemed to be lost upon all except themselves. It was
such a caricature of humanity! The suits hanging upon the line and
distended by the wind presented the appearance of headless, bloated
forms, fat men and fat women kicking in the breeze, and vainly trying to
climb over the line. It was probably merely fancy, but they declared
that these images seemed larger, more bloated, and much livelier than
those displayed on the Cottage City side. When travelers can be
entertained by trifles of this kind it shows that there is an absence of
more serious amusement. And, indeed, although people were not wanting,
and music was in the air, and the bicycle and tricycle stable was well
patronized by men and women, and the noon bathing was well attended, it
was evident that the life of Cottage City was not in full swing by the
middle of July.
The morning on which our tourists took the steamer for Wood's Holl the
sea lay shimmering in the heat, only stirred a little by the land breeze,
and it needed all the invigoration of the short ocean voyage to brace
them up for the intolerably hot and dusty ride in the cars through the
sandy part of Massachusetts. So long as the train kept by the indented
shore the route was fairly picturesque; all along Buzzard Bay and Onset
Bay and Monument Beach little cottages, gay with paint and fantastic
saw-work explained, in a measure, the design of Providence in permitting
this part of the world to be discovered; but the sandy interior had to be
reconciled to the deeper divine intention by a trial of patience and the
cultivation of the heroic virtues evoked by a struggle for existence, of
fitting men and women for a better country. The travelers were
confirmed, however, in their theory of the effect of a sandy country upon
the human figure. This is not a juicy land, if the expression can be
tolerated, any more than the sandy parts of New Jersey, and its
unsympathetic dryness is favorable to the production--one can hardly say
development of the lean, enduring, flat-chested, and angular style of
woman.
In order to reach Plymouth a wait of a couple of hours was necessary at
one of the sleepy but historic villages. There was here no tavern, no
restaurant, and nobody appeared to have any license to sell anything for
the refreshment of the travelers. But at some distance from the station,
in a two-roomed dwelling-house, a good woman was found who was willing to
cook a meal of victuals, as she explained, and a sign on her front door
attested, she had a right to do. What was at the bottom of the local
prejudice against letting the wayfaring man have anything to eat and
drink, the party could not ascertain, but the defiant air of the woman
revealed the fact that there was such a prejudice. She was a noble,
robust, gigantic specimen of her sex, well formed, strong as an ox, with
a resolute jaw, and she talked, through tightly-closed teeth, in an
aggressive manner. Dinner was ordered, and the party strolled about the
village pending its preparation; but it was not ready when they returned.
"I ain't goin' to cook no victuals," the woman explained, not
ungraciously, "till I know folks is goin' to eat it." Knowledge of the
world had made her justly cautious. She intended to set out a good meal,
and she had the true housewife's desire that it should be eaten, that
there should be enough of it, and that the guests should like it. When
she waited on the table she displayed a pair of arms that would
discourage any approach to familiarity, and disincline a timid person to
ask twice for pie; but in point of fact, as soon as the party became her
bona-fide guests, she was royally hospitable, and only displayed anxiety
lest they should not eat enough.
"I like folks to be up and down and square," she began saying, as she
vigilantly watched the effect of her culinary skill upon the awed little
party. "Yes, I've got a regular hotel license; you bet I have. There's
been folks lawed in this town for sellin' a meal of victuals and not
having one. I ain't goin' to be taken in by anybody. I warn't raised in
New Hampshire to be scared by these Massachusetts folks. No, I hain't
got a girl now. I had one a spell, but I'd rather do my own work. You
never knew what a girl was doin' or would do. After she'd left I found a
broken plate tucked into the ash-barrel. Sho! you can't depend on a
girl. Yes, I've got a husband. It's easier to manage him. Well, I tell
you a husband is better than a girl. When you tell him to do anything,
you know it's going to be done. He's always about, never loafin' round;
he can take right hold and wash dishes, and fetch water, and anything."
King went into the kitchen after dinner and saw this model husband, who
had the faculty of making himself generally useful, holding a baby on one
arm, and stirring something in a pot on the stove with the other. He
looked hot but resigned. There has been so much said about the position
of men in Massachusetts that the travelers were glad of this evidence
that husbands are beginning to be appreciated. Under proper training
they are acknowledged to be "better than girls."
It was late afternoon when they reached the quiet haven of Plymouth--a
place where it is apparently always afternoon, a place of memory and
reminiscences, where the whole effort of the population is to hear and to
tell some old thing. As the railway ends there, there is no danger of
being carried beyond, and the train slowly ceases motion, and stands
still in the midst of a great and welcome silence. Peace fell upon the
travelers like a garment, and although they had as much difficulty in
landing their baggage as the early Pilgrims had in getting theirs ashore,
the circumstance was not able to disquiet them much. It seemed natural
that their trunks should go astray on some of the inextricably
interlocked and branching railways, and they had no doubt that when they
had made the tour of the State they would be discharged, as they finally
were, into this cul-de-sac.
The Pilgrims have made so much noise in the world, and so powerfully
affected the continent, that our tourists were surprised to find they had
landed in such a quiet place, and that the spirit they have left behind
them is one of such tranquillity. The village has a charm all its own.
Many of the houses are old-fashioned and square, some with colonial doors
and porches, irregularly aligned on the main street, which is arched by
ancient and stately elms. In the spacious door-yards the lindens have
had room and time to expand, and in the beds of bloom the flowers, if not
the very ones that our grandmothers planted, are the sorts that they
loved. Showing that the town has grown in sympathy with human needs and
eccentricities, and is not the work of a surveyor, the streets are
irregular, forming picturesque angles and open spaces.
Nothing could be imagined in greater contrast to a Western town, and a
good part of the satisfaction our tourists experienced was in the absence
of anything Western or "Queen Anne" in the architecture.
In the Pilgrim Hall--a stone structure with an incongruous
wooden-pillared front--they came into the very presence of the early
worthies, saw their portraits on the walls, sat in their chairs, admired
the solidity of their shoes, and imbued themselves with the spirit of the
relics of their heroic, uncomfortable lives. In the town there was
nothing to disturb the serenity of mind acquired by this communion. The
Puritan interdict of unseemly excitement still prevailed, and the streets
were silent; the artist, who could compare it with the placidity of
Holland towns, declared that he never walked in a village so silent;
there was no loud talking; and even the children played without noise,
like little Pilgrims. . . God bless such children, and increase their
numbers! It might have been the approach of Sunday--if Sunday is still
regarded in eastern Massachusetts--that caused this hush, for it was now
towards sunset on Saturday, and the inhabitants were washing the fronts
of the houses with the hose, showing how cleanliness is next to silence.
Possessed with the spirit of peace, our tourists, whose souls had been
vexed with the passions of many watering-places, walked down Leyden
Street (the first that was laid out), saw the site of the first house,
and turned round Carver Street, walking lingeringly, so as not to break
the spell, out upon the hill-Cole's Hill--where the dead during the first
fearful winter were buried. This has been converted into a beautiful
esplanade, grassed and graveled and furnished with seats, and overlooks
the old wharves, some coal schooners, and shabby buildings, on one of
which is a sign informing the reckless that they can obtain there
clam-chowder and ice-cream, and the ugly, heavy granite canopy erected
over the "Rock." No reverent person can see this rock for the first time
without a thrill of excitement. It has the date of 1620 cut in it, and
it is a good deal cracked and patched up, as if it had been much landed
on, but there it is, and there it will remain a witness to a great
historic event, unless somebody takes a notion to cart it off uptown
again. It is said to rest on another rock, of which it formed a part
before its unfortunate journey, and that lower rock as everybody knows,
rests upon the immutable principle of self-government. The stone lies
too far from the water to enable anybody to land on it now, and it is
protected from vandalism by an iron grating. The sentiment of the hour
was disturbed by the advent of the members of a baseball nine, who
wondered why the Pilgrims did not land on the wharf, and, while thrusting
their feet through the grating in a commendable desire to touch the
sacred rock, expressed a doubt whether the feet of the Pilgrims were
small enough to slip through the grating and land on the stone. It seems
that there is nothing safe from the irreverence of American youth.
Has any other coast town besides Plymouth had the good sense and taste to
utilize such an elevation by the water-side as an esplanade? It is a
most charming feature of the village, and gives it what we call a foreign
air. It was very lovely in the afterglow and at moonrise. Staid
citizens with their families occupied the benches, groups were chatting
under the spreading linden-tree at the north entrance, and young maidens
in white muslin promenaded, looking seaward, as was the wont of Puritan
maidens, watching a receding or coming Mayflower. But there was no loud
talking, no laughter, no outbursts of merriment from the children, all
ready to be transplanted to the Puritan heaven! It was high tide, and
all the bay was silvery with a tinge of color from the glowing sky. The
long, curved sand-spit-which was heavily wooded when the Pilgrims
landed-was silvery also, and upon its northern tip glowed the white
sparkle in the lighthouse like the evening-star. To the north, over the
smooth pink water speckled with white sails, rose Captain Hill, in
Duxbury, bearing the monument to Miles Standish. Clarke's Island (where
the Pilgrims heard a sermon on the first Sunday), Saguish Point, and
Gurnett Headland (showing now twin white lights) appear like a long
island intersected by thin lines of blue water. The effect of these
ribbons of alternate sand and water, of the lights and the ocean (or
Great Bay) beyond, was exquisite.
Even the unobtrusive tavern at the rear of the esplanade, ancient, feebly
lighted, and inviting, added something to the picturesqueness of the
scene. The old tree by the gate--an English linden--illuminated by the
street lamps and the moon, had a mysterious appearance, and the tourists
were not surprised to learn that it has a romantic history. The story is
that the twig or sapling from which it grew was brought over from England
by a lover as a present to his mistress, that the lovers quarreled almost
immediately, that the girl in a pet threw it out of the window when she
sent her lover out of the door, and that another man picked it up and
planted it where it now grows. The legend provokes a good many
questions. One would like to know whether this was the first case of
female rebellion in Massachusetts against the common-law right of a man
to correct a woman with a stick not thicker than his little finger--a
rebellion which has resulted in the position of man as the tourists saw
him where the New Hampshire Amazon gave them a meal of victuals; and
whether the girl married the man who planted the twig, and, if so,
whether he did not regret that he had not kept it by him.
This is a world of illusions. By daylight, when the tide was out, the
pretty silver bay of the night before was a mud flat, and the tourists,
looking over it from Monument Hill, lost some of their respect for the
Pilgrim sagacity in selecting a landing-place. They had ascended the
hill for a nearer view of the monument, King with a reverent wish to read
the name of his Mayflower ancestor on the tablet, the others in a spirit
of cold, New York criticism, for they thought the structure, which is
still unfinished, would look uglier near at hand than at a distance. And
it does. It is a pile of granite masonry surmounted by symbolic figures.
"It is such an unsympathetic, tasteless-looking thing!" said Miss Lamont.
"Do you think it is the worst in the country?"
"I wouldn't like to say that," replied the artist, "when the competition
in this direction is so lively. But just look at the drawing" (holding
up his pencil with which he had intended to sketch it). "If it were
quaint, now, or rude, or archaic, it might be in keeping, but bad drawing
is just vulgar. I should think it had been designed by a carpenter, and
executed by a stone-mason."
"Yes," said the little Lamont, who always fell in with the most
abominable opinions the artist expressed; "it ought to have been made of
wood, and painted and sanded."
"You will please remember," mildly suggested King, who had found the name
he was in search of, "that you are trampling on my ancestral
sensibilities, as might be expected of those who have no ancestors who
ever landed or ever were buried anywhere in particular. I look at the
commemorative spirit rather than the execution of the monument."
"So do I," retorted the girl; "and if the Pilgrims landed in such a
vulgar, ostentatious spirit as this, I'm glad my name is not on the
tablet."
The party were in a better mood when they had climbed up Burial Hill,
back of the meeting-house, and sat down on one of the convenient benches
amid the ancient gravestones, and looked upon the wide and magnificent
prospect. A soft summer wind waved a little the long gray grass of the
ancient resting-place, and seemed to whisper peace to the weary
generation that lay there. What struggles, what heroisms, the names on
the stones recalled! Here had stood the first fort of 1620, and here the
watchtower of 1642, from the top of which the warder espied the lurking
savage, or hailed the expected ship from England. How much of history
this view recalled, and what pathos of human life these graves made real.
Read the names of those buried a couple of centuries ago--captains,
elders, ministers, governors, wives well beloved, children a span long,
maidens in the blush of womanhood--half the tender inscriptions are
illegible; the stones are broken, sunk, slanting to fall. What a pitiful
attempt to keep the world mindful of the departed!