CAPE HENRY.
We were still rather damp when we disembarked at Cape Henry and it was
decided that the best thing to do was to get into our bathing suits
immediately and spread out our clothes to dry. Bath houses were engaged
and with them a coloured maid who took charge of our wet things.
"Lawd love us! You is sho' wettish! White folks is pow'ful strange,
looks lak dey jes' tries to fall in de water. An' now you is goin' in
agin'. You must a got so-so clean out yander in de bay."
"Don't you ever go in bathing?" asked Dum.
"Who, me? No'm, not me! I hets up some water of a Sat'day night efen I
ain't too wo'out, an' I takes a good piece er lye soap an' I gibs myse'f
a scrubbin' dat I specks to las' me 'til nex' time," and with a rich
chuckle the girl added: "An' so fer it has."
"But all of us simply adore the water!" exclaimed Dum. "Don't you like
the feel of it?"
"No'm, it don't feel no way but jes' wet to me. You all what likes it is
welcome to it. I reckon it's a good thing niggers is black so de dirt
won't show an' dat white folks is fond er water, 'cause any little siled
place on 'em looms up mighty important. Yessum, I's goin' ter hab yo'
clothes good an' dry when you feel lak you is done got clean 'nuf to
come outn de ocean," and the grinning darkey carried off our damp things
to hang on a line and we joined the masculine members of our party to
take a dip in the surf.
The bathing at Willoughby is quiet, with rarely any surf, but at Cape
Henry great waves come rolling in, seemingly from the other side of the
ocean. There is a long sand bar running parallel with the beach, which
at high tide is submerged but at low tide shines out dry and white like
the back of an enormous sea monster. This bar forms a lovely little
pool, calm and clear, in strong contrast to the dashing waves outside.
As soon as the tide begins to recede, which it was doing when we emerged
from the bath houses, many little children come to play in this pool,
being as safe there as they would be in their bath tubs at home. Curious
shells are to be found there and wonderful pebbles, dear to the hearts
of children. I sometimes wonder what finally becomes of children's
treasures, the things they gather so laboriously and guard so carefully.
They always disappear in spite of the care the tots give them. I used to
think when I was a little thing that the brownies stole my treasures and
took them to the baby fairies to play with while their mothers were off
painting the flowers or mending the butterflies' wings. I hoped that the
baby fairies enjoyed my precious bits of coloured glass and the pieces
of shining mica, and wondered if they knew what little girl had owned
them, and if, some day, when they would grow up to be full-sized
fairies, they would not do something very nice for me because I had let
the brownies steal my toys.
Some of the older children had on bathing suits and were playing in the
shallow water, while the younger ones in rompers were seated on the
beach, digging for dear life in the warm, dry sand, filling their
brightly painted pails, patting down the contents and then turning out
the most wonderful and appetizing cakes. Meanwhile, their mammies
gossiped together, interfering occasionally when some childish vandal
knocked over a prize cake or made off with a purloined spade.
"'Ook, Mammy! ain' my ittle take pitty?" said a dumpling of a baby in
pink rompers and a pink beach bonnet tied on over a perfect riot of
golden curls.
"Yes, honey chile, it sho' is booful. Mammy's doll baby kin make de
pootiest cakes on dis here sand pile. Ain't you gonter gib yo' Mammy a
bite? Mammy is pow'ful fond er choclid cake." And the old woman looked
at her little charge as though she could eat her up, too, pink rompers
and all.
"I'll dive oo a ittle bit, Mammy, but oo mustn't eat much. It might make
oo sick an den baby hab to gib oo nas'y med'cine," and the little one
scooped up some of the sand cake in a shell and her old nurse pretended
to eat it with a great show of enjoyment. "Don't oo want some?" and she
held out a tempting shell full to Dee. Dee always attracted all children
and animals and was attracted by them.
"Delighted, I'm sure!" and she dropped down on the sand beside the
darling baby. For a time even the joys of surf bathing had to be
postponed while she played with her newly made conquest.
Annie Pore decided to keep in the shallow pool, having had enough of
deep water for the day, and Sleepy stayed with her as though she must be
protected from even two feet of water, which was the greatest depth of
the pool.
I found that I had learned to swim in some mysterious way. I struck
boldly out and took the waves as though I had always been surf bathing.
"Bravo!" exclaimed Zebedee, "how well you are coming on!"
"It is getting turned over that has done it," I declared. "You see, I
have found out that I can keep up and I am no longer afraid. I verily
believe I could swim over to Africa."
"Well, please don't leave us yet," begged Wink.
It was a wonderful sensation to find myself actually swimming without
the least fear. Swimming was after all nothing more than walking and
water was a medium to be used and not feared. Confidence was all that
was needed and my spill in the bay had given me that.
"I am very proud of my pupil," boasted Zebedee. "If the worst comes to
the worst and I lose my newspaper job, I'll give swimming lessons for a
living."
"Will you always employ the Venetian method and throw the babies out in
deep water and let them sink or swim?" I teased.
"Yes, and I'll take Miss Binks into partnership as an expert wrecker,"
he whispered.
That young woman was looking even finer than before in a very handsome
black silk bathing suit, slashed and piped in crimson. She had restored
herself to good humour and was having a very pleasant time with some
acquaintances she had met on the beach. We hoped her good humour would
last until she got safely back to Willoughby, as that meant more or less
good manners, too, and all we wanted from the belligerent Mabel was
peace at any price. At least, that was all I wanted and surely all
Annie Pore wanted. Tweedles were ready to give battle at any moment and
Mary Flannagan looked full of mischief.
"Do you s'pose Mabel is going to content herself with a sand bath?"
whispered Mary to me. "Maybe her suit is too fine to get wet."
"She certainly looks very stunning under that red parasol, posing up
there on the beach," said Dum, riding a wave and landing almost on top
of me. "I can't abide her but I must confess she is very paintable,
especially the red parasol. I'll never cease to regret that I did not
hook my foot in the handle and drag it overboard with me when I dived
off the launch. I thought about it while I was slipping off my shoes and
it would have been as easy as dirt to make out it was an accident; but
it would have been too Mabelesque an act and I could not quite make up
my mind to do it."
"I should say not, but if it could have happened and been a real
accident it would certainly have been fun," I exclaimed. "I can see you
leaping into the air with your toe hitched to the parasol like a kind
of a parachute. Who are her friends?"
"Search me! but I notice she does not see fit to introduce them. I
wonder whether she is ashamed of them or ashamed of us."
"'Mother dear, may I go swim?'
'Yes, my darling daughter,
Hang your clothes on a hickory limb
But don't go near the water,'"
sang Mary, throwing her voice so it seemed to come from behind Mabel.
Then we dived under the water and our giggles came up in the form of my
specialty, bubbles. Mabel never did wet her suit, however.
When we had had all the swim we wanted, we raced back to the bath houses
and found the humorous maid had our clothes all nicely dried. The effect
was rather rough-dried, but we were not in a position to be choosy.
"Well, here you is back agin! I can't sees dat you look no cleaner dan
you did befo'. I low all dat soakin' will draw de suption outn yo' bones
an' dey ain't nuf strength lef' in you to make a pot er soup."
And the truth was, I did feel a little feeble from the two swims and
realized that I was only fit for _soupe maigre_ or some very weak broth.
Food was what I needed; and as soon as we got into our rumpled clothes,
dinner was ready. What a dinner it was! Clam chowder first, with
everything in it that the proprietor could find, and seasoned to a
king's taste; then soft shell crabs with tartar sauce; then baked
blue-fish with roasted corn and creamed potatoes; then tomato salad;
then any kind of pie your fancy dictated.
"All I ask of you is not to eat ice cream," begged Zebedee; "it is fatal
along with crabs." And so we refrained, although it did seem to me with
all the layers of food between the crabs and dessert, it would have been
safe.
Dinner over, we determined to explore the Cape. It was a tremendously
interesting spot. In the first place it was at Cape Henry that the
English first disembarked in 1607. A stone tablet now supplants the old
wooden cross raised by the first settlers to mark the spot where the
adventurers landed on American soil. It is a bleak place with little
vegetation of any sort, nothing but the beach grass and a few stunted
oaks that look as though they had bowed their heads to invincible storms
from the moment that their little lives had burst from the acorns.
"They remind me of poor little factory children trying to grow to
manhood," I said to Zebedee who was showing us the sights. "When I think
of the oaks at Bracken and see these, it is difficult to realize that
they are all trees and all sprung from acorns. It is like a little
factory child by the side of George Massie, for instance." Zebedee the
sympathetic wiped his eyes at the thought of all the little mill hands
that we seemed to be powerless to help.
The old light-house built in 1690 was thrilling and I could hardly tear
myself away from it to go view the modern, up-to-date one that was open
for inspection. The wireless telegraph station, the first I had ever
seen, was not far from the old light-house, and it seemed strange to
think of the tremendous strides science had made since those sturdy
pioneers had built that picturesque old tower.
The sand dunes at Cape Henry are famous. They over-topped the cottages
in places and the little church was almost buried at one end. They say
this loose sand drifts like snow and the big wind storms in winter pile
it up into great hills so that the cottagers, returning for their summer
holidays, often have to dig out their homes before they can get to
housekeeping.
We had great larks sliding down these dunes and we got so dusty we were
ashamed to face the maid who had dried our clothes, knowing she would
have some invidious remarks to make about the uselessness of our having
washed, as she designated our sea bathing.
And now it was time to go home. We bade the grinning maid farewell, much
richer from our visit, as she was handsomely tipped by Wink, the
purse-bearer from the camp, and Zebedee, the ever lavish.
"When you gits dirty agin they's always plinty er water here," she
called out.
We changed places going back, as it was deemed not quite safe for Annie
and me to travel in the cat boat again. "Even if you can swim to
Africa," said Jim.
Annie was glad enough to get into the safer boat, but I enjoyed sailing
more than motoring, although that was delightful enough. Miss Cox and
Mr. Gordon came with us and Mary and Rags. Sleepy ran the boat and
although we were very quiet on the trip, everyone feeling a little tired
and very peaceful, I noticed that Sleepy did not go to sleep; when he
was not running the engine, he seemed to be taken up with looking after
Annie's comfort.
Once when our craft came close to the cat boat, Dum called out:
"Sing, Annie, sing!" and all of the rest, with the exception of Mabel,
joined in the request. And Annie sang:
"'Sweet and low, sweet and low,
Wind of the western sea,
Low, low, breathe and blow,
Wind of the western sea!
Over the rolling waters go,
Come from the dying moon and blow,
Blow him again to me;
While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.
"'Sleep and rest, sleep and rest,
Father will come to thee soon:
Rest, rest, on mother's breast,
Father will come to thee soon;
Father will come to his babe in the nest,
Silver sails all out of the west
Under the silver moon:
Sleep my little one, sleep my pretty one, sleep.'"
"Ah, ha, Miss Page Allison!" broke in Mabel's strident voice as we
disembarked at Willoughby, after the very smooth, peaceful journey,
"'The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.'"
"That's so, but why this remark?" I asked. "What race has there been and
what battle?" The men were making all ship-shape in the boats while we
girls strolled on ahead. I had not the slightest idea what Mabel was
talking about.
"Why, I got your middle-aged beau, all right, all right! I fancy he was
glad enough to get away from you bread-and-butter school girls and have
some sensible conversation with a grown-up." I could not help smiling at
this, having often listened entranced to Mabel's methods of entertaining
men. If that was what she called sensible conversation, Zebedee must
have been truly edified.
"Well, it was a good thing Mr. Tucker, if that is the middle-aged beau
in question, was wise enough to take his bread-and-butter first before
he indulged in the rich and heavy mental food that you fed him on. If he
had taken it on an empty head, as it were, it might have seriously
impaired his mental digestion." I fired this back at Mabel, angered in
spite of myself.
"And so, Miss, you say Mr. Tucker has an empty head! How should you like
for me to tell him you said so?"
"Tell him what you choose," I answered, confident of Zebedee's knowing
me too well to believe I said anything of the sort. "And how would you
like me to tell Mr. Tucker you called him middle-aged?" and I left the
ill-natured girl with her mouth wide open. I wanted peace, but if Mabel
wanted battle then I was not one to run away. No one had heard her
remark and I felt embarrassed at the thought of repeating it. I could
hardly tell Tweedles that Mabel called their father "my middle-aged
beau," and certainly I could not repeat such a thing to Zebedee
himself. Mabel was evidently bent on mischief but I felt pretty sure
that in a battle of wits I could come out victorious. All I feared was
that she would do something underhand. Certainly she was not above it.
Like most deceitful persons, she was fully capable of thinking others
were as deceitful as herself.