In midsummer the morning walk to the station is one long snuff of green
and gold. On the winding stony lane through the Estates, before you
reach the straight highway to the railroad, it is a continual sharp
intake through the nostrils, an attempt to savour and identify the
rich, moist smells of early day. That tangle of woodland we would like
to call by the good old English word _spinney_, if only to haul in an
equally ancient pun. It is in the spinney that you get the top of the
morning. Dew is on the darkening blackberries. Little gauzy cobwebs are
spread everywhere on grass and bushes, suggesting handkerchiefs dropped
by revelling midnight dryads. The little handkerchiefs are all very
soppy--do the dryads suffer from hay fever? As you emerge onto the
straight station road, it is comforting if you see, not far away, some
commuter whose time-sense is reliable trudging not too far ahead. When
that long perspective is empty anxiety fills the breast. Across the
level Long Island plain come occasional musical whistles from trains on
the other line--the Westbury branch. But the practiced commuter knows
his own whistle and alarms not at alien shrillings.
In midsummer the subaltern life around us is grown lusty. The spider
is in his heyday and cannot be denied. Even indoors he shrewdly
penetrates. Looking for a book along the shelves, our eye was caught
by the hasty climb of one small spinner, who had been hanging on his
airy cord apparently also scanning the titles. To the top of the case
he retired, beyond reach. We wish him luck and hope no domestic besom
may find him. The young lumpish robins that used to flutter heavily
across the road, easily within grasp, fat paunches of feathers upon
incapable wings--these are now strong of flight and cat-safe. The young
rabbits with whom our woods are crowded no longer stand curiously in
the roadway almost until our foot is on them. They too are maturing and
have learned wise suspicion. The mole nightly increases his meandering
subway, which looks like a zigzagging varicose vein on the surface of
the lawn. And Gissing, untaught by menace or thrashing, every night
buffets down more of the phlox plants so carefully set out by Titania,
in his caperings with a roving Airedale from no one knows where. Only
the pond noises seem to have lessened in vitality. The frogs are
growing cynical, perhaps. In the sylvester midnight--thanks to Mr.
C. E. Montague for that pretty phrase--they utter only an occasional
disillusioned twangle, like the pluck of a loose bass string.
But there are signs that the Salamis Estates, so long a rustic Nirvana,
are going to fall under the hand of civilization. Which will, one
doubts not, have its advantages. It will be helpful to have gas to cook
with; and sidewalks are enjoyable for baby carriages and velocipedes.
But we shall never forget the happy Salamis Estates as they still
are--the lonely roads through virgin woods; the little hidden lakes;
the old abandoned orchard buried in overgrowth of vines and forest;
solitude and sanctuary. It is our darling old horror of a Salamis
railway station that has spared us the evils of “development.” The
casual passenger looking out on that gruesome pagoda of claret-coloured
brick and the huddle of wooden shacks around it, can only think of
Salamis as a place damned and forgotten. When some of our neighbours
grunt about that station we think inwardly of it with affection. It has
spared us much. There are some people, of course, who really like to
live in an artificed toy park like Nassau Boulevard or Garden City. We
were raised on the books of Mayne Reid and Du Chaillu; we are for the
jungle.
Yet we would not admit impediments to progress, if it does not rob our
rustic Eden of all its wilderness charm. And anyhow progress is coming
willynil. Actually, in the past six months, we have seen several houses
built on the outskirts of our region. The new Methodist kirk, though
apparently halted temporarily while our good dominy raises some more
funds, is already shoulder-high. Another church, years ago foundered
to the status of a saloon, now does brisking business as garage. The
little empty lodge at the entrance to the Estates, where we vote on
election days, will some day be a tea-room, we suspect. It is ideal
for that purpose, with its big open fireplace. In fact, we have heard
influential Salamites say that it could be had almost rent-free by some
really refined lady as a pekoe-saloon. Those who move the destinies of
the Estates think that a nice tea-room there would help the tone of
the neighbourhood. We pass this information on to ambitious ladies, on
condition we are allowed to have three lumps and an extra pat of butter.
It is all very interesting, because we are going to have a unique
opportunity to see exactly how civilization works. We have watched
new signboards go up at the front and back entrances to the Estates.
Not long ago a hundred thousand people might have gone by and never
known our little world was there. We study the new board of a
Mortgage Company announcing Desirable Plots. Yes, we can see a plot.
Civilization is plotting to take us under its wing. We are going to
have a good look at this thing they call civilization and see how it
goes about it. Five years from now will we be able to see cows being
driven home from their daily pasture near our Green Escape? We are not
blind to omens. Just as lightning glimmers even through eyelids closed
in bed, so behind the leafy screen of our still scatheless sanctum we
can see the bright eyes of Real Estate men blazing in the sky. Well
... there are compensations. Our title is clean and clear, and our
second mortgage sticks to us closer than a shinplaster. Wait till they
try to buy us out; we’ll get some of our own back.
So we meditate, partly as poet and partly as Man of Affairs, as we
walk homeward up the hill. The singing peanut-wagon of George Vlachos,
steaming its thin, pensive tune, comes clopping wearily down the road,
the white horse shambling a bit after a long day on the highways. FRESH
ROSTED PEANUTS, CANDY, ICE CREAM, says the legend. We note the pile of
fresh shingles beside the little house going up near the station; we
sniff the tang of mortar where our good friend Mr. Corliss will next
year be preaching the word of God in his new steeple-house (as George
Fox would have called it). We wonder where the Salamis Heights movie
will be, when it comes? That, and an occasional street-lamp up in our
tangled knolls, will make it easier to keep servants, very likely. And
think of having gas to cook with instead of those oil stoves.... Yes,
perhaps civilization will have merits.
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