It was with somewhat a heavy heart that we prepared to leave Salamis
for the winter. Yet inscrutable lust of adventure spurred us on;
the city, also, is the place for work. In the country one is too
comfortable, and there are too many distractions. Either cider, or
stars, or the blue sparkle of the furnace fire--all these require
frequent attentions. But it was hard to part with Long Island’s charms
in November, loveliest of months. The copper-coloured woods, the
chrysanthemums, the brisk walk to the morning train, the yellow crackle
of logs in the chimney, the chill dry whisper of the neighbouring belt
of trees heard at midnight from an airy veranda--these are some of the
excitements we shall miss. Most of all, perhaps, that stony little
unlit lane, traversed in pitch darkness towards supper time, until,
coming clear of the trees, you open up the Dipper, sprawled low across
the northern sky.
It was hard, too, to leave Salamis just when its winter season of
innocent gayeties was commencing. You would hardly believe how much
is going on! Did you know that that deathless old railroad station is
being (as they say of ships) reconditioned? And there’s going to be
a drug store in Salamis Heights. The new Methodist church is nearly
finished--and, most glamorous of all, we now have an actual tea-room at
the entrance to the Salamis Estates. When you are motoring out that way
you can see if we don’t speak the truth. In another five years, most
likely, we shall have street lights along our lonely wood road to Green
Escape--and pavements--and gas to cook with. But there never will be
quite as many fairies in the woods as there have been these past three
years.
But, perhaps fortunately, the day set for moving into town was wet and
drizzly. And the labour of piling into Dame Quickly various baggages,
hampers, toys, a go-cart, and the component railings, girders, rods,
springs and mattresses of two cribs was lively enough to oust from the
mind any pangs of mere sentiment. The mind of one who has accomplished
that task, in shirt-sleeves under a dripping weather, is heated
enough to make him ready for any sort of adventurous foray. The Dame,
also, grossly overloaded, and travelling smartly on greasy ways, was
skiddish. As is ever our fortune, we found the road through Astoria
torn up for repairs. This involved a circuit along a most horrible
bypath, where our ill-adjusted freight leaped crazily with every
lurch, go-cart and mattresses descended on our neck, and the violence
of the bumping caused the crib-girders to burst through the rear of
the Dame’s canopy. Also we incurred, and probably deserved, a stern
rebuke from a gigantic policeman on Second Avenue. To tell the truth,
in a downshoot of rain and peering desperately through a streaming
wind-shield, we did not know he was a policeman at first. We thought he
was an L pillar.
Yet, when both voyages were safely accomplished--one for the baggage,
and one for the household: it would be harder to say which lading was
the tighter squeeze--what an exhilaration to move once more in the city
of our adoring. It is true that we began by making an immediate enemy
in the apartment house, for, as we were quite innocently taking a trunk
upstairs in the elevator, assisted by the cheerful elderly attendant, a
lady living in the same house entered by chance and burst into violent
reproach because _her_ baggage had had to go aloft in the freight
elevator. She accused the attendant of favouritism; to which he, quite
placidly, explained that this particular baggage had been delivered at
the front door in a private car. This compliment to the Dame pleased
us, but knowing nothing of the rules, and being wet and pensive, we
pretended to be an expressman and said naught. The only other shock
was when we took the Dame to a neighbouring garage to recuperate for a
few days. (We were glad, then, it had been raining, for the well-loved
vehicle looked very sleek and shiny, and it was too dark for the garage
man to notice the holes in her top. We wouldn’t want him to sneer at
her, and his garage, we observed, was full of very handsome cars.) When
he said it would cost the Dame $1.50 a night to live there we were a
little horrified. That, we reflected, was what we used to pay ourself
at the old Continental Hotel in Philly, the inn where the Prince of
Wales (the old one) and Dickens and Lincoln and others stayed. We now
look with greater and greater astonishment at all the cars we see in
New York. How can any one afford to keep them?
We were dispatched to do some hasty marketing, in time for supper.
We made off to our favourite shopping street--Amsterdam Avenue.
Delightedly we gazed into those alluring windows. In a dairy, a young
lady of dark and appealing loveliness made us welcome. When we ordered
milk and laid in a stock of groceries, making it plain to her (by
consulting a list) that we were speaking on behalf of the head of the
house, she urged us to advise Titania to open an account. Money she
seemed loath to accept: it could all be paid for at the end of the
month, she said. It is well to shop referring perplexedly to a little
list. This proves that you are an humble, honest paterfamilias, acting
only under orders. To such credit is always lavish, and fair milkmaids
generously tender.
Various tradesmen in that neighbourhood were surprised, in the tail end
of a wet and depressing day, by unexpected increments of traffic. “Just
nick the bone?” inquired the butcher, when, from our list, we read him
the item about rib lamb chops. “Yes, just nick the bone,” we assented,
not being very definite on the subject. We were interested in admiring
the thick sawdust on the floor, very pleasant to slide the foot upon.
The laundry man was just closing when we arrived with our bundle.
“Here’s a new customer for you,” we announced. Whatever private sorrows
he has were erased from his manly forehead. He told us that he also
does tailoring. Cleaning and pressing, he insisted. We had a private
feeling, a little shameful, that he hasn’t got as good a customer as he
imagines. Next door to the tailor, by the way, and right opposite the
apartment house, is a carpenter who advertises his skill at bookshelves.
How different it is from Salamis nights. Hanging out of the kitchen
window (having gone to the rear of the apartment to see what the
icebox is like: it’s a beauty)--instead of Orion’s Belt and the dry
rustle of the trees, we see those steep walls of lighted windows,
discreetly blinded, hear sudden shrills of music from above and below.
Just through the wall, as we lie abed, we can hear the queer droning
whine of the elevator; through the open window, the clang of trolleys
on Broadway. Hunting through the books that belong in the furnished
apartment, after startling ourself by reading Mr. D. H. Lawrence’s
poems called _Look! We Have Come Through!_ we found an old Conan
Doyle--always our favourite bedtime author. _The Adventures of Gerard_,
indeed, and we are going to have a go at it immediately.
Yes, it’s very different from Salamis; but Adventure is everywhere, and
we like to take things as we find them. We have never been anywhere
yet, whether in the steerage of the _Mauretania_ or in a private
lunch-room at the Bankers’ Club, where there wasn’t more amusement than
we deserved.
[Illustration]