Our vacation plans last year were of the simplest. Personally, I said to
Emmeline, there was just one thing I longed for--to get away to some
quiet place where I could lie on my back under the trees and look up at
the clouds. To this Emmeline replied that in this posture (1) I always
smoke too much; (2) I catch cold and begin to sneeze; (3) I don't look
at the clouds at all, but tire my eyes by studying the baseball page in
the full glare of the sun. The newspaper habit is one which I regularly
forswear every summer on leaving town. I hold to my resolution to this
extent that I refrain from going down to the post office in the morning
to buy a paper. But toward eleven o'clock the strain becomes unendurable
and I borrow a copy of yesterday's paper after peering wistfully over
other people's shoulders. Emmeline thinks this habit all the more
inexcusable because, working for a newspaper myself, I ought to know
there is never anything in them. She can't imagine what drives me on. I
told her, perhaps it is the unconscious hope that some day I shall find
in the paper something worth while.
Actually, one soon discovers that the simple act of lying on one's back
on the grass and looking up at the clouds involves an extraordinary
amount of preparation. I am inclined to think that there must be
correspondence courses which teach in ten lessons how to lie on one's
back properly and look up. There must be text-books on how to tell the
cumuli from the cirrus. There must be useful hints on how to relax and
lose yourself in the immensity of the blue void.
The personal equipment one needs to gaze at the clouds, if you believe
the department stores, is tremendous. English flannels; French
shirtings; native khaki; silks; home-spuns; belts with a monogram
buckle; flowered cravats in colours to blend with the foliage; safety
razors; extra blades for the razors; strops to sharpen the blades;
unguents to keep the strops flexible; nickeled cases to keep the
unguents in; and metal polish for the nickeled cases. Arduous labour is
involved in going to Maple View Farm from the comparatively simple
civilisation of New York. I am not certain whether in the best circles
one can properly lie on one's back and look at the clouds without a
humidor and a thermos bottle.
Emmeline said I must be sure and not forget my fishing-pole, as that
trout in the brook behind the barn would probably be expecting me.
It seems absurd for a full-grown man to speak of hating a trout. But why
deny it? When I think of the utterly debased creature in the pool behind
the barn, the accumulated results of ten thousand years of civilisation
drop from me, and my heart is surcharged with venom. It all came about
so gradually. My landlord asked me one morning whether I shouldn't like
to try my luck with his rod. I said I should. I took his rod and hooked
the blackberry bush on the other side of the stream. I did better on my
next try. As my hook sank below the surface, a thrill ran along the
line, the slender bamboo stem arched forward, and I waited with my heart
in my mouth for an enormous trout to emerge and engage me in a
life-and-death struggle. But through three long weeks he refused to
emerge. Emmeline said it was the bottom of the soap-box whose upper edge
is visible above the surface. But that cannot be. No inanimate object
could elicit in any one the rage and the sense of frustrated
desire--perhaps I had better say no more. All my better instincts
corrode with the thought of that fish. It would have been compensation,
at least, if I had ever caught any other fish in that brook. It might
have been a near relation, a favourite son perhaps, and I should have
had my revenge--but there I go again.
* * * * *
What Emmeline wanted was a chance to catch up in her reading. It had
been a hard winter and spring, with the doctor too frequently in the
house and books quite out of the question. There were a half-dozen
novels Emmeline had in mind, not to mention Mr. Bryce's book on South
America, John Masefield, and Strindberg, whom she cordially detests. I
do too. I warned her against drawing up too ambitious a list, but she
was determined to make a summer of it. She said she felt illiterate and
terribly old. All I could do was to mention a few bookshops where she
could get the best choice with the least expenditure of energy.
Nevertheless she came back from her first day's shopping with a
headache.
Éponge is a rough, Turkish-towel fabric, selling in many widths, and
eminently desirable for out-of-door wear because of its peculiar
adaptability to the slim styles which prevent walking. Éponge has this
fatal defect, however, that when it is advertised in ready-made gowns at
an astounding reduction from $39.50, all the desirable models sell out
some time before ten o'clock in the morning. Hence Emmeline's headache.
She took very little supper and expressed the belief that our vacation
would be a complete failure. The mountains are always hot and dusty and
the crowd is a very mixed one.
After a while Emmeline had a cup of tea and felt better. We went over
our list of books for the summer and she wondered whether it wouldn't
pay to get a seamstress into the house and avoid the exhausting trips
downtown. On second thoughts she decided not to. Next morning she was
quite well and asked me to remind her not to forget Robert Herrick's new
novel. She said she might drop in at the office for lunch if she got
through early at the stores, and we might look at books together.
Charmeuse is a shimmering, silk-like material which lends itself
admirably to summer wear, because it stains easily. But in its effect on
the shopper's nerves, charmeuse is even worse than éponge. In fact, as a
preparation for a summer's reading, I don't know what is more
exhausting than charmeuse, unless it be crêpe de Chine. Emmeline did not
drop in for lunch that day, and when I came home at night, I found her
more depressed than ever. There was nothing to be had downtown. Prices
were impossible and anything else wasn't fit to be touched. It might be
just as well to stay in town for the summer as go away and take the
chance of getting typhoid. The situation was somewhat relieved by the
arrival at this juncture of several parcels, some long and narrow, and
others short and square. One particularly heavy box felt as if it might
contain a set of Strindberg, but turned out to be a really handsome coat
in blue chinchilla which Emmeline explained would be just the thing for
cool nights in the country. She had bought it in despair at obtaining
the kind of crêpe de Chine she wanted. The crêpe de Chine came in a
smaller box.
At breakfast the next day we were tremendously cheerful. I told Emmeline
of the handsome raincoat I had bought in preparation for lying on my
back on the grass and looking up at the clouds. From that we passed to
the new Brieux play. But when Emmeline intimated that she was going
downtown soon after breakfast, I grew anxious.
"Do you think," I said, "that it will really make any difference to Mr.
Galsworthy whether you read him in a voile or in a white cotton ratine?"
"If that is the way you feel about it," said Emmeline, "I can telephone
and have them take all these things back. I hate them anyhow."
"What I mean is," I said, "that you don't want to wear yourself out
completely before we leave the city. We have a month's reading ahead of
us. Let us begin it in peace of mind."
"With nothing to wear?" she said.
Tulle is a partly transparent material, which in the hands of a skilful
milliner becomes an invaluable aid to a thorough comprehension of the
plays of M. Brieux, especially when studied amid the complexities of
life on Maple View Farm. As usual, it is the department stores which
have been first to discover this fundamental connection in life. They
have everything necessary for the thorough enjoyment of Mr. Bryce's book
on South America--blouses, toques, parasols, and tennis shoes. Special
bargains in linen crash and batiste are offered on the same day with a
cut-rate edition of "Damaged Goods." Reading Brieux in the country is
almost as complicated a diversion as lying on one's back and looking up
at the clouds.