Part 4

To line up twenty or more on the beach and rush for a plunge, to breast the billows or to grope amid the sands for sea clams, to race along the beach for the sheer joy of life, is the glad part of what I call a picnic. And then the food! No meal which must be coaxed along by a cocktail or other appetizer, to prepare the way for course after course of indigestible concoctions planned by fertile-minded chefs, but honest beef and chicken and ham sandwiches, delicately prepared and tastefully arranged. Sandwiches of lettuce and cheese and paprika; sandwiches with sardines, with olives; graham sandwiches with a thin layer of marmalade or guava intended for the children, but partaken of by all. And stuffed eggs, the variety only to be found at a picnic and eaten in two gulps, the one place where such table manners are tolerated.

And it is on picnics that the thermos bottle is most thoroughly appreciated. The miracle of hot bouillon, hot coffee, iced tea, and a variety of beverages, suitably chilled or heated, seems ever to be a source of fresh surprise and pleasure.

Toward autumn, the picnics offer a new variety, for the children thrill at the expectation of cooking their own dinner. The joys of a bonfire, the excitement of burying potatoes, corn, and clams in seaweed, the frying of ham and eggs, and the occasional treat of flapjacks when one of our nautical friends happens to be of our number. These are but a few of the pleasures of a picnic such as one encounters on the shores of Buzzard’s Bay in August and September.

It must be admitted that there are certain drawbacks which seem serious to the individual of fixed habits, tender feet, and uncertain digestion. There is, for example, the beautiful white sand, glistening in the sun, smooth as a billiard table and fine as powder. It must be admitted that after the bath one is conscious of the pervading quality of its particles. It is in one’s hair, one’s shoes, and often elsewhere about the person. It is discovered invading the aforesaid sandwiches, which seem well named at such times. A brisk wind slaps it into your eye or your mouth in disconcerting fashion, and you become aware of its grating presence. Then, again, there are clouds upon the horizon. To those who are seriously affected by the sand, these clouds look ominous. They may forebode a storm and a wetting. A certain clamminess of hands and feet, occasioned by the bath, remind one that a change in the weather precedes a cold in the head. These feelings mark the man of creature comforts and he fails to join in the part-singing which comes after the hearty meal, when pipes are lighted and the entire gathering stretch themselves upon the sands for a lazy half-hour before the inevitable cleaning-up process begins. This same individual declines to tell his best story, and should a ball game be suggested, he will be found callous to all coaxing. He has enough sand in his shoes as it is, or he has eaten too much for exercising, or possibly the clouds on the horizon lower more formidably.

Yes, a picnic discloses the strength and weakness of character which mark our friends, and yet, after all, it does more, for it brings out the best in most of us, and few, even of our habitually conventional friends, fail to respond to the delights of a seashore picnic or lack in the essential philosophy of an outdoor, care-free existence.

X

MODELS

Long before the Old Colony Railroad thought of running a line to Cape Cod—although that in itself was not so very long ago, well within the memory of man—there was one charm of the Cape which is fast vanishing and entirely unknown to the casual visitor and unappreciated by the perennial summer residents. In those days there was a host of rugged, sturdy men, intelligent, courageous, upright, and keen-minded. They were the Cape captains, the men who grew up among the sand-dunes, to the rote of the sea. The men who carried the good name of Cape Cod to the ends of the earth and who brought back with them the fortunes which made the little towns, dotted here and there along the shore, havens of comfort and rest.

Such men could tell stories which would vie with those of Conrad and Stevenson, but for the most part their deeds go unrecorded except in their ships’ logs, for they were a simple, reserved company. Of this epoch there remains but one relic which is sought after by the present generation, and it savors of the antique. In fact, it is the antiquarian rather than the adventurer who ransacks the Cape at present for ships’ models.

In those early days there were months at a time when the ship’s company were idle, and it grew to be a custom for those clever with their hands to fashion models of the schooners in which they sailed or of seacraft notable for beauty of line or complexity of rig.

Many an old sea captain would pass his idle moments in fashioning these miniature boats, and many members of the ships’ crews became adept at the hobby, for a knowledge of tools was almost an essential for every man on the Cape, where the trades of carpenter, painter, and plumber were generally performed by the householder. Furthermore, a sailor would infinitely prefer to whittle out a model than to swab down the deck, and frequently a clever mechanic would be relieved by his captain from this menial work, if he devoted his time to the perfection of a model which was destined for the mantel of the captain’s best parlor.

Therefore, in the old days, there was scarcely a Cape family of saltwater ancestry which did not boast of at least one model and often more, the trademark of an honorable and hazardous occupation and a relic of former days of plenty when the Cape was peopled only by the native Cape-Codders and before steam took from them the vocation to which they were reared.

To-day the captain of a full-rigged ship is as hard to find as the vessel herself, and the Cape exists upon the summer residents and upon the less productive occupation of fishing, which is largely in the hands of the Portuguese, who have come in droves to settle upon our land of Bartholomew Gosnold and his company of adventurers. And so the interest in ships and in tales of the sea has disappeared along with those who upheld the trade; and the models, familiar sights to the descendants, have been relegated to the attic or have been sold as curiosities to the ubiquitous dealers in antiques, who persistently come to the Cape for old furniture, pewter, china—anything, in fact, which can be palmed off on that voracious type of collector, the lover of antiques.

During the last few years, for some reason or other, these models have become very popular. Just why it is not easy to explain. It is true that they typify a lost trade which was full of adventure. It is also true that they are decorative, many of them, but that hardly explains the ravenous appetite which many collectors of antiques have recently developed to obtain a genuine model. Dealers have secured agents in every town on the Cape who are ransacking their neighborhoods for models, half-models, pictures of boats made in bas-reliefs, weather vanes in the shape of ships, and the prices are increasing by leaps and bounds. In fact, so popular has this fad become that ex-sailors and carpenters with some slight acquaintance with the sea are now developing quite a business in fashioning models of special designs or of former famous ships. A few years ago the model of a schooner about two feet in length fully rigged would bring in the neighborhood of twenty-five dollars; to-day the same model could not be secured for less than one hundred dollars. Often the smaller, more exquisitely made specimens will bring more. The descendants of the old captains have lost any sentimental regard for these relics and gladly part with them for a comparatively small sum, but only to the patient and skillful, who know Cape ways and Cape people, and so it is almost impossible for the tourist to secure a model except from a dealer.

Should the casual summer visitor attempt to bargain with his native Cape neighbor, he would find him a wily bird, suspicious of being imposed upon and as likely as not to put an absurd valuation upon his possession; and yet that same Cape neighbor might part with the model the next day to a total stranger for a smaller sum, for such is the nature of the denizen of the Cape. This contrary-mindedness and disinclination to do a favor is not unusual, but as against this trait, he will be found to be a genial host and a kindly acquaintance often generous beyond his means.

And so to-day we witness the passing of the models, last relic of the olden days, the golden days of Cape Cod, from those tiny Cape cottages built by these same sturdy sea captains to the comfortable mansions of the summer people whose knowledge of the sea is secured in July and August by an occasional dip, a sail in a knockabout, and a glimpse of a glorious sunset over the shining waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

XI

“A WET SHEET AND A FLOWING SEA”

In my youthful days I often wondered at the regularity with which elderly people would go out to drive day after day, sitting in the same seat in the same carriage, behind the same horses, driven by the same coachman along the same roads. It seemed to me a lamentable waste of time. And now I have more or less (less as the years advance) the same feeling toward those couples whose chief relaxation is a spin along the state roads of their district in a well-appointed limousine, for I belong to that class of motorists who use their cars purely for convenience and prefer the fresh-air variety.

Yet, when it comes to sailing, for some reason which I am at a loss to explain, my views are diametrically opposite. I am content to clamber into my knockabout and to perform the routine labor of pumping “her” out, unfurling and hoisting the sail, and casting off, then to cruise lazily about our harbor, sailing over the same course day in and day out with little variation, and to do this either alone or with a kindred spirit as the case may be.

To many these cases may seem parallel, but to me they are widely variant. There is a formality to a drive or a motor ride which starts with the costume worn and ends with the character of conversation.

On a boat—and I am speaking entirely of small boats—the costume is of a heterogeneous variety and the conversation of the freest. In fact, there is something so thoroughly unconventional about life on the water that even the stiffest of Brahminian Bostonians may occasionally be heard to indulge in slang and to assume a rakish attitude, perched upon deck.

But such criticism, or rather comparison, is highly superficial. There is more to it than external appearance; for sailing brings out the best in human nature, encourages philosophy, develops independence of thought and act, and largely so because those who sail shed their coating of reserve and allow their natural feelings fair play. There is no quicker way to know and size up one’s friends than to go on a cruise for a few days. There is no better way of enjoying and extending one’s friendships with both sexes than spending a few afternoons sailing together, skirting along the shore with a fair breeze, nor is there any quicker way of learning the weaknesses of certain individuals than by observing their conduct under perhaps less peaceful conditions at sea. For the best of skippers cannot predict weather conditions, and there are times when wind and storm will come upon one with surprising quickness.

Here in New England, the sailing fraternity may be divided into those who prefer the Maine coast and those who cling to the Cape and Buzzard’s Bay. As one of the latter class, I always claim our supremacy by stating two points which I believe to be true: first, that we have more wind, and second, that we have less fog. To me this is convincing. The southwest wind which cools the Cape, blows nearly every day in summer and with a strength that often requires reefing. Rarely between ten in the morning and five at night will the mariner find himself becalmed in Buzzard’s Bay. In fact, the stranger is generally amazed to see girls and young boys sailing without the presence of an older person, in what looks to him a three-reef breeze.

They have been brought up to it and realize that vigilance must always be exercised on the water, and they know the qualities of their boat and the power of the wind. I know of no better training for youngsters who are proficient in swimming than to learn to sail and race their own little boats. The development of a power of observation, accurate judgment, prompt action, and steady nerve comes more quickly with the handling of a boat than in any other way for those who lead our kind of life.

Sailing is confined to boats, but boats are not by any means confined to sailing, for latterly there are almost as many motor-boats to be found chugging along the shores of the Cape as there are sailboats, although I personally always pity the groups in the stern of one of these modern affairs which makes its noisy passage leaving an odorous wake of oil and smoke. But doubtless I am extreme in my views and old-fashioned in my taste.

Give me a knockabout—a fifteen-footer for real comfort for a daily sail, a stiff member of the twenty-one-foot class for cruising along shore. Give me a comfortable catboat, broad of beam, for a family boat or for a day’s fishing, or let me idle about in one of our little twelve-foot Herreshoff class with my small son. In any one of them I shall find the same sense of freedom, the same sort of pleasure, and the same love for the salt sea, and from each I shall look at the windy, sandy shores of the Cape with the same loyal affection.

XII

MY CAPE FARM

If I have thought of it at all, I have thought of myself as a sociable cuss. Not that I like sociables; I hate them, and that is probably why they have gone out of fashion. What to my mind defines sociability is the quality of enjoying and giving enjoyment to others, singly, in pairs, or in groups; and in present days sociability is generally put to the test either at dinners or at week-end parties, for these are the principal points of contact between friends.

Latterly, however, my social bent has been somewhat warped by the growing desire on the part of my friends to boast of their success as producers of food. Whether it be premature senility, the result of conservation, or merely the acquisition of wealth, which is being rapidly returned to its own through the purchase of land and the ingenuity of gardeners, it is a fact that at dinners of the cut-and-dried variety or a family gathering, or, more especially, over a week-end, my host invariably calls attention to the asparagus with a modest cough as prelude, or my hostess mentions the number of eggs the farmer brought in yesterday to be put down in water-glass. Sometimes it is not asparagus, but peas, or corn, or perhaps a chicken, or even a ham. This the host. His wife more generally dilates upon the milk products and the preserving end of the bill of fare; but, for whatever cause, the thing got a bit on my nerves, so that I found myself thinking of reasons for not visiting So-and-So or for not dining with the Thing-um-Bobs on Friday week, when I knew we hadn’t a thing on earth to do.

This frame of mind was, of course, all wrong. In the first place, these friends were as good and as loyal as they were ten years ago, when, if they had any garden at all, it consisted of a half-dozen radishes that no one could eat without summoning a physician within four hours. Furthermore, the aforesaid asparagus, with its accompaniments, was better than the ordinary variety which has decorated the entrance to the greengrocer’s establishment for the better part of a week. And lastly, as I had no garden myself, why not enjoy the best and be thankful?

Probably the reason was envy and the season spring, when, contrary to budding nature, one’s own physical being is not as blooming as it should be.

Be this as it may, the final result has probably made me more of a bore to my friends than they ever were to me, for to get even with them I conceived the happy idea of catering to their epicurean tastes from my own farm, which consisted of a scant two acres of shore line in that section of Cape Cod which is renowned for its scarcity of soil.

The idea came to me soon after we had moved down for the summer months, and my wife became so enthusiastic that it really became our hobby for the season. We had planned for a succession of week-ends, and many of these agricultural intimates were coming to us for return visits. We would feed them upon the fat of our land or in this case largely the fat of the sea.

It is interesting and instructive to learn just what varieties of food can be secured from the immediate vicinity of any place, and to me especially so of our Cape Cod.

During the entire summer I felt so personal an interest in our section of the country that my small son exclaimed one day that I talked as if I owned the entire Cape. I know I felt a proprietary interest in certain fishing grounds, the whereabouts of which I would not confess even on the rack. And it amuses me now to think of the circuitous routes I used in getting to certain berry patches and stretches where mushrooms grew overnight. In variety our dinners, or high teas (as we always called them), were infinite as compared with those of our asparagus associates.

I remember one little repast which pleased me mightily, because it came at the end of one of those hot days—they are rare on the Cape—when the wind refused to blow from the southwest. We had had our swim, but even golf was a bit too strenuous and food does not have its usual appeal on such occasions even on the Cape. It also happened that our friends of this particular week-end were literally congested with land and its more generous offerings, and so when I practiced the usual humiliatory cough and remarked that our simple repast came from my Cape farm and they must excuse its simplicity, I was just a trifle nervous.

The melons were a gift from my plumber, a curious combination. If only the plumber could plumb as well as he grows melons upon his barren sandpile, our summer comfort would be increased by fifty per cent. No better melons can be found than these little fellows. The clam-broth, from my own clam-bed, was an appetizer. I seriously believe that there is real energizing value in such clam-broth as this, boiled down almost to a _liqueur_ from newly dug clams. Then came scallops plucked that day from the seaweed, where they lie at low tide blowing like miniature whales. We all know how delicious they are in the autumn served with _tartare_ sauce, but have you ever tasted them creamed with a dash of brown sherry and served with fresh mushrooms?

Just as the plumber supplies us with melons, so the fishman is the local authority on lettuce. Our salad, therefore, came from Captain Barwick, crisp and white with slices of early pears from a near-by tree, and with it my favorite muffins of coarse, white cornmeal toasted, thin, and eaten with beach-plum jam made from our own bushes in the bramble patch close by the lane, and cottage cheese which our cook positively enjoys making.

My wife had felt this to be a rather scant repast for those used to dinners of six or eight courses, and so the dessert was a substantial huckleberry pudding served cold from the ice-chest with whipped cream, and to take the chill off we had a small glass of my home-made wild-cherry brandy with our coffee; and while there are other beverages which are preferable I confess it gave us a delightfully comforting sensation.

The hearty, genuine praise from my guests gave me a fleeting feeling of shame at the way I had criticized their asparagus and numberless eggs, but the pride of success carried me with it.

“Oh, this is not anything; wait until to-morrow and let me show you the varieties which my farm offers. In the catboat, I have a well in which we keep fish alive. What say you to a butterfish for breakfast? For dinner we can either go out to the fishing grounds for something with a real pull to it, or we can motor over to Turtle Pond for a try at a bass, or we can golf and take a couple of lobsters out of my pots bobbing up and down out there by the point.”

“Hold on,” my friend interjected. “What I want to know is whether every one on the Cape lives in this way, for if they do I think I shall be moving down here by another season.”

“No,” I replied, “very few. In the first place, most people continue to do just what their neighbors do—tennis, golf, swimming, sailing. The fishing is poor unless you know where to go. The natives are not helpful unless you know how to take them, and that is why I call it all _my_ farm, because I have taken it all unto myself and I reap a reward much richer than I deserve.

“I pass much of my time hunting up new fishing grounds or the lair of the soft-shell crab, or even the quiet, muddy recesses of the ‘little necks.’ I wander about the country exploring new berry patches, for there is a great variety of these. And if you must know, I fraternize with certain delightfully conversational individuals who sell me delicious fruit and vegetables as well as ducks and chickens and a variety of odds and ends, as, for instance, that little model over there. But you could not buy them. No, sir, not until you learned the art of negotiation to perfection. You may manage your estates to the Queen’s taste, but when it comes to managing a Cape-Codder, ah, that’s not done so easily.”

I see my friends leading the conventional summer life and wonder at times how they can come to the Cape year after year and yet be strangers to its real fascination, because it has many other hidden allurements besides this quest for food.

XIII

SCALLOPS

Sport, according to our highest authorities, is “that which diverts and makes mirth,” and from this general interpretation the term has been applied to games, and to the various forms of hunting and fishing commonly known, but I have yet to hear the word applied to the pursuit of the scallop. And yet, scalloping more nearly approaches the original meaning of sport than most of the games which are commonly classed under this heading, for not only does the scallop divert and provoke the mirth of his pursuer, but the pursuer in turn evokes a similar feeling and impression upon those who chance to see him in action. Those who have never tasted the joys and excitement of a scallop hunt have not completed their education as real sportsmen. It is true that Badminton does not devote a volume to this particular pastime; it is equally true that the progressive American journalist, whose duty it is to supply the sporting columns of his paper with all the news of current athletic events, invariably ignores this important item, and our mighty Nimrods fail to include scalloping among their feats of prowess; but in each case the cause of the omission invariably can be traced to ignorance, and to the fact that your scallop-hunter is a wary fellow who says but little and boasts less, fearing inadvertently to disclose the favored haunts of his favorite prey. And so, for these and divers causes, the pursuit of the scallop lies in obscurity.