Lillian E. Andrews
Captain Enoch Burgess went down Mapleville's main street at a rate of speed that threatened to break all records. The tails of his linen coat stood out like the sails of a Gloucester fisherman homeward bound with a "full bin fare." He stamped up Abner Crowell's walk, and slammed the kitchen door.
Abner was weeding onions. He stared after the captain curiously. "Looks like squally weather," he commented. "I wonder what's sent Enoch on his beam ends like that."
As Abner bent with a grunt to his task, his wife came hurrying toward him, her apron strings flying like distress signals.
"Abner," she demanded excitedly, "did you ever hear of Captain Enoch's havin' fits?"
"No, I dunno's I ever did," replied Abner, twitching up an enterprising wild mustard.
"Well, he's havin' one now," insisted Mrs. Crowell. "He come trampin' in an' says, 'Git right out o' my way, Mis' Crowell,' an' now he's a pacin' up an' down his room like a caged hyeny. You leave them onions, an' go an see what under the canopy ails him. I'll stand at the foot of the stairs ready to run for help, if he should be dangerous."
Abner groaned. Reluctantly he brushed the dirt from his knees, and went into the house. Captain Enoch's heavy steps jarred the floor of his little room. Three times Abner knocked. Growing wrathful at being ignored, he applied his lips to the key-hole.
"Hey, there," he bellowed. "You gone clean crazy, Enoch? It's only me—Abner—open the door!"
Captain Enoch opened the door so suddenly Abner nearly fell over the threshold.
"I didn't hear you," apologized Captain Enoch. "I dunno's I'd heard a fog horn. I'm going loony, I guess."
Despondency suddenly overcame him. He sat down abruptly. "I'm afraid I'm love cracked," he groaned despairingly.
"Love cracked!" repeated Abner in blank astonishment. "Wall, I snum! Love cracked!"
Captain Enoch glared at him ferociously. "Stop that parrotin'," he commanded. "If you dare to grin, I'll larnbast you good an' plenty."
As Abner appeared properly subdued, he went on explanatorily.
"I've be'n callin' on M'lissy Macy reg'lar whenever I've be'n ashore for the last ten years. M'lissy makes the best doughnuts I ever e't, an' I calculated we'd be married sometime, though I ain't never mentioned it special. But when I went to call on M'lissy this afternoon, there set Tom Peters in the big rockin' chair holdin' M'lissy's yeller cat an' lookin' as cheerful as a rat in a shipload of cheese. It come over me all at once what a marryin' critter he is. The old punkin'-head's had two wives already, ain't he?"
"Three," corrected Abner. "He's be'n a widower once an' a grass widower twice. Mebbe he's gittin' lonesome again. You'll have to git up your spunk and do some courtin'. Why don't you pop the question? It hadn't orter be so awful hard after you be'n goin' to see M'lissy ten years."
"You talk like a nincompoop," snapped Captain Enoch. "I never asked a woman to marry me in my life. How be I goin' to know what to say? S'pose you tell me how you asked Mis' Crowell."
Abner's face turned as red as Captain Enoch's. "Wall, I—er—er," he stammered.
"That's about what I expected," said the captain sarcastically. "I s'pose Mis' Crowell did the askin' and you didn't dare to say 'No.'"
Abner glanced toward the door where a board had creaked faintly. "She—she didn't really ask," he remarked hastily, "but she was pretty good at understandin' what I was thinkin' about."
"If M'lissy understands, she's careful not to let me know it," said Captain Enoch sadly. "Mebbe she's afraid of being bold. Just to think of proposin' makes me feel as if somebody was pourin' cold water down the back of my neck."
Abner had a sudden flash of memory. "Why don't you learn a regular proposal that nobody can find any fault with an' say it right off like sayin' a piece?" he asked. "Pegleg Brierly used to have a book in his dunnage that had all kinds of proposals printed in it. 'Guide to Courtship and Matrimony' was the name of it. Pegleg said he didn't have any notion of fallin' in love, but if he should happen to, he didn't cal'late to be caught nappin'. He's livin' down on the back road now, and he's still an old bach. If he's kept the book, mebbe he'd sell it, or lend it to you."
The change from despair to hope brought the captain to his feet. "Abner, if you'll git me that book, I'll give you twenty-five dollars," he promised earnestly. "But mind you don't tell what you want it for."
"I won't tell anybody that don't know about it already," declared Abner with perfect truthfulness. "I'll have to be awful di-plo-mat-ic," he went on, "or Pegleg will be sure to suspect something. And I pity you an' M'lissy if he got hold of the real reason why you wanted it. Pegleg can scatter news faster than a pea dropper can drop peas."
With his clam hoe and bucket under his arm, Abner appeared at the door of Pegleg's shanty the next afternoon.
"Thought I'd dig a mess o' clams for supper," he explained casually, "an' seeing's I was passin', I dropped in. Some time since you an' me crossed the line on the old Almeda, ain't it?"
"A matter of twenty year," agreed Pegleg.
"Them was great days," reminiscenced Abner. "Do you remember how we used to read your 'Guide to Courtship and Matrimony'? I was thinkin' about it only yesterday."
Pegleg grinned. "I paid fifty cents for that book," he remarked. "An' I ain't never had any real use for it. I've got it now in my old dunnage bag."
"I'd kind o' like to see it, if it's handy," suggested Abner. "The tide's risin', but I guess I've got a few minutes to spare."
Pegleg disappeared into the shanty and returned after some time with a dog-eared volume, minus a portion of its pages, and with the edges of the remainder strangely scalloped.
"Th' pesky rats has be'n chewin' it," he complained loudly. "They've clean e't up the first chapter."
Abner drew a secret breath of relief. The "How to Propose" chapter was not the first one. Eagerly he turned the battered volume over.
"If you 'll sell it, I'd like to have it," he remarked carelessly. "Half of the pages is e't up, so I s'pose you'll sell it for half price."
"Make it thirty-five cents an' you can have it," bargained Pegleg. "The rats ain't gnawed into the readin' so awful bad, only in the first chapter."
"Wall, thirty-five then, as you're an old shipmate," conceded Abner.
Pegleg looked at him shrewdly, as he laid down three dimes and a nickel.
"I didn't know but mebbe you was buyin' it for Captain Burgess," he hazarded. "He's boardin' to your house, an' folks say he's courtin' M'lissy Macy."
"Folks is always sayin' things," responded Abner. "Mebbe Enoch might know a 'Guide to Courtship and Matrimony' from a last year's pill almanac, if somebody showed him."
Once around the corner of the beach from Pegleg's shanty, Abner danced a hornpipe, shocking a flock of gulls.
"Thirty-five cents from twenty-five dollars leaves twenty-four dollars and sixty-five cents," he calculated swiftly. "And I'll get a mess of clams beside. The papers will be mentionin' me as a financier pretty soon."
"Did Pegleg suspect anything?" was Captain Enoch's first question when Abner returned in triumph.
"Oh, he suspected," replied Abner jubilantly. "He wouldn't be Pegleg if he didn't. But I didn't help him any, and he looked dreadful disappointed. You can eat your chowder in peace, if you ain't so love sick you've lost your appetite."
"It ain't hurt my appetite a mite," retorted the Captain. "And I ain't goin' to let it. Let's see that book. I want to find out how much I've be'n cheated."
With trembling fingers Captain Enoch turned to the chapter of proposals. "'How to Propose to a Fat Lady,'" he read. "Humph! M'lissy ain't fat. 'How to Propose to a Lady of Dignity and Refinement. 'That sounds more like it. But the big words are thicker than a school of mummychogs."
"Read it out loud," urged Abner.
Captain Enoch put a long forefinger on the first line and cleared his throat.
"'Dear and esteemed lady,'" he began, "'it is with deep respect that I venture to introduce the subject of matrimony in your presence. You are my ideal of womanhood and your smile is more precious to me than the Kohinoor.' What's the Kohinoor?" he asked, pausing.
"Skip it," suggested Abner. "I ain't no 'cyclopedia. Go on."
"'It is with painful trep-trep-trepidation that I bring my suit before you.'"
Captain Enoch paused again. "'Suit?'" he repeated. "I don't see how that fits in. What's a suit got to do with a proposal?"
"Mebbe it's a hint that you might want your clo's mended after you was married," decided Abner. "Anyway, it sounds all right the way it's wrote. Stop a stoppin'. You never'll git it read, if you don't keep goin'."
Thus adjured the captain proceeded. "'Oh, dear one, beloved lady of my dreams, my own—' There's a blank place. It says under it, 'name of lady.'"
"Wall, say M'lissy," interjected Abner.
Captain Enoch's bronzed countenance was the color of a tomato on a tin can, but he went on valiantly, "'My own M'lissy, come to my arms, and fill my measure of happiness to overflowing by promising to become my wife, and I will shield and protect you from all the storms of life.' It ends like an advertisement for umbrellas," he complained.
"It don't do no such thing," contended Abner vigorously. "It's a real high-toned proposal and any woman ought to be satisfied with it. The man that wrote that must have known an awful lot about women. Now you go ahead and learn that proposal and there you be all ready for the parson."
"Yes, 'there I be,'" mimicked the captain ungratefully. "It would take a college professor to say them words fast, and I'm only a plain sailor man."
But in spite of his sarcasm the captain attacked his self-appointed task with the grim determination that had made him respected in every port wherever the big deep water tramp, of which he was the proud master, had dropped her huge mudhook.
The steamer was laid up at Boston, having a splendid collection of tropical barnacles scraped from her stout hull. If it had not been for the barnacles, the captain would not have been ashore.
For a week the captain studied strenuously, hardly allowing himself time to sleep. Abner offered to assist him at rehearsals and every afternoon he drilled Captain Enoch diligently. He was a firm disciplinarian and insisted upon his pupil's being letter perfect. Book in hand, he corrected the captain vigorously.
"It's 'es-teemed lady'" he admonished the captain. "You said 'steamed.' M'lissy ain't cooked. An' you stutter yet when you come to that word right after painful. Can't you say it plainer?"
"'Trep-trep-trepidation,'" stammered the captain again. "Say it yourself," he dared Abner. "I'll bet you can't do no better."
"I ain't tryin' to say it," Abner reminded him with dignity. "If I was I'd make it out someway. I wouldn't be beat by any word ever put in a dictionary. You're doin' better," he complimented the captain, after the sixth recital. "Mebbe you'll git it after awhile."
But when Captain Enoch felt that his monitor was most needed and had begun to look hopefully forward to a one hundred per cent rehearsal, Abner took a sudden notion to go sword fishing.
"The time to go sword fishin' is when sword fish are due," he insisted with Solomonic wisdom. "I'm going to be off Nantucket shoals by daybreak to-morrow."
"But how be I goin' to git along without you to boost me on that proposal?" demanded the captain. "If you had any feelin' at all, you wouldn't leave me just when I need you most."
Abner considered the situation for some moments.
"I got it," he declared joyfully. "Buy a phonygraft an' some blank records an' keep sayin' that proposal just the same as you do to me. You can hear yourself poppin' as plain as you can hear a bell buoy ring-in'. It takes me to plan things," he added with becoming pride.
Captain Enoch went to Boston and visited his vessel, as he told Mrs. Crowell when he returned. Also, he visited the "phonygraft man," a circumstance he failed to relate.
When Mapleville's express agent delivered at the Crowell home a large bundle addressed to Captain Enoch Burgess, the captain smuggled it surreptitiously upstairs, closed the windows of his room and stuffed the key hole with a wad of paper.
It was some hours before he succeeded in mastering the various adjustments of the phonograph, and ventured to hear himself "pop." Listening with critical intentness, he discovered that two sentences were missing. Grimly he tried again. The word that had been so long his stumbling block suddenly showed its vindictiveness once more.
"'It is with painful trep-trep-' darn it!" repeated the phonograph with startling distinctness.
Wrathfully the captain snatched the record and hurled it under the bed. A number of others soon kept it company. The next day the captain went to Boston again. This time even the phonograph dealer was astonished at the number of blank records Captain Enoch demanded.
With reckless abandon the captain proceeded to use the new supply of records. Dripping with perspiration from the heat of his closely-shut room and from his strenuous mental exertion, he finally came to the last one, and word by word and sentence by sentence heard himself make an absolutely correct and flawless proposal to Miss Macy.
Solemnly the captain wiped his brow. "I declare I wish Abner could hear it," he remarked proudly. "There ain't a single mistake, big words an' all. It ought to please M'lissy, if anything will."
At the thought of Melissa Captain Enoch's honest heart began to beat faster. He threw open his window with all the eagerness of a lover, and looked over toward Melissa's old-fashioned house with its comfortable veranda and wide chimney.
His bronzed face turned suddenly white and he gripped the window sill with all the strength of his powerful hands. Two men were turning in at Melissa's gate. The short fat man was Thomas Peters, the tall thin one the village clergyman. To Captain Enoch the fact that Peters and the minister were calling upon Melissa together could mean but one thing. Hours and years of the captain's life seemed to pass, as he watched the two men go slowly up Melissa's gravel walk. When the door closed behind them, he turned about, dazed and trembling. He was breathing hard like a man at the end of a race. Half an hour later he had packed his bag and paid his board bill, leaving Mrs. Crowell in a state of bewilderment and curiosity that was sufficient to disturb her peace of mind for many a day.
From Boston the tramp had wallowed her way around the Horn to San Francisco and back again as far as Rio Janiero when Captain Enoch received his first mail from home. A travel-stained letter, bearing Abner Crowell's cramped handwriting, threw the captain into a sudden panic.
"I don't know whether to open it, or not," he debated nervously. "I want to know what's in it, an' I'm scared to find out. I'm a good mind to throw it overboard and forget I ever got it."
Curiosity finally overcame his dread. The letter was encouragingly brief.
"'Dere Enoch,'" he read. "'I'd like to know what you blowed up an' went off the way you did for. Abner Crowell." "P.S. Mrs. Crowell sends her respecks, and Miss Melissa Macy her regards, if you want 'em. A.C." "P.S. Number two. All you need, Enoch Burgess, is about ten inches more on your ears. A.C.'"
"'Miss Melissa Macy,'" repeated Captain Enoch. "He would have said Mrs. Peters, if she was married."
The captain leaped to his feet and rushed on deck. A boat was just leaving the steamer's side, the mate sitting placidly under an awning.
"Hey, wait," roared the captain wildly. "I'm goin' to git our clearance papers," he shouted, as the astonished mate ordered the boat back. "I ain't goin' to hang around here waitin' for a lazy planter to git a cargo of coffee aboard. I don't care if there ain't any more coffee in the world; folks can drink tea. I'm goin' home as quick as steam can take me."
Lights were beginning to shine in the homes of Mapleville when the captain came to the end of his long journey. A shining path stretched temptingly from Melissa's windows to the gate and the captain followed it eagerly.
Back of the crimson geraniums and the canary's cage he could see Melissa sitting at a low table. The yellow cat occupied the big rocker. It was all so pleasant and home-like a lump rose in the captain's throat. He decided to steal quietly in and surprise Melissa. But at the door he stopped as suddenly as if he had been shot. A deep bass voice was uttering words that sounded strangely familiar.
"'Dear and esteemed lady,'" he heard. Cautiously he tip-toed across the hall. A phonograph was on the table in front of Melissa. As he bent forward the proposal "to a dignified and refined lady" came to an end. Tenderly Melissa put both arms about the shining horn of the phonograph and kissed it!
The sight was too much for the captain. With one bound, he cleared the threshold and entered the cosy sitting room.
"M'lissy Macy," he declared boldly, "I ain't goin' to have you wastin' kisses on an old phonograph when I'm right here. Where'd you find that record, M'lissy?" he asked at last.
Melissa blushed delightfully. "Mis' Crowell heard you and told me you was practisin' how to propose and, after you went away, I went and got every single one of them records," confessed Melissa. "I've played 'em over and over, even the 'darn it!' one. I know that proposal by heart."
"So do I," responded Captain Enoch grimly, as he salvaged another kiss. "I've be'n a reg'lar old putty-head," he admitted with unsparing honesty, "but if you'll promise to teach me, I'd like to learn a whole lot more by heart."
"I'll do my best," promised Melissa mischievously.
E.M. CHASE
Time—Very recently.
Place—A flat in Back Bay.
"Bessie Lane, where in the world did you drop from?"
"The station just now and I'm famished."
"I haven't a thing for lunch but you take off your wraps while I attend to things."
"There, I've ordered a delicious lunch and it will be here in fifteen or twenty minutes. What a handy thing a telephone is."
"Oh, yes, very handy indeed."
"Why the sarcasm, my dear Bessie?"
"You seem to forget that I live in the country."
"But not out of reach of 'phones, Bessie."
"No, but we are on a sixteen-party line with eighteen other subscribers. Not long ago I went to the dentist and had a tooth treated. The next morning I awoke with a toothache. About the middle of the forenoon, nine-thirty to be exact, I thought I would call up the dentist to find out if the treatment ought to make my tooth ache. I gave the bell a vigorous ring—"
"Why should you ring a bell to telephone?"
"My dear citified Annie, we do not run our universe by electricity as you do in the city, and it is our only means of attracting 'central.' I rang the bell, put the receiver to my ear and heard, 'I am using the line.'
"I mumbled an apology, waited a few minutes and tried again. It is unpleasant to have the bell ring in your ear, so out of courtesy to the other subscribers I gently lifted off the receiver, put it to my ear and heard, 'That cottage by the shore will suit—'
"Fifteen minutes later I tried again and please remember my tooth was paining all the time. I listened, the line was quiet, I called central and asked 'One nine ring two four please.'
"'That line is busy.'
"Well, I thanked my lucky stars that I have a good supply of patience. After five minutes I tried again. I listened to see if the line was busy and heard, 'Killed by an automobile, all mangled to pieces.' Too horror stricken to realize I was listening to conversation not intended for my ears I listened on. The details fairly made my blood run cold and the unknown speaker had the most tragic voice I ever heard. She continued, 'It was terrible, I almost fainted, it was one of my best roosters, too!'
"Just then a neighbor brought in my mail and I spent a few minutes rea-ding letters and looking over the morning Post but the persistent tooth reminded me and I tried again. Wonder of wonders I got the dentist's office and asked if the dentist was there.
'No, he is not here just now but he will be back in a few minutes, shall I tell him to call you?'
"'If you will, please, this is—'
"'I knew your voice instantly, Bessie, and I'll tell him.'
"I waited and waited, then waited some more, then I tried again. 'Get off the line, somebody else wants a chance to use it. You there, Jim?'
"I was almost in despair. When I was sure my snappy friend had had time enough to transact all the affairs of the Nation I made another attempt but I listened once more, rather than butt in again, listened and heard, 'Just the sweetest shade of green, you know—' Trials of Job, I was getting out of patience, to put it mildly. I gave the crank a vicious turn but the same party was still talking, she said sweetly, 'I guess someone wants the line.' I assured her I did, it was a case of life and death. 'Someone dead, oh dear, is it any one I know?'
"Thoroughly exasperated I called central and demanded, 'one nine ring two four.'
"'Line busy.'
"I made up my mind never to use a 'phone again, or try to when my own number rang. I grabbed the receiver off the hook and thought my trial was over, for of course I knew it was the dentist at last. 'Is this you, Bessie? Did you know Jennie Knowles has broken her ankle?'
"'No, I didn't, and I don't care if she has broken her neck, I want the line.'
"Of course my rudeness lost me a friend for a while, until I saw her and made ample apologies, but I made my last attempt and was connected with the dentist. I told him about the toothache; it took some time as I had to explain three times that I was using the line but I did it. 'Does it ache very badly? Can't you stand it until to-morrow? Then the treatment will desensitize it sufficiently and I can work on it without hurting you at all.'
"'Oh, no, it doesn't ache at all, I called you up to hear your voice, certainly I can stand it, I've stood much worse trials.' I slammed up the receiver, looked at the clock and it was two-fifteen. Too late to attend the lecture in the library so I went out and called on Alice, yes, indeed, I repeat, telephones are very handy and save lots of time."
"Here is our lunch, we're in the city now, come on, Bessie."
[FALMOUTH INNER HARBOR]
Twelve years ago on May 11, 1910, the H.W. Miller, the first two-masted schooner came into the harbor, then known as Deacon's Pond, now Falmouth Inner Harbor. Other smaller vessels had been in, but this was the first which marked the commercial use of the basin.
A harbor in this place had been talked about for several years, but the first legal action was taken in the February town meeting of 1906, when a committee of five men: Geo. W. Jones, Charles S. Burgess, Asa L. Pattee, Nathan S. Ellis and Charles A. Robinson were appointed to look into the matter and carry out the wishes of the town.
Joseph Walsh was our representative in Boston, and presided at the meeting, acting as moderator.
Heman A. Harding, then senator from the Cape district, acted as legal adviser for the State.
There were many meetings of the committee and interested citizens, and among the latter A.W. Goodness, A.B. Clough and W. E .A. Clough were untiring in their efforts and were largely responsible for the success of the project.
Harbor and Land Commissioners called for a hearing "for building jetties and dredging to make a boat harbor at Deacon's Pond, Falmouth."
The first plan was drawn by Frank W. Hodgdon in September, 1907.
On August 1, 1805, the same Abram and Lois Bowerman deeded additional land to Joseph Davis, Jr., and on June 17, 1816, the same parties sold more land to Nymphas Davis, the son of Joseph
On January 20, 1907, the the first appropriation made for the cost was $25,000 from the State and $10,000 from the Town.
The lower part of the land dredged was purchased on July 13, 1804, from Abram and Lois Bowerman by Watson Jenkins, Joseph Mayhew, Stephen Davis, Consider Hatch and Joseph Davis, Jr., and used as a site for salt works by the whole or part of them.
As Joseph Davis, Sr., the father of Joseph, Jr., was then a deacon in the Congregational church, the name was grad name of "Bowerman's Pond" to "the deacon's pond" and it finally became Deacon's Pond. Later, when the name did not locate the harbor sufficiently, it was officially changed to "Falmouth Inner Harbor."
There were formerly two outlets from the pond into Vineyard Sound, and some of the old deeds refer to the East and West rivers. There was also a ditch across the marsh, probably through the land now owned by Edward Gallagher.
In 1870-1 the land about the pond and also "Great Hill" was sold by George H. Davis, the son of Nymphas Davis, to the Falmouth Land and Wharf Company, and remained in its possession several years, later becoming the property of G. Edward Smith, the president of the company.
In 1888 Mr. Smith sold the beach, extending from the line of the Falmouth Wharf Company west to the land now covered by the harbor, to George H. Davis.
One of the old rivers had long since been filled and the other changed its course so often through the beach that the town was obliged to set stone posts to define the middle line and establish a definite boundary.
When the land was finally acquired by the State, the channel was cut through the land of the widow of George H. Davis on the eastern side and a small triangular piece on the western side belonging to Henrietta F. Goodnow.
On February, 18, 1909, the harbor and Land Commissioners advertised another hearing in regard to the "Improvement of Deacon's Pond Harbor" and still another on February 24, 1910.
After these hearings had been held and improvements made, the channel was wide and deep enough to permit schooners to enter.
However, the sand drifted in and on March 11, 1911, there was another hearing called in regard to removing a "shoal at the entrance to the harbor" and about 32,000 cubic feet of earth was then removed.
Since then other deepenings have been made until now, during the summer season, it is a common sight to see some sixty boats of all descriptions lying in the water.
In 1921 the harbor was further improved by extending the jetty on the west side about 200 feet into Vineyard Sound.
There's a gently flowing river,
Bordered by whispering trees,
That ebbs and flows in Nobscussett
And winds through Mattacheese.
Surely the Indian loved it
In the ages so dim and gray,
River beloved of the Pale Face
Who dwell near its banks today.
Lovely it lies in the moonlight,
A silver scroll unrolled,
And glorious when the sunset
Turns it to molten gold.
Yet we love it when the mist clouds
Hang over it like a pall;
No less when the hand of the Frost King
Holds it in icy thrall.
In all of its moods and changes
We joy in its billows salt,
With the deep strong love of a lover
Blinded to every fault.
Always its gleaming beauty
Raises our thoughts from the clod;
Up, up to the crystal river,
That flows from the Throne of God.
They pass on,—the generations,—
Thou stayest, while men depart;
They go with thy lovely changes
Shrined in each failing heart.
Beautiful old Bass River!
Girt round with murmuring trees;
Long wilt thou flow in Nobscussett.
And wander through Mattacheese.
Arethusa.
* * *
* * *
A CORRECTION
The article in our May issue, "Automobile Tour of Cape Cod," was written before the advent of automobiles to Nantucket, and therefore did not take account of the fact that autos are now not only allowed but plentiful there. The fact that the article was not up to date escaped the attention of the editor.
The Harwich Independent says: Indications are that the coming summer will be another record breaker along our shores. A big building boom is on in cottages now under construction, and we are to have new comers from New York, Boston, and other places. Cottages for rental are being rapidly taken.
Artist George Elmer Browne left America for France the first of May with a class of 40 pupils. Mrs. Browne and Miss Hallett will accompany him for the summer. Provincetown will miss the Brownes this summer, but wishes them a pleasant and successful season abroad.
Charles A. Atwood, night operator in the Sagamore telephone exchange, has been awarded a Theodore N. Vail medal for his services on the occasion of a night fire in the building where the exchange is located, March 27, 1921, when he made his way through the smoke to the switchboard and gave the alarm first to the Keith Car Works and next to the local fire chief. After that he was overcome by the smoke, and the staircase was on fire when he was revived. He got back into the operating room after that and remained on duty the rest of the night.
William Ellis and his son George were hunting driftwood along the beach in the neighborhood of Peaked Hill bars, at the Provincetown end and came on a sack lying in the tidewash, which was found to contain 200 pounds of gamboge.
It is thought their find came from the wreck of the ship Peruvian, which met its fate on those shoals Dec. 26, 1872, as no other vessel has since been wrecked there which had gamboge as a part of its cargo. The gamboge was said to be in perfect condition, in spite of its long immersion in the sea water.
Gamboge is a resin, orange red in color, but yellow when in powder form. It was used in medicine as an emetic and artists, especially those using water colors will recall it as a yellow pigment.
Dr. B.D. Eldredge of Harwich passed his 90th birthday on Monday, May 1st. This extreme age has dealt very lightly with the Doctor whose general appearance is much the same as when many years younger, but his step and carriage show some infirmity. He is destined to add another decade of life, and the many congratulatory greetings extended to him by friends voiced that prediction. Doctor Eldredge is still in professional practice.
The "Emperor Jones," Eugene G. O'Neill's, of Provincetown, drama, has been produced in Boston. The Provincetown players may be said to have done themselves well by presenting as a maiden effort in Boston, this play by O'Neill in which Charles Gilpin plays the leading role. "The Emperor Jones" is O'Neill's first offering to Boston theatre world although he learned his trade at Prof. Baker's Harvard 47 Workshop.
In a stock judging contest at the Massachusetts Agricultural College, Amherst, recently, Lawrence High School of Falmouth won second place, scoring 1100 out of a possible 1200 points. Eight teams competed in the contest, with 54 competitors for individual prizes. The team from the Lawrence High School was composed of Arthur Briggs, Edward Briggs and Harold Dushane, and these young men are to be congratulated upon their ability as judges of live stock. They deserve special credit for the reason that the other teams competing were selected from much larger schools than Lawrence High. Mr. Williams, who is taking the place of Mr. Hawkes as agricultural instructor, accompanied the boys to Amherst, the party making the trip by auto.
In looking over some old manuscripts the other day the editor came across the following letter which is so full of longing for the country of the writer's ancestry that we publish it herewith, just as it was written in 1918:
Denver, Colorado.
"A state of Maine man, Mr. Dana, has just handed me a copy of your magazine of December, 1917. Because I am a Cape Codder marooned in the Rocky Mountains for 40 years, though I started to run away to sea when I was 8 years old—man proposes, God disposes. I read it through from stem to gudgeon including the poetry and the advertisements. My ancestor, Thomas Baxter, Yarmouth, Mass., married the daughter of Capt. John Gorham, Temperance Gorham Sturgis, widow of Edmund Sturgis, Jr., Jan. 26, 1879. He was a lieutenant under Capt. John Gorham in the great swamp fight, King Philip's war, and that part of Maine (then Massachusetts) called Gorham, was set off to them for services against the Narragansett Indians.
"With such ancestry, followed by worthy descendants, don't you think I have a love for Cape Cod sand? Capt. Gorham's wife was Desire Howland, daughter of John Howland of the Mayflower and the first son of Thomas, John Baxter, married Desire Gorham, June 11, 1706, and with his two brothers built the old mill at Hyannis of which it is sung:
"The Baxter boys they built a mill,
And when it went, it never stood still.
And when it went it made no noise,
Because 'twas built by Baxter's boys."
"I hope to pass my last years in my cottage in South Dennis and to quote from Edna Howes' poem on page 23, entitled 'Who's Worrin'?'
"Cod and haddock, boned and white,
A drying on their flakes,
There's none can beat the cod fish balls
That mother only makes.
And clams and quahogs, scallops, too,
A layin' close at hand
A waitin' and a longin'
To be dug from out the sand."
"My word, Edna, you make my mouth water!
"On page 11 you say that no Canadian lynx or wild cat has been seen on the Cape for 100 years. Make it about 50 years instead, because there was a catamount in South Yarmouth woods in 1867 and I think I saw it—and I could prove it if George Thatcher was alive and had his memory with him.
"How I would enjoy being out in a cat boat off Hyannis, or Dennisport, or North Dennis. Say! if the bluefish haven't been all caught by the time I get there I will certainly try my luck. I would rather catch rock cod, or perch, or tautog, than fill a creel with brook trout, under any conditions, any day in the year; but then you don't care, and I don't care if you don't—but I do."
Yours truly,
JOHN N. BAXTER.
Cape Cod strawberries are destined to become as famous as her cranberries, her fishing, and her renown as a summer resort. One million quarts of them left her fields the past season! And the industry is still growing!
There are in Falmouth something over two hundred acres in strawberries, and these acres extend over an area of between six and seven square miles. The berries for the most part are grown on land cleared from woods within the past fifteen years.
New land is being cleared each season and the territory is becoming more and more extensive, the industry expanding and Falmouth as a specialized farming center more and more prominent. Cape Cod leads New England in the magnitude of this industry and Falmouth holds the honor of being the home of the Cape Cod strawberry.
The sturdy pioneers of this industry in Falmouth are Portuguese people who drifted to the section from nearby industrial centers like New Bedford and Fall River and who later persuaded their friends and relatives from across the sea to join them in this land of plenty. They are splendid people, hard working, thrifty and industrious, and make most excellent citizens. Although but few have had the opportunity to attend school, they are most intelligent farmers, ready and willing to adopt methods that will financially improve their business. The majority are, however, limited in land area and many times are obliged to crop their small farms to excess, for strawberries are the main cash crop, and very few who have more recently come here have the necessary funds to acquire much land or equipment. The acreage in berries will vary from one-half an acre to four acres. Cultural methods are practically all hand work. The land is cleared by hand, plants set and runners placed by hand, fertilizer applied by hand, hand hoed, hand weeded and naturally hand picked.
The rows are set 4½ to 5 feet apart, plants 14 to 15 inches in the row. The matted row system is used, but instead of allowing runners to set at will, each one is placed. The beds are raised six inches, rows when fully set are from 3; to 4 feet wide. Pine needles are used for a mulch mainly because they were handy at first, clean of weeds and easy to apply, but the pine needle is getting more and more obsolete, like the tallow candle, and unless the grower changes his method of mulching or else uses a motor truck and goes a long distance he is out of luck in the future.
The industry has seen hard times and about six years ago it was doubtful if it could survive. Growers were working as individuals and selling their berries and buying their fertilizer, crates and baskets. It was not uncommon for one grower to ship his season's crop to as many as seven or eight different commission houses. This all led to confusion. The commission man could not depend on a steady and sure supply. By fsplitting up a crop in this way the grower actually competed with himself. Finally, by necessity, he was forced to combine with his neighbor and pool a common interest. The growers were guided into a co-operative association, to a large degree, by the assistance of Mr. Wilfrid Wheeler, then Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture.
Mr. George C. Lillie was employed as manager, and right from the start the association rallied and has been gaining ground ever since. At present this association, known as the Cape Cod Strawberry Growers' Association, numbers ninety-eight men. They are incorporated, hold shares in the association, and sell their berries through one commission house instead of seven or eight.
There are two grades of berries sold, only one of which carries the association stamp. Each member has a number which is placed on his crate and about 80 per cent of the crop is shipped under the stamp of the association. The members are paid on Wednesdays and Saturdays during the shipping season. They also pool their fertilizer order of over 200 tons, as well as that for crates and baskets. Payment for these commodities are deducted from returns on the berries. Last season the association shipped about seventy carloads of berries. This is probably over two-thirds of the entire output for Falmouth. Each car holds about 170 80-quart crates, and practically half are shipped in iced cars. The berries leave Falmouth at 9 p.m. and arrive in Boston at 6 a.m. They are there distributed to various points, some going, we understand, as far north as Bangor, Maine.
The varieties grown are Echo, Howard 17, Abington and King Edward. The first named are more common, but indications point to a rapid change to the Howard 17. The Echo berry has proved a splendid variety for this section, as it stands up so well under shipment. The Howard 17 is nearly as good a shipper, but considered a better quality berry and does nicely on our Cape soils. The picking season is from three to four weeks. Pickers are usually paid 2 cents a quart, and a good picker will make from $3 to $4 a day. Five thousand quarts is considered a fair yield per acre for the section.
The members of the association do not put all their eggs in one basket, however. They grow besides strawberries, turnips, corn, potatoes, carrots and raspberries for cash crops. Turnips follow strawberries in volume and last fall the members shipped about twenty-five carloads.—Falmouth Enterprise.
