THE LADIES’ EASTERN TRICYCLE TOUR.
FROM THE MERRIMAC TO NAUMKEAG.
By DAISIE.
“OHNE HAST” was our motto as, in the month of October, we cycled from the banks of the Merrimac to old Naumkeag. We borrowed but one-half of Goethe’s motto, for we did not care to add the “Ohne Rast,” and live up to it. He gets much out of a cycle tour who wheels leisurely through the country, for he exerts himself far less than does the pedestrian or the equestrian; he sees no less of what is around and about him, and he travels farther in a given time. There are those who derive no pleasure from cycling unless they rush along, bent only on making quick time between points; but this idea has never animated the ladies who yearly wander awheel along the rocky coast of Northern Massachusetts.
“The Ladies’ Annual Tricycle Tour to the North Shore of Massachusetts” is our rather cumbersome but all-inclusive title, and under it we have had four very delightful outings. This tour was evolved during the fall of 1885 from the mind of Miss Minna C. Smith, then on the editorial staff of OUTING, and the first tour was carried out under her direction, and became the subject of an article in this magazine at that time—(the Ladies’ Tour to Kettle Cove, vol. vii., p. 431). Minna’s first idea was a tour for ladies alone; but she very soon discovered that the ladies would not go without their husbands and sweethearts, and it occurred to her mind, also, that the masculines would be very handy in screwing up loose nuts, or repairing damages to the machines. And so it was a mixed company that first essayed to run awheel from Middlesex Fells to Kettle Cove. And it has come about that ladies with gentlemen have composed all the succeeding tours, three in number, though the ladies have always been in the majority, and the rule that no gentleman can participate unless he is escort to a lady has been rigidly adhered to. The gentlemen pay for the privilege of attending the tour by arranging all the details and liquidating the bills, and find their reward in the supreme satisfaction of which the ladies give evidence in look and manner. Before I tell you how we went and what we did, let me invite your attention to our itinerary.
Wednesday, October 3d.—By train from Boston to Newburyport—special car to carry our cycles. Night at the Wolfe Tavern.
Thursday, October 4th.—Ride from Newburyport to Gloucester, thirty miles. Through Newbury, Rowley, Ipswich, Essex Woods, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Magnolia, and Gloucester.
Friday, October 5th.—Around Cape Ann, through Rockport, Lanesville, Annisquam, Riverdale, West Gloucester, and Gloucester.
Saturday, October 6th.—A forenoon at Magnolia. In the afternoon, ride to Salem, through Manchester-by-the-Sea, Beverly Farms, Beverly, and Salem.
Sunday, October 7th.—A forenoon at Nahant, dinner at Lynn, and the homeward ride in the afternoon.
There were twenty-four of us in all. Eight wives assisted their husbands in pedaling eight tandems. Two pairs of girls propelled two tandems. The veteran and his wife rode a tandem bicycle. One young lady rode a single tricycle. One solitary gentleman rode a bicycle.
Our tandem bicycle was a seven-days’ wonder for the rustics on the route, and they viewed it with open-eyed astonishment. They never expected to see a lady on a bicycle, and they could hardly believe what their eyes told them.
There were some who protested against travel by rail on any part of a cycle tour, and spurned the idea of going to Newburyport in this way. They were allowed to exercise their own sweet wills, so four of the tourists wheeled forty miles to the rendezvous the day before the start. We were quartered at the Wolfe Tavern, in front of which hung a sign placed there in the last century, and bearing a portrait of General Wolfe. It was an ugly daub, but interesting and attractive, nevertheless. Hector thought it strange that a tavern should encourage the presence of a “wolf at the door,” and suggested that the landlord would have our assistance to drive him away when we came to pay our bills, or “pay the shot,” as he put it.
Newburyport is a quaint old place, and on every hand are to be seen suggestions of bygone days in the forms of a gambrel-roof house, a colonial door, or the more common outside steps which follow the front lines of the house and take one in at the front door by a turn. Here is the mansion house of Lord Timothy Dexter, who sent a cargo of warming-pans to the West Indies and made a large sum of money, not by selling them for bed-warming purposes, but for the use to which the natives quickly turned them of dipping up molasses from the vats. It is told, also, of this eccentric individual, that he had a mock funeral pass through the streets while he himself occupied the coffin, which was carried in a hearse. The picture of his great house, in front of which is a high fence with huge posts, each post a pedestal for a statue, has become familiar in cheap prints.
Hector and I were up early and strolling through the town. Our riding suits attracted no little attention, but one gets used to being stared at after cycling experiences of a few months. Gentlemen in knee-breeches are no uncommon sight in these days of tennis, baseball and cycling, but legs clad in knee-breeches appearing below an overcoat suggest an inharmonious grouping of garments, and I do not wonder that they provoke a smile. We made straight for the cemetery, of course, for in these quaint old places the cemetery is always interesting. We found it hard-by the jail, and I thought their juxtaposition not inappropriate. We read many epitaphs written a century ago, and could not but smile at the queer ideas expressed.
The natives turned out in force to see us start. They had possibly seen ladies ride tricycles before, but a large party like this, and one couple on a tandem bicycle, was a decided novelty. Good Mother Nature was kind to us on this the first day of our tour. She had been frowning for weeks before and sending down rain, rain, till we began to think we should have to tour in an ark instead of awheel. The gentlemen forgot what a glorious riding year lay behind them, and I heard many remarks more emphatic than polite. The frown on the face of the heavens changed to a smile the night before the eventful day, and we started our wheels toward Gloucester under pleasant skies. Molly was our pacemaker, while I staid behind to help along the laggards and to signal Molly in case of accident, and the Doctor’s wife looked after the drag which conveyed our luggage and a few spare machines. We had a whistle code which nobody took the trouble to learn, and our rules were very strict, though nobody seemed to pay much regard to them. Six miles an hour was the pace cut out by Molly, and this did not violate the motto, “Ohne Hast,” except in the minds of the horses on the drag. Do we mind the hills? Bless you, no! If the hill has a good hard surface we do not mind it nearly so much as we do a level, sandy stretch.
It were useless to attempt to tell the delight of a tricycle ride through a pleasant country, where Nature invites the eye to dwell upon her charms, where the roads are firm and smooth, when the whole body tingles with exhilaration born of quickened circulation and speedy movement through the air. To experience is to know. The half cannot be told.
We left the old town behind us and soon came to the river Parker (don’t call it Parker River in the presence of a Newburyporter). On the farther bank we were greeted by an old resident, who gave us apples to eat and entertained us with stories of the old house in which he lives, which, by the way, is the homestead of the Poor family, of which the noted Ben. Perley Poor and our friend are members. To-day we see Cape Ann under its rural aspect; tomorrow we shall see the bold shore and the open sea.
A boy shouts after the gentleman from New York: “Say, mister, your wheel’s goin’ round,” and the man from Manhattan nearly falls off his wheel from the effect of this very new joke.
At Bean’s Crossing we stopped for a drink of cold water at the well, and, if you will believe it, many of the ladies preferred to drink from the old oaken bucket, and spurned the drinking-cups gallantly offered by the gentlemen. The bucket was clean, however, without a suspicion of dirty moss on it. The ride through Essex woods was a poem in cycling. The summer residents have bought up large tracts of land in these woods and perpetuated this beautiful driveway. The road-bed is good, and one passes under arching trees for miles seeing nowhere any disturbance of nature due to the hand of man, save only the path he is traveling. Drink in this scene if you can, and garnish it with the glory of the autumnal foliage.
Just before we entered the woods we were met by the Poet and the Artist, who rode over from Gloucester to meet us and escort us on our way. They approached us down-hill, as we ascended. Just before we came up to them they performed a most artistic header in full sight of the party, which we all enjoyed, after we had discovered they had come out of it without injury. The poet dived through the air and alighted on the grass many feet in front of the machine, while the artist found himself under the machine, which illustrated the total depravity of inanimate things by jumping on him and pinning him to the sod. At Ipswich we drank again. Every pump is patronized by cycling tourists, and I dare not estimate the number of glasses of spring water that are consumed on a trip of this kind. Let me say that our tourists are teetotalers. I know this, because I heard one of the gentlemen say, after we had drunk from our fourth or fifth spring the first day, “I never saw such a lot of teetotal drinkers as cyclers are.”
Just out of Ipswich there was a breakdown. The Doctor’s axle yielded to his tremendously powerful pedaling, and a wrecked machine was cast upon the road. Here came in the usefulness of the drag with its cargo of spare machines. The wreck was taken on board and new machines were soon under the castaway crew.
Dinner was taken in picnic style, under the trees, in a nook of the Essex Woods, and ham sandwiches, chicken and eggs were washed down with water from a neighboring spring. At four P. M. we drew up in front of the Pavilion, at Gloucester. Then came the discussion over the distance. ’Tis with our cyclometers as with our watches, none go just alike, yet each believes his own. Some told us we had ridden thirty-two miles, others said thirty. My fatigue indicated a ride of a short distance, my hunger pointed to figures much larger than any cyclometer told.
That night there was music and dancing in the parlor. To see that merry company, who would think they had pedaled their “go-carts” over thirty miles of good, bad, and indifferent roads during the day? Molly favored the company with a number of recitations, the Doctor’s wife read an original poem which teemed with personalities, and Mrs. Manhattan played while we danced. We slept the sleep of the innocent that night, lulled to slumber by the breakers on the beach, just beneath our windows.
The second day is always the most important of the tour, for on it we circle Cape Ann. The road runs out of Gloucester at the north, belts the cape, and returns to Gloucester again from the west. Cape Ann projects into Massachusetts Bay, as though nature had given a great nose to the Old Commonwealth. The road follows the shore-line northward, then turns inland, and takes the visitor through a country of hills to the starting-point. I cannot believe that money or material wealth in any form could tempt a cycler to travel this road if it were not for the scenery. The length of the belt is only fifteen miles, but experienced riders suffer more fatigue in traveling these, than forty miles of ordinary roads would bring. A Boston newspaper pronounced it, a few years ago, an unfit road for ladies to ride over. And yet we have conquered it four times. Hill succeeds hill in constant succession, and sandy surfaces make the levels hard to ride upon. But we must pay for the good things of this life, and we cannot have Cape Ann scenery without compensation.
Twenty of us responded to the call of the pacemaker at nine o’clock Friday morning, and the drag was in position. Hector presented a pretty spectacle this morning behind the white wings of a dove which ornamented his tandem. The Doctor’s wife was suspected of this trick, perpetrated to show her appreciation of the way in which Hector sang his favorite song of “White Wings” for the entertainment of the company. If Hector’s beauty ranked with his inability to sing he would be another Adonis. The tourists were well avenged for the peace-destroying notes that had been forced upon them, for every shrill-voiced boy on the road that day—and we met several groups just let loose from school—saluted the decorated machine with the chorus of the well-worn song.
We went out of Gloucester with bright colors to the fore—on the cheeks of the ladies. Leaving Gloucester, we passed the old stone barn at Beaver Dam, then to Rockport, where we spent a pleasant half-hour at the quarries, looking down from the stone bridge that carries the roadway over the cut, into the great depths with the palisaded sides of still unquarried granite. Some of the great blocks but recently taken out were said to be twenty-five feet long and twenty tons in weight. We took the statement on faith, for we had neither measuring rod nor scales. A native took us to see a curio that is shown to visitors. A schooner ran into a sloop. The jibboom of the former went clear through the mast of the sloop and staid there. The mast with its unceremonious visitor lies upon the wharf to excite the wonder of those who behold it. “His Grace the Duke” cracked a very poor joke when he spoke of the masterly stroke of the schooner, and one man said that schooners had run into him without any such effect.
We were doing more walking than riding, for there are more hills than levels in that district, and many hills make pedestrianism a charm. Pigeon Cove came next in view. We saw several flights of ducks, but no pigeons hereabouts. Here, on the extreme easterly point of Cape Ann, we halted for lunch. An accommodating innkeeper, who had closed his hostelry, and who was the sole occupant except his family, kindly loaned us a table and the use of his range for the making of coffee. Molly made the coffee, and proved herself an artist in beverages.
After dinner we strolled and climbed upon the rocks which were piled up upon the point. Great slabs of granite that weighed ten, fifteen, and even twenty tons, were shown us, and we were asked to believe that they were thrown up by the sea, or moved rods away from their former positions by the gale of March, 1888. It was a great tax upon our credulity to view these massive stones and accept the tales that were told of the sport which the waves had made with them. The landlady showed an ugly and repulsive horned toad that had recently been sent her from California. It was still alive, and several of the ladies were courageous enough to take it in their hands, though the general verdict was, “Ugh!”
Leaving Pigeon Cove behind us, we rode on to Folly Cove. Here the scene is altogether different. The cove is surrounded by high land, from which we looked down upon white-capped waters and saw white-winged plyers of the deep in the middle ground and on the horizon, while just beneath us fishermen were tending their nets, and lobster-catchers in dories were hauling in their pots.
At Annisquam we visited the great boulder. Near the summit of a great hill lies this mass of rock, not less than fifty feet in height and width. Who put it there? Let the icebergs tell the story in scratches on its side. A few venturesome ones, who were shod with rubber, climbed to the top, and the photographer snapped his shutter and caught us as we stood about the rock. Off in the distance is Coffin’s Beach. Two schooners are on the sands, one at low-water mark, and the other far above the waters. They were thrown up there from the sea by the gale of last March, and they wait for the sands to engulf them. It will not pay to save them, so slowly but surely they are sinking into the sands, and before many months they will have gone down out of sight.
The Veteran brought pickled limes for our entertainment on the road. There should have been a few left when we got to the boulder, so one of the young ladies clambered into the drag to refresh herself, and soon had the box in her lap. There was a screech from the drag and a rush of the gentlemen toward it. When the maiden opened the box, she had found, not pickled limes, but the horned toad from California, who winked his ugly eyes at her as daylight was let in upon him. It appeared that the Doctor’s wife had begged him from the landlady at Pigeon Cove and without our knowledge had made him one of the party. He went with us to the end, and the ladies soon gained courage enough to feed him with flies.
We were back at Gloucester at half-past four. Then, after dinner, we had more fun in the parlor during the evening, more song and more story. Does anybody say we ought to have been tired after our long and difficult ride? Bless you, we never think of being tired on these tours.
Saturday morning brought clouded skies. Out upon you, Mother Nature, for marring our tour! It never yet rained on our touring days, then why spoil the record? Weatherwise natives told us that it would not rain long, and said that fair weather was ahead. Hector sententiously remarked: “He who rides a cycle needs no reins.” We started for Magnolia in a drizzle, and in a drizzle we did the place. Our wheels were housed at Willow Cottage, and the tourists strolled over to Rafe’s Chasm. It was a good day for surf studies, and the chasm is the ideal place for this. The waters rush up into the great cleft and come tumbling back white with anger, the waves beat upon the rocks, and the spray is sent high in air. We looked at the iron cross erected to the memory of Martha Marvin, who was washed into the sea from these rocks a few years ago; and lying right before us was Norman’s Woe, whereon the schooner Hesperus was wrecked.
Meantime the heavens put on a thicker coat of gray, foreboding trouble ahead for any who should dare venture unprotected beneath them. Two o’clock was our hour for starting, but at that time the rain was falling in torrents. No matter; let us drive on. It will not hurt us to get wet, for our work will keep us warm. Let me choose between a high wind and a rain-storm and I will take the rain in every case, and so think all cyclers. Keep the body warm by quick action on the wheel, change clothing at the end of the ride, and rub yourself well with a coarse towel, and there is no evil effect from a ducking of this kind.
We rode twelve miles to Salem. The roads were heavy, and we had to take the sidewalks wherever we could, without paying any regard to the law prohibiting sidewalk riding, for the blue-coated guardian of the peace could never be so cruel as to arrest ladies for riding on the sidewalk when the mud was six inches deep. It was: Go at your own pace now; no matter about precedence. The word was: Get to Salem as quick as you can! It was a race warm-bathward, as Miss Rives would say. The tandem bicycle reached the hotel first of all, but close behind were the Misses K—— on their tandem. Good English and Scotch blood flows in the veins of these two young ladies, and they have the brawn and sinew to put their machine over the road faster than many of the gentlemen care to ride. We must have presented a ludicrous sight as we passed through the villages drenched with rain and dropping water from every projection. “Why don’t you drop it and run?” called out a youngster after us as we hurried onward. When we came to the river, Hector suggested that we should ride through it, “for,” said he, “we can’t get any wetter than we are, and the experience will be novel.” Declining the suggestion, we took the bridge. Only the week before they had celebrated the centennial anniversary of the structure—old Beverly Bridge—and we wondered if ever a stranger company had crossed from shore to shore than this rain-drenched party of cyclists. The Doctor’s wife tired of riding in the rain before half the journey was completed, and she found a way to take solid comfort and keep dry. She got into the drag and left her husband to pedal a double-seated machine alone, but taking pity on him shortly, she threw him a rope and an umbrella. The rope he attached to the machine and the umbrella was raised for shelter. Thus was he towed along, to the delight of the small boys who witnessed the peculiar spectacle. Salem was kind to us. Warm fires were ready, and soon we were in dry clothing, with our wet garments hanging before the fires. Thus was marred the afternoon of our third day.
We held a council of war in the parlor, and decided that the tour should continue if the morning proved fair, otherwise it was to be considered at an end. Morning came, and the rain was still falling. We bade farewell to each other, and sought our homes as each deemed best. A few of the more reckless riders mounted their wheels for another ride in the rain, but this time home was their destination. Many went home by train, and a few remained at Salem to await fair weather.
Thus ended the fourth North Shore tour of the ladies. We had two glorious days and much pleasant experience. We had one half-day of rare enjoyment on the rocks at Magnolia, and the monotony of our delight was relieved by our cycle bath. They were red-letter days for us all. Ye who tour by rail, by boat, or by carriage, know not one half the delight one gets on the wheel. If you would be convinced of this, come with us next year when we embark on the fifth annual tour.
