He was very nice, though, at Southampton, and asked to have the Grayles-Grice stop at one of the shops (the most fascinating shops, like at Vichy and Aix where your dear mother took us the summer before the war). There he bought wonderful bonbons—candies. I ate only one, and the Goodrich girls the rest.
You will like the picture I send of the cottage which has been built on to a windmill. I should love to have that. There are lots more windmills, soft and gray and fluffy-looking, like Persian pussy cats sitting up in the dunes; so maybe I shall have one some of these days.
We saw some lovely roads in France when we motored with Madame la Marquise, but we were never on any road quite so sweet (I have to say sweet, it is a right word!) as the road of the Shinnecock Hills. We curved so much among the dunes, I was not allowed to drive, though it was easy as flying in a dream; and the dunes were the colour dunes would be in dreams: gold and silver mingled with warm blue shadows. They had a look of gold and blue flame in fires made of driftwood, because the sun was so bright on them that day, and if you screwed up your eyes to peer through your eyelashes, there was a rose tint with the gold and purple splashes in the sea, like tails of drowned peacocks. You know it is like putting on magic spectacles to peep at the world that way. Peter Storm told me how to do it.
He tells me many things, queer little things and queer big ones, because he has "knocked about the world" and learned them for himself. He does not think he will ever settle down to be happy in one place; but he likes Long Island to rest in while he takes a long breath. He says what I call its "sweetness" comes from having two Ice Ages that have given it a "legacy" of small soft hills and harbours made before men were born or thought of.
I suppose the Ice Ages made the Shinnecock Hills, though they look as young as I do, and as happy. Captain Winston, who loves Indian names, says "Shinnecock" really means "plain, or flat place." But never mind, there has been time enough since the hills were named to mix things up! And most people care more about talking "golf" in this part of the world than of Indian times; for there is a wonderful golf club close by. Mr. Storm will teach me to play, and already we begin; but I have not come to that part of my news yet.
I cannot think the Ice Ages had much to do with one of the things most charming which make the character of Long Island: I mean duck ponds. Oh, but the most enchanting duck ponds you could sit for days to watch! And the ducks are not looking like the dull ducks of every day, in other places of the world. They are most elaborate ducks, and their ponds are full of sky and clouds you'd think they would stumble over when they swim: bright, laughing ponds like eyes in the landscape.
Now, would you believe a village called "Quogue" could be pretty? It is as if croaked by a frog. But there was a fairy story I remember, where every time the frog croaked (he was a prince cursed into a frog's skin by a bad godmother) jewels fell out of his mouth. So one could imagine it had been with Quogue: and the jewels turned into beautiful houses. The houses are very old now; that is, old for America, which makes them more beautiful. It is only the middle-aged houses that are not beautiful here, and that is true all over the world perhaps; for people had a terrible cramp in their sense of beauty fifty years ago.
Quogue is on one of those lovely inlets the Ice Ages kindly made. Quantock Bay has not a sound of romance, but when you know that it means "long tidal stream" you hear it differently ever after. And it is fun to find out that "Quogue" is all the years haven't nibbled off the word "quohaug," a name the Indians gave to a great, round, purple-shelled clam they loved.
It makes me sad to think of the poor Indians chased from the places and the things they loved on this island. Even when you motor over these velvet smooth roads, and pass fine modern places as at Southampton and dreamy old ones at Quogue, and cottages pretty and modest as violets, on the way through the woods to Westhampton, you can't put out of your head the thought of Indians and their trails through the forests. It is a thought like a dim background of ghosts in a picture where the foreground is bright and gay.
I almost cried at déjeuner yesterday when Captain Winston told about Henry Hudson and the happy, kind tribe of the Canarsies—in 1609, three hundred and seven years ago this spring. They were so pleased when he came sailing into Gravesend Bay in his little ship the Half Moon (that is on another part of Long Island, not where I write of), and they put on their best clothes of animals' skins and mantles made of brilliant feathers, to go and meet the men from "another world." They took presents of green tobacco and furs, and made feasts to honour their visitors. But a man named John Colman admired their most beautiful woman too much, and was shot by an arrow. After that they all fought, and a great many Indians were killed, and they got to think that every European was treacherous. If you, dear Adrienne, could see a place called Coney Island, it would seem funny to you that John Colman (who liked the Indian girl too well) should be buried there. It is not at all a place to be buried in; and he feels that, for his ghost walks at night. What a wonder they do not hire it for a side show! The story of John Colman is not the only romance Captain Winston has found in the old books. There are lots, but the nicest one happened in the Shinnecock part I have told you of: the romance of the Indian Water Serpent, who avenged the murder of a white girl, Edith Turner, who nursed him to life when he was dying. Water Serpent travelled for months, tracking a man who stabbed and threw her in the water of Peconic Bay. Through marshes and forests he went, and at last he tired the murderer out. Then he left him dead with a dagger in his heart, the same dagger that killed Edith. After that there was nothing left for Water Serpent to love, so he starved himself to death, and died on Edith's grave. Do you believe there are white men who can love like that?