Cape Coddities

by Roger Livingston Scaife

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.