Cape May Season.—As the warm weather steals upon us, our friends begin to talk of “the Capes,” and to look up straw hats and bathing-dresses. Cape May has in its very sound a charm pleasingly familiar to almost every Philadelphia ear. Here visits the merchant in the summer months, for relaxation from the counting-room—the clerk for his holydays—the man of pleasure for enjoyment—the idle for luxurious indolence. It is Philadelphia in miniature, and full of life—lively, chatty, gossipy, and hilarious—disposed to enjoyment, and determined to have it. A family reunion at holyday times.
The old gentleman has a reputation abroad for great simplicity of manner—wearing his coat of the very purest material, and of the very plainest cut—and a hat of undeniable beaver, of great amplitude of brim; a sturdy old chap, with a benevolent face, who gives his simple and emphatic “No!” to the allurements and pressing solicitations of folly. The younger shoots have departed greatly from the plainness of the primitive tree, and flourish in the luxuriousness of magnolia and orange blossoms, and show a strong tendency to burst out in all the beauty and splendor of hot-house “japonicadom.” Yet under the eye of the old gentleman, in these holyday times, the youngsters seem to scorn the borrowed aid of laces, satins and jewelry, and give tight boots, dandy-coats, and perfumery the go-by; for it is whispered, that he shuts his money-box rather tightly to such of his heirs as run after worldly vanities; so that here you may see them in blouses and straw-hats, in dressing-gown and slippers, perfectly unrestrained with tight lacing, luxuriously happy, and indescribably gay. They go about with an honest, hearty, unrestrained laugh—snapping their fingers at care, and perfectly unconcerned at the imputation of having let down their dignity. The family improves evidently under this relaxation from brocades and stiff ceremonies. They have a more hearty expression of face, a more thoroughly robust and vigorous frame, and though the cheek may be a little browner, the eye is brighter, and the heart happier.
The regular visiter at these times is a black-eyed, cherry-cheeked cousin from Baltimore, a little given to flirting and dangerously fascinating, as graceful as a young fawn, and as frolicksome as a kitten. She always appears to have come down purposely for a romp, having left city affectations at home, and brought her graces with her. Then she wont go home until she has half a dozen of her cousins—from the third to the sixth remove—desperately in love with her, to keep them in mind of Cape May.
Then “Tom”—“Our Tom”—he is always there; Tom wouldn’t miss Cape May, in the season, for a £100—and the sly dog knows how to show off the attractions of his beautiful cousins. He is sure to decoy them into the Archery every bright morning, and has so many neat and appropriate remarks in regard to the health and gracefulness of the exercise—and the bows are so inviting, and the arrows so neat—the gold and crimson target so tempting that you do not wonder to see a cloud of arrows filling the air, and a crowd of lounging beaux, filled with shafts more dangerous. Then “Tom”—sad Tom—knows that his fair cousins are as fearless as beautiful, and fire off pistols with quite a soldierly air—that is, when Tom loads them; and the sly scamp, speaks in so low a tone—so softly and so kindly—when he hands the pistol with the hair-trigger, that you are amazed to find that there was powder in it when it goes off—and at the first crack “Tom” has the whole family there; then he is such a lover of enjoyment himself—is good, honest, manly Tom Barrett—that it delights him to see them. Then he has his Bowling Saloons in tiptop order; his Billiard-room, too; his dogs and guns for crack shots at woodcock, and ambitious young sportsmen after curlew; and then he has—In short, it wouldn’t be Cape May, if Tom wasn’t there—and there’s an end of it. Well, well, Tom! we shall not try your pistols nor your archery this summer, but shall take a crack at Cape May, in a story, which we have in type. So let the surf come tumbling in with its musical roar—its wild waves wash out no memories. Our loves and our hates keep time in the heart which beats on proudly, yet bides its time hopefully. In the roar of the wilder ocean, where men go down battling unregretted, how many who now spread their bright sails to the favoring breeze, shall, ere the voyage is ended, find sail and cordage gone, their vessels wrecked, and the happy hearts of merry companions, one after the other, swept by the remorseless wave forever under—who shall tell, Tom! But so the side toward heaven has been ripened by the sunlight of kindness to man, what matters the breakers, Tom, to you or to me?
“Dipping his feathers in the briny foam;
Not less quick o’er the white wave Hermes rode.”
G. R. G.
