WITH JOE IN ADVANCE, THE CLUB RIDES THROUGH WAREHAM.
Carry them! Of course he will—for a consideration. And almost before the driver has recovered from his evident astonishment at this vision of six tricycles in the heart of the Sandwich woods, the riders and their machines are safely in the big cart, and on their way through the sandy tract, which, they now learn, is several miles in extent.
It is impossible for the horses to go faster than a walk for the whole distance. The sand is a constant clog, and scarcely a breath of air can penetrate the close piny ranks on either side the narrow road. It is a slow and somewhat crowded ride, but the club tells stories, sings and jokes and answers the curious inquiries of their teamster, to whom a tricycle is a thing unknown till now. But in due time, the young folk have bidden him good day, and are speeding on toward Barnstable. The air grows salty, strong, and bracing.
"It's like a breath of new life," says Starrett; and soon they are rolling between the long row of grand old trees that line Barnstable's quiet main street. At the hotel they stop for dinner and a noonday rest.
It is four in the afternoon when they remount. The lady boarders, who have taken quite an interest in the young tricyclers, bid them farewell with all manner of good wishes, and one gray-haired society lady remarks, "Those girls are sensible; and their mothers are sensible too. Give young people the delights of nature and the freedom of outdoor sports, and keep them from late parties, and the whirl of folly and fashion. I've seen too many young lives warped and twisted and weakened in the endeavor to 'keep up' in fashionable society. Yes, those girls are sensible."
And, wheeling still, by hill and dale, the "sensible" girls and their escort roll merrily into old Yarmouth, with its broad, shady streets and big, substantial, old-fashioned houses. Quaint and picturesque indeed it is, with quiet nooks and corners, breezy streets, time-stained wharves where lie battered fishing craft and the smarter boats devoted to the summer visitors who have found out the beauties of the town. Here, too, Arno Cummings has an uncle, a bluff and breezy old sea-captain, who gives the whole party a hearty welcome; and at his house, the club spend two nights and the day between—a day of shade and shine, with the sea wind blowing everywhere. They explore the old town from end to end. They come continually upon pictures,—now a broad grassy lane with its moss-grown fences flanked by rising pastures of brownish grass; now a long slope ending in a rocky outlook over the blue sea; now a brown cottage nestled in among trees and hills. And on the second morning after their arrival, they bid the hospitable Captain Cummings adieu, and pass, single file, over the great drawbridge across the inlet that cuts Yarmouth in two, and so spin along through the succession of little towns which, leaving Yarmouth, almost join together into one. Such are the "Dennises"—divided as usual into North, East, South and West,—and the "Harwiches," where at Harwich proper the tricyclers bid farewell to the railroad which has kept them company at short intervals all the way down.
"Six miles to Curtin Harbor." So says the lazy youth at a cross roads store, and away they spin, while the spires and houses of Harwich disappear behind the trees.
And now how the wind blows! And all around the horizon the sky has that watery appearance that betokens the nearness of the sea. There is a peculiar, bracing freedom in the wild, salt wind; the very sway of the brown grass, the swing of the odorous wild pinks that nod in the corners of old mossy fences have a life and freshness that one misses greatly in tamer, more settled districts. For now they are plunging bravely into the long stretch of sand barrens and pine woods that, with only an occasional house, stretch for many a mile between Harwich and Curtin Harbor.
But here, in the afternoon, a sudden shower overtakes them. They can no longer pick their dainty way by the roadside, but must keep the middle track or run the risk of upsetting. There is scarce a quarter of a mile of level ground to be found. The pine woods close in upon them, and when at the summit of a hill they anxiously look for some other shelter than the thronging pines, they can see nothing but the long, winding, lightish streak of road and the endless outlines of monotonous pine-trees on either side against the dark sky.