Shad bush, wild sarsaparilla, St. John’s Wort, sand spurrey, wild indigo, and checkerberry. The goldenrods belong to the composite family, there are forty kinds in New England; but this sort, solidago sempervirens, which grows in the salt marshes, or near them — the heaviest, the strongest, the most fragrant — the one that the bees love, and the flies—
— or again to remember the first arrival, the arrival at the end of June after school was over, that first and sweetest deliciousness of escape and renewal, the foresight of so much delight, the largeness and wideness and brightness, the sun everywhere, the sea everywhere, the special salt spaciousness, which one felt even at the little shabby railway station, three miles inland, at the bottom of the hill, where the road turned. Even the weatherboards of the wooden station seemed to be soaked in salt sea fog, the little cherry trees had about them a special air as of knowing the sea, and the old coach, the Priscilla or the Miles Standish, with Smiley driving it, or Bart Cahoun, waiting for us there with its lean horses, had on its wheels the sand of Powder Point. In the very act of getting down from the train we already participated in the rich seaside summer — our trunks, lying on the platform, on the hot rough pine planks, shared in the mystery, became something other than the humble boxes into which we had put our bathing suits and sneakers. The world became dangerously brilliant, ourselves somehow smaller, but more meaningful; in the deep summer stillness, the country stillness, it seemed almost as if already we could hear the sea. Our voices, against the little cherry trees which the coach was passing, their boughs whitely shrouded by tent caterpillars, and the gray shingled cottages covered with trumpet vine, and the stone walls and the apple orchards, were different from our Cambridge voices. Even Mother became different, was smaller and more vivid. Would it all be the same again. Would the tide be out or in. Would the golden weathervane still be there. Would the dam under the village bridge be opened or closed. Would it be as nice living at Uncle Tom’s as at the Soules’. It was nearer to the end of the Point, nearer the long bridge, nearer the sea—
— Now you must remember, children, it’s not quite like staying at the Soules’, we are visitors, and Uncle Tom has built a nice play house for you, and you must try to play there as much as you can, so that the house can be quiet.
— Can Porper kneel up, Mother, he wants to look out.
— You can keep all your toys there, and on rainy days it will be very nice for you. It’s a nice little house, painted green, down at the foot of the hill, near that rock—
— You mean Plymouth Rock Junior.
— Yes.
— What’s Plymouth Rock Junior.
— Oh, Porper, you don’t remember, but you’ll see.
— Susan, will you keep hold of Porper’s hand?
— Is that Plymouth Rock Junior.
— No, that’s just a rock in front of the library. That’s where Andy goes on Wednesdays to get books, don’t you, Andy.
— I’m going to read Calumet K again. And Huckleberry Finn again.
Would there be any new books. To carry home under my raincoat in the rain, past the house that was always to let, and the bowling alleys, and then along the lagoon to King Caesar’s Road.
— Will Uncle David be there, Mother?
— Yes, I suppose so. He has a new motorboat.
— We must have a picnic on the outer beach soon, Mother, we must have two of them this year, not one like last year.
— Will we have blueberries and cream, and blueberry muffins?
— Yes, yes, now don’t bother Mother, Mother’s thinking.
— Why are you thinking.
— Andy, for goodness sake take Porper’s other hand. Sit still, Porper. Look, do you see the weather vane? It’s a rooster made out of gold.
— the particular breadth and suggestion of sea-wonder that began always when the coach turned north at the fork of the road, under the weather vane, and then rounded the lagoon toward King Caesar’s Road, and passing this, rattled along the rutted sand Point Road — we were getting nearer the sea, there was now water on both sides of us, water and marshes, we were going out into the Atlantic Ocean. We were getting nearer to the outer beach, and the long red bridge that led to it, nearer to the Gurnett, with its squat twin lighthouses. How soon would the picnic be. There would be steamed clams, and sweet potatoes, and corn, hidden in the nests of hot wet seaweed, on a bed of charred stones. We would gather shells. We would find fragments of driftwood and take them home with us in the little cart which Porper would sit in, with his legs spread out. We would climb the dunes and slide down the slopes of hot loose sand. There would be new breaches in the wall of dunes, where the sea had broken through during the winter, wide flat beds of stones. Where I went wading last year with Gwendolyn, and she held her dress up high, and I saw her garters, the quick exciting flash of silver. We were looking for live horseshoe crabs. I pretended to look for crabs, holding my head down, but was really watching her knees, and she knew that I was watching her, and held her dress higher. Andy, I’ve found three, and you haven’t found one. And look, here’s the smallest one yet—! She held it up out of the water by its beak, and it arched itself almost double, small and transparent. I took it in my hand and we looked at it together, and holding up her dress she leaned against me, and I heard her breathing.
— the night when Uncle Tom and Aunt Norah had gone to the Yacht Club to see the fireworks, riding on their bicycles, with the little lamps lighted, the red jewel at one side and the green at the other, and the smell of hot kerosene, we watched the little wobbling arcs of light moving away along the sand-ruts, and I pointed out to Susan the stars in Cassiopeia’s Chair, standing on the tennis court. Mother and Uncle David were talking on the porch, each in a different hammock, slapping at mosquitoes and laughing, for they had decided to stay at home and watch the fireworks from the Point. We sat down on the edge of the porch and looked at the Plymouth lights and waited for the fireworks, but they didn’t come. Perhaps they would be later. Mother was lying back in her hammock, with her hands under her head and her white elbows lifted and Uncle David was smoking a cigarette. When he drew in his breath, the end of the cigarette glowed and lit up his face, and he was always looking downward at the floor and frowning.
— Susan, darling, how did all that water get there on the floor.
— It was Porper, Mother, he was blowing soap bubbles before supper.
— Will one of you please clean it up. Andy, will you get a mop or a cloth from the kitchen and wipe it up. You’re the porch cleaner, aren’t you.
— Oh, Mother, I’ll have to sweep it in the morning anyway—
— But it doesn’t look nice. Run along. Perhaps afterward you and Susan would like to have a game of croquinole together.
— Could we go out for a row in the dory.
— If it’s a very short one. You must have Susan back in time for her bedtime.
In the kitchen, I stood by the sink and looked out of the window at the back, and saw someone carrying a lighted lamp across one of the windows in the Wardman house. Molly and Margaret were talking to a man in the darkness on the back porch, probably the chauffeur from the Tuppers, who was always hanging around them. I didn’t either. You did too. I didn’t either. You did too. You’re crazy to say such a thing you ought to know better than that I never said any such thing to him in my life, not me. I only said I saw them on the beach. I wouldn’t say more than that. What were they talking about? I listened, but they must have known I was there, for they lowered their voices, and I couldn’t make out anything else, especially as the windmill was pumping, and I could hear the groan of the rod and the regular gush of water into the cistern. I went out into the pantry to get the mop, went down the three wooden steps to the earthen floor, and stood there in the nice smell of potatoes and squashes and green corn and damp smell of earth, watching the indicator on the cistern, the little lead weight jiggling lower and lower against the pine boards as the water raised the float. Last year we had to pump all the water by hand. A hundred strokes without stopping. I rolled up my sleeves, and always felt my muscles when I had finished, to see how hard they were. Why was Mother always trying to get rid of us like this. With Father it was different, he always wanted to do things with us in the holidays. Like last year, when he gave me the camera and took me on walks and showed me how to take pictures, and I got the picture of the beach-plum dyke all crooked, so that it looked like a wave of cobblestones. And I took the Horse Monument, but it was out of focus, or light-struck, or something. But I had fifteen blueprints that were quite good.