THE OLD TOWN

Elm Street, into which we rushed that afternoon, was a broad thoroughfare extending from one end of the town to the other. On both sides it was lined with trees, set at the edge of the brick sidewalks. Mainly fine tall elms, they lent a distinction to the street and made it notable among those which characterize the older towns of New England. In the opinion of all the citizens, Elm Street was beyond comparison.

Local pride did not exaggerate. Its unusual length, its great, graceful trees and the dignified houses, made the street undoubtedly beautiful. There were houses of every style which has been in vogue during two hundred years. Roofs which sloped in the rear nearly to the ground, gambrel roofs, and the various less attractive fashions of the nineteenth century,—all were there.

But those of which the owners were most proud, those best suited to the street, were the great, square, three-storied houses, built in the early years of the century. That was the time of the town's prosperity, before a fire had checked its growth, before shifting sands had almost closed its harbor. Ships from the old town sailed every ocean then, and carried our flag into strange, foreign ports. Their captains, or their owners, built many of the big, square houses, so you could often see, on the roof, a little railed platform, where the householder might stand of a morning to sweep the harbor and the ocean with his spy-glass. Charley Carter's father did this regularly, although the ships in which he was interested sailed to this port no longer, if, indeed, they sailed at all.

The town was built along one bank of the river, and Elm Street followed the crest of the slope. It was an easy thing, therefore, for any one standing on the roof of one of the houses to get a good view of the river, the salt marshes, the sand-dunes, and the ocean. The ocean spread out there, bright and clear, from the dim blue mountain that rose on the far horizon in Maine, to the low hills of Cape Ann. Sometimes, at night, the east wind brought the rumble of breakers, or the booming sound of a whistling buoy that guarded the harbor.

The town was long and very narrow. From Elm Street you could look down some of the cross streets to the river, and beyond. On the other side of Elm Street, as soon as you had passed the gardens that lay behind the big houses, you were almost in open country. There were a few outlying farms, a few shanties, and then bare, scrubby fields, the Common Pasture, rocky knolls and clumps of woods. On one of these farms dwelt Mr. Diggery,—a fierce little man, of whom we went in terror.

So near did the river come to the lower part of the town that a storm often made people who lived in that quarter need high boots to get across the street; while the country (unexplored wilds to us!) closed up so near on the other side of Elm Street, that owls, woodchucks, and an occasional fox penetrated the gardens.

It was this nearness of the river and ocean, and of the open country, that made the town such a delightful dwelling-place for us. Even the centre of the town, the neighborhood where Ed Mason and Jimmy Toppan lived, and Rob Currier, the two Carters, Horace Winslow, Peter Bailey, and I,—this was a region thick with the possibilities of adventure. Much of this centred about the frog pond and the Mall. The pond was full of goldfish, and other humbler fish, and toads, frogs, and water-beetles. You were sure to find something interesting whenever you walked around the pond. Many of our neighbors on Elm Street owned large gardens, to which we had entrance—either by permission, or by the informal and far more adventurous method of climbing the back fence.

The owners of the gardens, at that period, were mostly elderly persons, dwelling in great contentment and the most profound quiet. Their lives were comfortable, well-ordered, and precise. They lived mainly in the past. They pondered much on some grandfather, or great-grandfather, who had built up a fortune through foreign trade, and they heeded not at all the remarks of envious and ill-natured folk who liked to point out that one of the chief commodities of this trade was rum. The principal hallmark of their respectability was a portrait of their ancestor, with very pink cheeks,—the sign of an outdoor life, and not necessarily an indication of a taste for port and madeira.

Beside this venerable portrait would hang a lively representation of the ship Sally B., as she appeared on some memorable occasion entering the harbor of Singapore, and viewed by one of those artists who invariably happen to be near by when the ship is under full sail and making not less than twelve knots.

It was a period not so very far removed from our own time, and yet different from it in a number of respects. No thumping, grinding trolley car disturbed the quiet of Elm Street that bright June afternoon. Infrequently, an omnibus rambled up and down. By night the darkness was punctuated here and there by a gas flame at the top of an iron lamp post. Rob Currier's big brother Dick had the proud privilege of going about our neighborhood at sunset, with a ladder and a supply of matches, to set these lamps alight. We used to watch him, and wonder if we should ever get old enough and sufficiently influential to occupy a public position like his. But before we reached the required age and dignity the old lamp-posts had been taken down in favor of electric lights.

No one had his letters brought to his house. If he wanted his mail, or wished to send a letter, he went to the post-office. The nine o'clock parade of citizens making toward that building was one of the regular features of life in the town. At nine in the evening a church bell rang the curfew,—although it had absolutely no significance. It had always been done: that was reason sufficient for an old and conservative place. When the ringer died, or something else happened to stop its mournful sound, a well-to-do citizen quickly provided funds to continue the ringing. The curfew laws, with their reference to children, had not come into vogue, so the bell sounded each evening simply out of regard for an old custom. Few heard it, and to few of these did it make the slightest difference.

We did not often hear foreign tongues or see foreign faces on the streets. Once in a while we might overhear two old women, with shawls over their heads, conversing in Irish as they passed along. The Mediterranean peoples had not arrived,—although they had sent a pioneer in the person of Mr. Mazzoni, who presided over a little stand at the foot of Main Street, and was an important personage to us, because of the peanuts which he sold.

The boys who went to the parochial school, the Pats and Mikes, were a kind of hostile crew, and when we met it was usually with an exchange of horse-chestnuts or snowballs. This was because of no racial or religious animosity,—we were simply two rival gangs, that was all. On one occasion, when Ed Mason and I met a number of the parochial school boys out in the country, there was an exchange of epithets that stopped (as such meetings did not always stop) this side of blows. I was reduced to a state of almost tearful indignation when one of the little Irish boys asserted that I was "a Protestant."

I denied the charge vehemently, but when I got home and repeated the insult, I learned that it was only too true. I had never suspected it, and had gone on thinking that I was merely a Unitarian. Alas, it seemed that I was a Protestant as well.

The charm and quaintness of the past had by no means vanished from the old town. Wooden ships were still built on the river, now and then, and the sea-captains gathered and gossiped in the rooms of the Marine Society. Overhead was a museum of curiosities of the deep, and of foreign lands. Some one of the captains would always be willing to unlock the room for us, and let us inspect the dusty albatross, the dried flying-fishes, the little ships in bottles, and all the other objects of interest.

One grocery, still displayed the sign "E. & W. I. Goods," and more than one citizen walked the streets in a beaver hat. There was old fat Captain Millett, who tacked down Main Street every morning in summer under an enormous green-lined umbrella, big enough to shelter a family. There was Captain Bannister, who lived alone in his curious little house on West Injy Lane, where he cultivated a garden patch of cinnamon pinks. And there was Mr. Babbitt, the Quaker gentleman, who used to pass with stately tread, as we played on Elm Street, or about the pond. He was tall and dignified, and he wore a high hat and a frock coat,—I had almost said a surtout,—with a shirt collar so high and antiquated that he seemed to belong to the time of Martin Van Buren. He kept on his black velvet ear-caps until summer was well advanced, and he put them on again the first of September. But he was the friend of a great poet, and every one respected him for that, as well as for his own character.

There was still a town crier,—one of the last, or, as he claimed, the very last one in this country. "Squawboo" (as we were told we must not call him), or Mr. Landford (as we were told we ought to call him), walked the streets with a large dinner bell. He would pause at intervals, and ring his bell vigorously. Then, throwing back his head, he would emit a volume of sound which would strike the hearer with astonishment. I have seen strangers paralyzed with amazement as they heard for the first time, and unexpectedly, the deep, tremendous tones that issued from his throat.

"Hear—what—I—have—to—say!" he would begin. "Grand—dance—at—City—Hall—to-morrow—evening—at—eight—o'clock.—Admission—fifty—cents—ladies free!—COME, ONE—COME, EVERYBODY!!"

And then he would ring the bell again, and walk on.

I have stopped, for the most of this chapter, to explain what kind of a town it was in which we passed the believing years, the years which began with us, and continued for a dozen summers or so. But now, if you please, we will return to that afternoon when we dashed out of school, and left Mr. Colburn and Miss Temple behind. We ran into a land of wonder. The first thing for me to learn about was that fishing trip for to-morrow.

I hastily consulted Ed Mason about it. No; we could not go, it must be postponed. Parts of the necessary tackle were missing, and there were reasons, connected with the approaching Fourth of July, why neither of us desired to make any avoidable expenditures just then.

But there was another plan, into which I might be admitted,—if I could prove trustworthy.

"You won't tell?" queried Ed Mason.

"Course not!"

"Cross your heart?"

I crossed my heart and hoped I might die.

But I could not know just then,—I must wait until next morning.

It was fearful discipline for the soul, but I survived until after breakfast the next day. Then I presented myself at the Masons' side yard,—their house was within stone's throw of ours.

Ed had, so I understood, some mysterious recipe,—some ceremony to perform that was not only extraordinary in itself, but it was to be rewarded in the most fascinating manner imaginable.

He came out of the house with a serious face, led me down behind an apple tree, and there, after looking carefully about for eavesdroppers, unfolded the cryptic plot.