Part 7

So the white church was built, there upon the hill, and it was not then very different from the building a visitor would enter today. The same tower clock, and the same auditorium clock would, when not seized by the temporary fits of temperament that are the privilege of age, be telling the same old time, while the same chandelier with its lovely etched globes would be sending forth the same warm glow over the white walls and straight-posture-demanding pew. And the light would glint as ever from the sides of old silver, the original Communion Set. Now, from the front of the church, instead of from a balcony as before, would come the strains of organ music from an instrument that has been doing its Sunday duty for nearly one hundred years at the same church, and had done duty elsewhere for a hundred years before that. This is very likely the oldest organ still in regular use in America, and it is not just by coincidence that it is frequently used to play hymns which have in them the fresh, salted breath of the sea. Tablets offer long lists of names of the South Dennis Captains who were members of the church. Now, as then, among the congregation to whom “He gives the keeping of the lights along the shore”, there are Nickersons and Thachers and Crowells and Bakers and Kelleys, and there are newer faces and newer names. Many have followed the advice of their first pastor to “read and understand the history of your pious forefathers, than whom no people under heaven are entitled to higher honors.” And all have helped, and gladly, to keep this splendid symbol of the forefathers faith a living and a meaningful one. So it is too all across the Cape and up and down it, wherever a white church looms by a village street, and its noble spire points to the blue heavens.

_When you have finished with it you have only begun. You speak of a number of things that are yours, and it is the smallest fragment of the picture. Have you seen the Cape at Christmas? Then the nights are black and the Christmas lights shine brighter and in the crisp night air the stars shine brightly too. The villages are evenly-spaced islands of lights along the highways, cheerful islands and brave ones, and you feel that there would have been room at the Inn here, or in any of the small homes which look through unshaded windows and greenery toward the streets. Do you know the Cape in summer? Then there is a sudden hustle-bustle along Main Street and you count the number plates from every state in the Union. It is a time of sunshine, tanning and gilding, and the soft, dreamy haze of August. It is roses tumbling over fences and the merry tinkle of ice in frosted glasses. It is blue skies and white clouds, and blue waters and white sails, and the drone of outboards on the River.... It is extra clerks in the stores and the cheerful jingle of bulging cash registers, and better still, the shouts and laughter of children as they splash in the warm waters of the Cape while the fizzing spray breaks over them, and the sun toasts them, and they are free. Have you seen the sunrise over Chatham Bars? Or seen it set from St. Andrews or Sunset Hill? What of the woodsy road that winds along Shawme Hill where you can watch the old town of Sandwich dreaming through a summer’s afternoon, where you look over the quiet mill pond and its white church spires to the blue Bay and the cliffs of Manomet. Have you watched one of nature’s miracles at the Herring Run in Brewster of an April day; or stood beside a quiet inland pond at Harwich of a fall evening and watched plumes of mist rise from the water to do a graceful ballet while the Cape begins to sleep? Have you followed any of a hundred beckoning roads to whatever treasures they may reveal? When you have done all these things you will begin to know a part of it. One day, as you cross the Canal bridge, your heart will begin to lighten, and the tensions of the Mainland will slide away. The land will take on a wonderful familiarity, and you will know that you are home, and that is all there is to it._

[Illustration]

The paper in this book was manufactured by the Strathmore Paper Company of West Springfield, Mass. The type is Devinne and Caslon. Cover was executed by Louis Marini of the Colmar Press, Wollaston, Mass.

Transcriber’s Notes

Perceived typographical errors have been silently corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation and compound words have been retained as printed.