The Innocents: A Story for Lovers

They had leased for a term of two years an ancient and weathered house on the gravel cliffs of Grimsby Head. From the cliff

rolling uplands covered with wiry grass that was springy to the feet, dappled with lichens which

of the cliffs. But near the Applebys' door ran the State road, black and oily and smooth, on which, even at the beginning of the summer season, passed a procession of motors from Boston and Brockton, Newport and New York,

ill it resembled a furniture-store. A maid was established, a Cape Verde Portygee girl from Mashpee. All day long Father had been copying the menu upon the fl

ing country and sea at their door; still felt that all life would be one perpetual vacation. Every day now they would have the wild peace of the Cape, for two weeks of which, each year, they had had to

rbor. Sheltered by laurel from the sea winds was a whitewashed lattice, covered with crimson ramblers. Through a gap in the laurels they could see the ocean, stabbingly blue in contrast to the white dunes which reared battlements along the top of the gravel cliff. Far out a coasting schooner blossome

ey had the tea-room r

through the tea-room banging on a dishpan with the wooden salad-spoon. Suddenly he turned into the first customer, and seating himself in a lordly manner, with his legs crossed, his thumbs in his waistcoa

red to stand with her fat doll-arms akimbo, and to retort, "You'll get

th lofty scorn, as Father gave a whole series of imitations of the possible first customer, who, as

take possession of new territory, they hung out their sign, stepped back to admire it

f them actually waved, as the car approached the little couple who were standing in th

e fourth and fifth cars, almost together; and the file of motorists turned from exciting prospects

wiches, and everybody was happy. Mother shooed the maid out into the kitchen, and herself, with awkward eagerness to get orders exactly right, leaned over the tea-table. In the kitchen Father stuffed kindling into the stove to brin

emarks what seemed to the Applebys an enormous bill, a dollar and sixty cents, and rambled out to the car, still unknowing that two happy people wanted to follow him with their blessings. This history is unable to give any further data regarding him; when his car went round the bend he disappeared from t

themselves that they couldn't really expect any business till the summerites had begun to take their vacations. There was a curious psychological fact. It had always been Father, the brisk burden-bearer, who had comforted the secluded Mother. He had brought back to the flat the

were summer boarders at the Nickerson farm-house; and the Applebys, when they were in Grimsby Center buying

rade

Head. Ten, twelve, even fifteen orders a day came from the motorists. The chronic summerites, they who came to Grimsby Center each year,

get scared. I couldn't have forgiven myself if I'd let you in for something that would have been a failure. Golly! I've been realizing that we would have bee

d about one customer a day. They had not looked to Grimsby Center for the cause. That they might personally attend to business they had been sending the maid to the Center for their supplies, while they stuck at

alf-way down they came to a new sign, shaped like

ON THE CAPE. HISTORIC SOULE MANSION, GRIMSBY CENTER. CRUM

never heard of crum

mutely up at the sign that mocked them from its elevation on a bare gravel bank beside the way. Father's shoulders

it is. Regular autoists would rather have one of your home-made doughnuts than all t

r, two insignificant people, hand in hand, dim in the melancholy light which made mysterious the stretching moors. Presently

ee the silhouettes of two more tea-pot s

t wails on a cornet, somewhere on the outskirts. Girls in sailor jumpers, with vivid V's of warmly tanned flesh, or in sweaters of green and rose and violet and canary yellow, wandered down to the post-office. To the city-bred Applebys there would have been cheer and excitement in this mild activity, after their farm-house weeks; i

the lilac-bushes that a stately grass walk, lined with Madonna lilies and hollyhock and phlox, led to the fanlight-crested white door, above which hung the mocking tea-pot sign. The house was lighted, the windows open. To the right of the hall was the arts-s

full of small white candle-lighte

carcely knew that he had spoken. Like Mother, he was picturing their

ly past. They were not so much envious as in awe of Miss Mitchin's; it seemed t

nowadays she spent her winters in New York, as an artistic photographer, and she entertained interior decorators, minor fiction-writers, and minus poets with free food every Thursday evening. It may be hard to believe, but in a.d. 1915 she was still calling her grab-bag of talent a "salon." It was

e, crude world of business men and lawyers by living together in Chelsea Village, were left defenseless. They were in d

heory. The young women wore platter-sized tortoise-shell spectacles and smocks that were home-dyed to a pleasing shrimp pink. The young men also wore tortoise-shell spectacles, but not smocks-not usually, at least. One of them had

. But they were ever so brave about their financial misfortunes, and they could talk about the ballet Russe and also charlotte russes in quite the nicest way. Indeed it was

insters who filled the Old Harbor Inn and the club-women from the yellow water regions who were viewing the marvels of nature as displayed on and adjacent to the ocean. Practically without exception these

to go, and permitted their wives to drag them past the tortoise-shell spectacles and the unprostituted ar

rstand the problem, "Why is a Miss Mitchin?" All that they knew, as they dragged weary joints down the elm-rustling r

when Mother exclaimed, "Why, Father

moking too much. Do

cost much. 'Twouldn't have hurt you to got 'em. You get 'em the very

f nothing but mean economies as they trud

ther again declared that no dinky tea-pot inn could permanently rival Mother's home-made doughnuts. But he said it faintly then, a

to co