Great Spruce Head Island<\/p>\n
June 26, 1968 <\/em>527<\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n Dear Hosty with the Mosty,<\/p>\n And a very happy Arthur Cohen\u2019s\u00a0528<\/sup> birthday to you too, dear.<\/p>\n Well here I be, and just as happy as an unsteamed clam.\u00a0 The sky is a rather dense gray, of a shade that in Southampton would have me humming \u201cGloomy Sunday\u201d but here seems just another of Maine\u2019s little miracles.\u00a0 Of course it helps to have it reflected on the bosom of the bay (which would place its cunt somewhere down around Vinalhaven) where for some reason it picks up a faint purplish flush.\u00a0 Oh well, I won\u2019t lay it on too thick \u2026<\/p>\n We made it here, which is about as much as I can say for the trip.\u00a0 I\u2019m afraid FP is emotionally unable to think of a drive as anything but another Dunkirk.\u00a0 In New London I did manage, by dint of taking Bruno for a quick trot, to peek into an antique shop window where I spotted two student lamps, one of them desirable at 70 simoleons\u2014much nicer than the smaller one Ines [MacWhinnie] recently rid of herself of for a cool 65.\u00a0 Bruno, contrary to my expectations, turned out to be the best traveler of all, and we did not arrive covered with hair and dog vomit.\u00a0 He was, however, quite a sketch at the Camden Yacht Club.\u00a0 It was an unusually mean low tide, and he took one look at the abyss that divided the almost vertical gangplank from the seawall and refused to budge.\u00a0 F and I must have made quite a sight as he pulled in front and I attempted to push his hindquarters after\u2014judging, at least, by the chuckles lavished on us by the local tars.\u00a0 Then we went through it all again getting him off the float and onto the Kittiwake.\u00a0 Fortunately I was by then in such a state that I more or less picked him up and hurled him abroad, rather like wee Geordie tossing the caber. The arrival was quite easy, since I had become a stone.<\/p>\n I hope Aline Porter (wife of Eliot, the painter who \u201cshows\u201d at Betty Parson\u2019s) is still here when you come.\u00a0 She\u2019s very Nest<\/em>.\u00a0 She came up to help yesterday afternoon, and decided to make beds.\u00a0 She vanished for a long time, her little velvet bow bobbing behind her, then reappeared murmuring in her couth Boston tones, \u201cAnne, where is the linen closet?\u201d\u00a0 There, a good deal later, I found her sighing that there were no double sheets.\u00a0 So I dug some out of last year\u2019s clean laundry (it winters in a basket, don\u2019t ask why).\u00a0 Then she slowly made three beds and returned to the kitchen to announce, \u201cWell, there doesn\u2019t seem to be anything else I can do\u2026\u201d as she eyed with evident horror the chaos and filth, and faded from our sight.\u00a0 She had a remarkable silly, though good natured, scottie, and at one point when I was out in the front inspecting the weeds with Mousie or whatever it\u2019s called, Aline\u2019s head popped out of an upstairs window long enough to coo, \u201cSweetheart didn\u2019t know I was up here did she?\u201d and popped back in again.\u00a0 As a matter of fact, she makes a rather refreshing change from the nautical know-it-alls who usually clutter the float at mail call.\u00a0 Yesterday she had been to Camden to do some \u201cShopping,\u201d which appeared to consist of a dozen eggs, a large brown bag that went clink clink and a pair of scales with charming early Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company Designs.\u00a0 So you see\u2026<\/p>\n Say, how would you like to do a girl a favor? I refer to Anna. I promised to pick up a paperback Italian cookbook for her at Bob Keene\u2019s, but all he had was one that seemed to have been written by the chef at the Minetta Tavern. So, if you\u2019re ankling by your local paperback outlet, and have a mind to\u2026. and if you haven\u2019t, no one will be the wiser.<\/p>\n If these pangs speak true, it\u2019s lunch time. More later.<\/p>\n Two days later and a few hours earlier<\/em><\/p>\n What a lovely surprise the floating postman brought me yesterday\u2014I can\u2019t wait to follow Bonita529 <\/sup>on her adventures among the sinister spruces.\u00a0 Do you think the author is really Nancy Straus?\u00a0 Thanks oodles.<\/p>\n In case you\u2019re sweltering\u2014pace<\/em> Wednesday\u2019s Times<\/em>\u2014we\u2019re enjoying a mighty cool 49 degrees and what appears to be the beginning of at least a three day blow.\u00a0 Another of Maine\u2019s little gifts that I won\u2019t look into the mouth of.<\/p>\n Have you heard anything from Harper\u2019s Bazaar<\/em>? I ask, to be lucid, because I\u2019m feeling decidedly broke, and not without reason. Heaven be praised for thrifty islands.<\/p>\n If this is to make today\u2019s mail, I\u2019d best interrupt myself.\u00a0 I have some thoughts on the final chapter, but they\u2019ll keep a few days. Besides, I ran a huge spruce splinter (beastly tree) into my thumb, which makes anything but eating, reading and sleeping rather hell.\u00a0 (Last night I went in before dark and, despite a 10 minute period of wakefulness, managed to sleep until 7:30. Bliss.)<\/p>\n We\u2019re presently (and hopefully) expecting the arrival of Laurence with a party of seven\u2014there will<\/em> be a lot of milling about the larder!\u00a0 In fact, I\u2019m thinking of stashing a box of prunes or two under my bed.<\/p>\n love,<\/p>\n (Mrs) Birdsey Youngs<\/p>\n