Solution Manual for Adolescence

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Chapter 2
Puberty and Physical Development

Chapter at a Glance
Detailed Chapter Instructor’s Test Bank PowerPoint MyPsychKit
Outline Manual

The Biology of DISCUSSION

Puberty TOPICS 1-2
Hormones in Action
Physical Development
Sexual Development
Menarche and the
Secular Trend

Responses to
Puberty
Personal Responses to
Puberty
Parental Responses to
Puberty
Cultural Responsesto
Puberty
Brain Development DISCUSSION
The Structure of the TOPIC 3
Brain
The Developing Brain
Behaviour and the
Brain

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Canada Inc.

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Health Issues DISCUSSION
Puberty TOPIC 4-5
and Mood
Body Image
Sleep Needs
Nutrition and
Exercise

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Canada Inc.

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Instructor’s Manual for McMahan/Thompson, Adolescence
Chapter 2: Puberty and Physical Development

Learning Objectives
After studying the chapter, students should be able to answer the following questions.

LO2.1 How does the endocrine system regulate puberty and growth?
LO2.2 What are the physical changes of adolescence for girls and boys?
LO2.3 What are the sexual changes of adolescence for girls and boys?
LO2.4 What is the significance of changes in the age of menarche in recent decades?
LO2.5 Why is puberty a source of pride for some teens and embarrassment for others?
LO2.6 Do parents and children become more distant after puberty?
LO2.7 What are puberty rites, and what purposes do they serve?
LO2.8 What are the principal parts of thebrain?
LO2.9 How do synaptic pruning and myelination help make the brain more efficient?
LO2.10 How is brain development linked to other adolescent changes?
LO2.11 Are teens at the mercy of their “raginghormones”?
LO2.12 What impact do pubertal changes have on body image for girls and boys?
LO2.13 How much sleep do adolescents need and get?
LO2.14 Do today’s adolescents get proper nutrition and exercise?

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Canada Inc.

10
Instructor’s Manual for McMahan/Thompson, Adolescence
Chapter 2: Puberty and Physical Development

Chapter Summary
Puberty is the beginning of a process of physical and sexual development that has far reaching psychological
and social effects as well. The biological changes of adolescence also raise important health issues.

Puberty is a set of interconnected biological events that affect practically every aspect of the individual,
from height to lung capacity to facial and body hair.

The changes of puberty are set in motion and controlled by the system of endocrine glands that produce
hormones. Particularly important are the hypothalamus, the pituitary, and the gonads— testes in males
and ovaries in females. These make up the HPG axis.

Puberty begins when, signalled by the hypothalamus, the pituitary sends a message to the gonads to
produce more sex hormones—estrogens and androgens. These in turn set off processes of physical and
sexual development.

One dramatic aspect of puberty is the adolescent growth spurt, which begins about 2 years earlier for girls
than for boys. This period of very rapid growth affects not only height and body proportions but the
balance of muscle and fat and other biological systems.

Sexual development during adolescence generally follows a regular sequence, described by the Tanner
stages. For girls, the earliest stage is usually breast development, followed by the growth of pubic hair and
changes in the genitals. For boys, changes in the genitals are followed by the appearance of pubic hair.

The timing of puberty is affected by many factors, from social class and geographic region to nutrition
and exercise. In Western societies, girls usually show the first signs of puberty around age 10, but some
begin as early as 7 or 8 or as late as 13 or 14. For boys, the earliest signs generally appear around age 11,
but may come as early as 9 or as late as 14 or 15.

th th
During the 19 and 20 centuries, the average age of menarche, a girl’s first menstrual period,
dropped steadily in Northern Europe and North America, in what is called the secular trend. This is
most likely the result of improved nutrition and living conditions.

When a child enters puberty, people notice and react. Children have personal responses to their own
development and that of friends and peers. Parents respond to the changes they see in their children. In
many cultures, the larger society also marks the transition, with formal or informal rituals.

For girls, breast development is usually the first sign of puberty and sets off complex feelings about
movement to a new stage of life and about sexuality. The reactions of peers, especially boys, often
lead to embarrassment and self-consciousness.

Menstruation is also often a source of mixed feelings, depending in part on how prepared the girl is.

For boys, their first ejaculation is typically the result of a nocturnal emission or masturbation and is
generally experienced positively. The enlargement of the genitals, however, often leads to self-
consciousness and a fear of social comparison.

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Canada Inc.

11
Instructor’s Manual for McMahan/Thompson, Adolescence
Chapter 2: Puberty and Physical Development

When an individual child enters puberty has an impact on their well-being and social relationships.

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Canada Inc.

12
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 VI
“CHANGE AND REST”—SUMMER BARGAINING

Although on the surface Cape Cod seems to offer a haven of refuge to

that much overworked appendage to the modern man, the pocket-book,
there are dotted here and there upon the highways and byways many
comparatively innocent pitfalls.
To a close student of these danger spots, they may be grouped under
the heading “Tea-Rooms, Arts and Crafts Stores, and Antique Shops.”
I know of no greater relief than to escape from town and come to the
Cape. Once there, the daily routine of office, the absence of any assigned
duty, the leisure hours passed in or on the water or idly knocking about
the golf links, tend to merge one day into another, so that time flashes
past at an alarming rate. But every now and again comes a day when
some member of the family suggests that we take the motor and extend
our vision. It is upon such occasions that we test the financial astuteness
of the aborigines.
One never visits the Cape without discovering how effectively the
climate stimulates the appetite. What wonder, therefore, that every
village and hamlet possesses a Tea-Room of varying attraction?
 The stop is made and the Tea-Room visited, only to find that the
family, in addition to ordering the tea, with its accompaniment of toast
and cake, or, for the younger members, a bottle of ginger ale or an ice-
cream cone, are bent upon securing a souvenir. The Tea-Room is
generally furnished with an assortment of articles intended for just such
gullibles as ourselves. There are, for instance, baskets of assorted sizes
and colors, for flowers, or fruit, or sewing, or pine cones; in fact for
everything that should be thrown away, but isn’t. We have several such
baskets at home, but that does not prevent some member of the family
from buying another. It will do for a Christmas present. Then there are
varieties of other things made far away and designed to lure the cheerful
motorist, such as charmingly decorated match-cases for elderly people,
noisily painted tin pails for the children, dainty knockers, and all manner
of knick-knacks for the women of the party. The invariable assortment of
what, to a man, seems the essence of uselessness, and yet, I confess it,
attractive to an insidious extent.
The pocket-book is touched, not severely, to be sure, but there is a
perceptible shrinkage as we file out to continue on our harmless junket.
For a few miles we bowl along over a delightfully smooth road and
give ourselves over entirely to the view. Now a long stretch of pine
woods gives just a glimpse of the water glistening through the trees; here
and there a little farmhouse, snugly tucked among a clump of lilacs close
to the road, with visions of larger establishments in the distance, out
toward the sea, the homes of summer residents boldly exposed to the
refreshing southwest wind; then a long stretch of marsh and dune
brilliant in the sun. Suddenly we come upon a more thickly populated
district where many of the old houses have been purchased and
renovated to fit the needs of city people, who, with the assistance of
some modern architect, oftentimes make enticing homes of these
structures by the simple addition of porches and piazzas, with bright
touches of paint here and there on blinds and doors, and the whole
garnished well with bright flowers, climbing roses, and cozy hedges.
It is generally near such a settlement that we come upon the Arts and
Crafts in all their glory.
Compared to the Tea-Room, the Art-Shop is a veritable mine of
treasure. From a variety of toys which would do credit to Schwartz to a
complete set of hand-painted furniture such as one might expect to find
in the window of the largest furniture store in Boston during the months
of May and June, seems a far cry for a small shop occupying a converted
bungalow in a modest Cape town; but this sort of thing exists, and
between these items there is an almost endless list of what for a better
term may be called “specialties,” and even I, who scorn the newness of
furnishings as they are displayed in town, fall a victim first to an
exceptionally soft-toned rag rug, oval in shape and comfortable to the
tread, and also to a set of doilies made of a light, colorful variety of
oilcloth with dainty pattern that my wife says will save washing; and
lastly to a pair of bayberry candles, olive green and a full eighteen inches
high, which it seems to me will give an admirable touch to our living-
room mantel.
The shrinkage in the pocket-book is easily discernible; in fact I am led
to say briskly that I think we had better be getting along home, and so we
put our new treasures into the car and proceed homewards by a new
route more inland.
It is always interesting to try the lesser known roads even if they are a
bit rougher. They are little traveled and for this reason pleasanter in
midsummer; one rarely loses the way, for signs are plentiful, and so we
wind about the higher stretches which form the backbone of the Cape,
along sandy roads which at times diminish to mere cart-paths, but at all
times are passable.
Emerging from this forest district on one such excursion, we came
quite suddenly upon the forking of two roads where a clump of neat-
looking farmhouses, a schoolhouse, and a diminutive church indicated a
real town. Here my eye was arrested by the magic sign “Antiques” stuck
into the lawn in front of one of the houses.
While I do not admit the slightest lure in the sign of a Tea-Room
except when hard-pressed by hunger, and but scant attraction in the Art-
Shop, there is something about the word “antique” that whets my
appetite for exploration, and especially so when found in a quiet little
hamlet off the beaten path and probably not familiar to the many
hundreds of tourists whose smoothly running motors of ample
proportions bespeak well-filled pocket-books. Consequently I grasped
the emergency brake and came to a sudden stop in spite of a feeble
protest from my daughter and a heavy sigh from my wife on the back
seat.
Where antiques are concerned, I take the lead, or, to be more accurate,
I stand alone, and so proceeded to the back door of the house; for those
who know Cape-Codders well enough realize the inconvenience and
delay which a knock at the front door provokes.
Seeing a middle-aged woman bending over the stove in the kitchen, I
called a merry “Good-afternoon” by way of salutation.
“Good-afternoon,” she replied as an echo might have thrown back my
words.
“I saw your sign ‘antiques’ and thought perhaps I might have a look at
them,” I continued, nothing daunted.
“Mister Eldridge ain’t to home, but if you want to go out to the barn
you can see what he’s got,” she replied, without even turning her head to
see what sort of a second-story man I might be.
Here was luck, however, for I could look over the stock in trade of this
ambitious couple to my heart’s content, and I made haste to the barn,
which I found converted into one of the most amazing junk-shops it has
ever been my pleasure to explore.
Crowded together without rhyme or reason, and with no thought of
display, were the goods and chattels of generations of Cape-Codders;
tables, chairs, beds, sofas, ice-chests, a parlor organ, curtain rods, bits of
carpet, crockery in all stages of dilapidation. On one of the tables a
variety of hardware was strewn about, on one of the stiff-backed chairs
reposed three old brass lanterns. A Rogers group on a kitchen table was
flanked by a White Mountain ice-cream freezer on one side and a fine
old fire bucket on the other. A four-poster, of apple-wood, with fluted
posts terminating in pineapple tops, the wood in an excellent state of
preservation, was the repository of a half-dozen pictures, three face-
down, while one of the others disclosed itself as a really good copy of
the engraving of Washington and his family. But to the casual observer,
there seemed scarcely a piece of furniture or, in fact, anything which was
sufficiently in repair to survive the journey to my house; furthermore, the
rank and file of articles were of recent date and had no charm for the
collector.
However, the very hopelessness of the quest whetted my appetite, and
to the utter disgust of my family, I spent a good half-hour rummaging
about, not only in the main part of the barn, but also in the stalls, and
even in the hayloft, for the whole building was bulging with what
seemed the cast-off furnishings of the entire Cape.
 The result of my examination was a really fine ship’s lantern which I
found in the loft; a pair of old pewter pepper pots, reclining in an old
soap dish, and a couple of straight-back rush-seated chairs, a trifle
rickety, but with the seats in excellent condition with the original rush
plaiting, which is unmistakable.
For fear of mislaying my selection, I had brought them outside the
barn, and at that moment a lanky, middle-aged farmer drove up in a
buggy and slowly got out.
“Is this Mr. Eldridge?” I asked.
“Thet’s me,” he replied. “Been havin’ a look over the department
store? I ain’t got in my elevators, an’ the outing department [here he
looked at my golfing tweeds] ain’t much to brag about, but I’ve got
’most everything in thar except the town hearse an’ I’m savin’ that for
my mother-in-law.”
By George! I thought, here’s one of the real old-timers, nothing
taciturn about him, and I pointed to the modest selection I had made and
asked him what the price was.
“Well, as to price,” he replied, taking off his hat and meditatively
scratching his head, “that’s the worst of the business. I never just know
what my things are worth. Them chairs came from old widow Crocker’s,
over by Forestdale. She’d never sell ’em till she died, an’ then she
couldn’t help herself an’ her son-in-law cleaned the place out, an’ I got
quite a lot of stuff an’ paid him for the lot. What d’you say to a couple o’
dollars apiece?”
I said, “Yes,” as soberly as I could. I would have given much more.
“As to that lantern, it’s a good ’un and the glass is all right. I shall
have to get at least four dollars.”
“All right,” said I, cheerfully, for I had seen a smaller one in Chatham
go for eight just a few days before. “And how about the pepper pots?”
“Oh, you kin have ’em for—let’s see—’bout seventy-five apiece.”
And I agreed.
“What do you do with all this stuff?” I asked, as he helped me to
dispose of my treasures in an already well-filled car.
“Oh, mostly I sell to the Portugees that come here farmin’ and
cranberryin’. Now an’ then I get some old stuff same as you jest picked
up, but generally it’s the newer kind they like the best. I jest set that there
sign up ’cause I see every durn fellow ’long the road what has a
toothpick or a shavin’ mug to sell puts up a sign, an’ so, says I, guess I’ll
stick up one too.”
And that is the way I became acquainted with Silas Eldridge, dealer in
antiques, who has sold me many a real treasure, but I keep his
whereabouts as secret as possible, for of all the fascinating places for
picking up astonishing bargains on Cape Cod, his old dilapidated barn
offers the most surprises.
 VII
A BLUE STREAK

Slang is both the curse and the delight of the English language, and
that form of slang which our British friends term “Americanisms,” and
which we have now largely adopted as our national mode of
communication, is not confined to the youth of to-day by any means. In
the home, in business, and of course in sport, slang has found its way and
has spread like the weeds in the garden of the over-enthusiastic
commuter. I remember hearing a clergyman of national reputation and
advancing years say a short time ago, after a satisfying excursion of
some sort, that he had “had more fun than a goat,” and I defied him to
elucidate that time-worn phrase to my satisfaction.
The derivations and origins of American idioms and colloquial
expressions are vastly interesting, not only in showing the
resourcefulness of our people in cutting wordy corners and in the
development of a certain form of humor which I do not defend, but in
shedding real light upon the whys and wherefores of our universe down
to its smallest detail. A temperamental curiosity has led me from time to
time to look up certain of the commoner expressions, and I am indebted
to this eccentric hobby for several pleasurable experiences.
 Many years ago—so many in fact that the memory is distasteful—I
went to a horse-race where the winner passed our stand at a pace which
my companion described as “going like a blue streak,” a familiar term
with which I ignorantly agreed at the time. I suppose that since then I
have heard it repeated many hundred times, but it was not until last
summer when my son applied it to a motor-boat passing out of the
harbor, that I thought of inquiring into its origin, and discovered, much to
my surprise, that it applied to the illusive and disconcerting movements
of the ordinary sea crab, often called the “blue claw.”
The discovery piqued my curiosity and I determined forthwith to
investigate the locomotory accomplishments of these retiring animals.
This was not as easy a task as I had expected. The crab is not socially
inclined, and the term “crabbed” is soon apparent. He is only to be found
at low tide, and generally near the mouth of a salty creek where the
bottom is muddy and sparsely covered with seaweed and eelgrass. There
in the late summer and fall he can be seen from canoe or rowboat, if one
is patient and watchful, and the expression to “go like a blue streak” fits
him like a glove.
Having provided myself with a net of the butterfly variety, I
determined to secure a specimen, and began my search among the
creeks, so numerous along the shores of Cape Cod. Although we came
upon quite a number, it took the entire morning to capture four.
When unmolested, these creatures crawl slowly and deliberately about
their business, sluggish in manner and shabbily dark in appearance,
grubbing about on the bottom, now in, now out of the seaweed, but the
instant that danger is threatened, they undergo a transformation. The
claws, from sprawling about on the mud at every angle, are drawn in,
and like a flash—or, far better, “like a blue streak”—the particular crab
that you have selected for capture darts away at an angle that leaves you
helpless with wonder at the suddenness of his departure and at the
blueness of his appearance.
As soon as you have spotted your prey the excitement begins. Armed
with the net, you crawl quietly to the bow of the boat and in whispers
direct the rower, now this way, now that, following the route taken by the
capricious crab. Sometimes the water is deep enough to permit the use of
the oars, at others it is necessary to pole the boat in and out among the
rocks covered by seaweed, your journey always attended by silence and
stealth as if the slightest noise would precipitate in flight this wily
crustacean.
At last when you are within striking distance, the net is plunged in
among the grass and brought up, alas! empty, and the hunt continues as
before.
When, after repeated trials, your patience is rewarded and a fine big
fellow is caught, the greatest care must be taken to prevent him from
crawling out of the net and escaping before he is landed in the boat, for
his activities are ceaseless.
Indeed, even after he is flung deftly into the pail, his savage struggles
may succeed in freeing him from captivity. And so it is only with infinite
caution and patience—qualifications necessary in every game—that you
are able to land your prize, and it is only then that you will find the
explanation of the color quality of his passing. As the crab is taken from
the water, its mud-colored shell appears a dark ultramarine blue, the
claws of a lighter shade, the under part shading to white tinged with
pink; its entire surface seems metallic in the intensity of its coloring as it
leaves the water. From a slow, lazy animal of peaceful habits, the crab
has become a veritable monster, savage and fiercely aggressive, and woe
to the unfortunate within reach of his claws.
His capture is a real experience and a distinctly sporting event. So
interesting and mysterious is the search, so active and adventurous the
pursuit, and so exciting and satisfying the actual catch, that one is
tempted to place crabbing among the big events of a summer at the
seashore.
I know a college professor who annually devotes the better part of his
vacation to this pastime, and several of my athletic friends, whose
prowess on the football field was a matter of international comment in
the papers, confess to the delights of a crab hunt; but it is a surprising
fact, nevertheless, that the majority of those who visit the seacoast each
year have never even heard of the extraordinary fascination of hunting
the originator of the “blue streak.”
 VIII
A FRESH-WATER CAPE

To the majority of people Cape Cod spells sea breezes, a tang of salt in
the air, scrub oaks, tall pines, stretches of sand, and a large appetite. To
the few who know the Cape from more intimate acquaintance there is
added to this picture a swelling country densely wooded in sections and
spotted with ponds. It is a source of never-ending wonder how these
ponds exist in a country where the soil is so porous that a few minutes
after a shower there is no trace of the rain. In almost every instance they
are fed from springs beneath the surface, and the solution has been
offered and quite generally believed that much of this fresh water flows
in subterranean channels having their source far distant in the White
Mountains.
So plentiful is the supply that wells and pipes, driven a few feet into
the soil at almost any spot, furnish clear, pure water in ample supply for
household needs. A more remarkable fact is that at low tide in many of
the harbors and inlets fresh water can be found between the high and low
stretches, oozing through the salty surface of sand and mud. And so the
Cape, for all its salt qualities, has fresh water in profusion and ponds
without number. In Plymouth County alone there are 365 ponds, many of
them of substantial size, while the lower Cape is almost equally well
provided.
A generation ago, many of the residents of Plymouth passed their
summers on the largest of these—Long Pond. Having the salt breezes
most of the year they wisely sought a change to inland waters.
Last year I met a gentleman fishing in Wakeby Pond—made famous
by Cleveland and Joe Jefferson—who told me he came on from Chicago
every year to pass a month bass fishing. He was probably ten miles from
the coast, and might have been a hundred for all the good it did him; but
on the other hand, why not a pond on the Cape as well as a Rangeley
Lake in Maine? The life is much the same—the air refreshing and the
scenery delightful.
These larger ponds are fully as large as many of the Maine lakes. Long
Pond at Plymouth is said to be ten miles long, and I have seen the water
at Great Herring Pond as rough as one would care to have it when
canoeing.
To be sure the fishing is not perhaps so very exciting—few trout,
except in the occasional streams which have been stocked, but land-
locked salmon, perch, and pickerel to be had with a little patience, and a
shrimp or so. The real pleasure which these ponds offer is the surprise
and delight of coming upon them as one does frequently and quickly
while motoring through the less-frequented roads. From Plymouth down
the Cape through Sandwich nearly every road and by-path leads to some
picturesque little sheet of water often closely wooded to its shores and
without a sign of habitation.
From Wareham or Cotuit, from Pocasset or Falmouth, from Hyannis
or Chatham—in short, from nearly every one of the many Cape towns, a
ride of fifteen or twenty minutes will take one to a pond which might as
well be fifty miles from any center of human activity. One rarely meets
other adventurers upon such trips, and the silence and peace which reign
form excellent foils to the summer life so near at hand.
Those who are wise in Cape ways possess small canoes mounted upon
two wheels, which are fastened on behind their cars, so that, when
touring the ponds, they are not limited in their fishing to the shore or to
the chance of finding a boat.
There are a number of gentlemen who have built small camps upon
certain of these secluded spots for casual excursions and for spring and
fall use. They are wise. By leaving Boston at noon they can always be in
camp by sundown ready to enjoy a full Sunday, while the mighty
fisherman who depends entirely upon the Maine lakes or the more
remote places must plan a week’s vacation, with the chance of better
sport, to be sure, but no better life, for the life of a sportsman in the open
is much the same. The great outdoors is universal in its appeal to the
sane-minded and healthy-bodied.
I have experienced as much heat and poorer fishing in Nova Scotia
during July as I have on our ponds of the Cape, and in addition I have
noticed more mosquitoes and midges to the cubic inch in Canada than on
these same ponds; but of that perhaps the less said the better.
I have in mind a little excursion which illustrates these extremes of
Cape life, and it is but one of many. In early July, when the children,
freed from school restraint, were on the rampage, and our cottage was
bearing the brunt of an onslaught of youthful visitors, each of our
neighbors having one or two boys and girls as guests for their children,
life seemed to me an unending series of activities coupled with ceaseless
slang. In fact, I was “fed up” with it all, so that when my classmate and
old friend R⸺⸺ telephoned to say that he was going up to the pond for
a day or so, I clung to the receiver in my joy to escape.
The preparations for such a trip are simple—a blanket, a change of
clothing, a toothbrush, no razor, food enough to fill a small basket, and—
yes, I suppose it must be confessed—a bottle.
My fishing tackle is always ready. The bait, however, is more difficult
to secure. With net and pail I hastened to the creek which enters the
harbor near our cottage, and, it being fortunately low tide, I was able, in
the twenty minutes left before R⸺⸺’s arrival, to secure a fair supply of
shrimp. That was all there was to it. We were off well within an hour
from the time of his message, and well within another hour we had
arrived at his little shack perched high above the shore of one of the
loveliest ponds on the Cape, and were settled for the night.
The camp was well stocked with wood and simply furnished with
camp beds, the ordinary cooking-utensils, and such comforts as may be
gathered about a broad hearth and a roaring fire.
Outside, the wind had died down and not a ripple disturbed the
mirrored surface of the water, which reflected the delicate outline of
cedar, pine, and oak, a lacy filament which shielded the setting sun from
the already silvered reflection of the half-moon.
“A perfect time of a perfect day, in a well-nigh perfect spot,” I said, by
way of expressing the joy of my escape.
“Such a burst of eloquence demands a toast,” remarked my friend.
So we forthwith resorted to the aforesaid bottle, and then turned to and
prepared supper—the inevitable scrambled eggs, deviled ham, bread and
marmalade, and coffee.
“To think of that howling mob at home only twenty minutes away,” I
mused, puffing contentedly at my pipe and reveling in the silence.
“To think of what a motor will do!” replied my friend, who was not
unaware of my opinion of cars.
I muttered something incoherently, and squirmed a bit at the thought
of some of my notions.
The next morning we were up with the sun, and after a hasty bite, put
our canoe into the water and set about our main task.
We were both fairly familiar with the haunts of the wily bass. In
summer they lie close to the bottom, the laziest of fellows, sucking in the
bait, if they notice it at all, in a dreamy fashion, but, once hooked, they
show their mettle, and so, when I finally felt a slight strain on my line, I
held back until I was sure of my fish. Yes, I had him, and a good big one
at that.
There is little or no casting in midsummer, so that I had brought a
stouter trolling-rod, and it was just as well. I played that fellow for ten
minutes, and when R⸺⸺ finally netted him for me, we sat and looked at
each other speechless.
“By gad, he’s a five-pounder!” said my friend excitedly.
“Hum—about four and three quarters,” I replied in a matter-of-fact
tone to cover my excitement.
We caught twelve that morning, several weighing two pounds or more,
—splendid fishing, the best we had ever had on the pond.
When we reached the camp and weighed my prize, he tipped the
scales at five and three ounces—a record fish.
 Late in the afternoon the clouds began to gather and the wind turned
northeast, so we decided to run for cover.
I was at home in time for dinner, and found the spell broken. It was I
who did the talking, an amazing amount of it, while the youngsters sat
open-mouthed when my bass was brought onto the table in a platter all to
himself, garnished by our cook, who, so says my wife, is proud of my
ability as a provider.
What more versatile land of summer, then, can one imagine than the
seashore with an almost permanent breeze, with a chain of inland ponds
remote and wild in character almost at one’s back door, motorively
speaking?
If variety is truly the spice of life, what better seasoned offering has
any locality to show than Cape Cod?
 IX
AL FRESCO

Before you pass judgment upon any man or woman of your

acquaintance, ask him or her to a picnic. Then if you are not ready to
form a decision, they will probably have made up their minds about you.
A picnic, so the Dictionary has it, is an entertainment in a grove, an
ominous and hazardous place at best for a good time, and one to be
avoided except by sentimental couples, and therefore the Dictionary may
be considered narrow-minded in naming the locality. Furthermore, its
advice is rarely followed in these days, and the picnics which I prefer,
and they are countless, are held upon the seashore and, for the most part,
in the sea itself.
There is a white, sandy beach of a mile or more, banked by great sand-
dunes and bordering a section of Buzzard’s Bay which is comparatively
unknown, where there are no houses, not even bath-houses, and where
the delighted squeal of the noisy girl or the guffaw of the blatant youth is
rarely heard. It is here that we frequently gather with a few good friends
upon pleasant warm days, for an impromptu meal al fresco, preceded by
a joyous bath in water as clear as crystal, warm and yet with a spiciness
that clears the head from all drowsiness and whets the appetite to a keen
edge.
There are problems to every picnic. The conventions of life grip hard,
and yet it is curious and sometimes amusing to see how thin the veneer
really is when the primitive necessities of a picnic are faced.
The sand-dunes are conveniently rolling, every now and then dipping
into bowl-like formations, and in these sequestered or semi-sequestered
nooks we don our bathing-suits and sally forth to the sea. One of our
friends, a man somewhat particular as to his appearance and the soul of
modesty, was directed to the appointed place, but his love for the view
led him up the slope, so that, innocently turning our gaze shoreward, the
feminine portion of our gathering was considerably disconcerted to see
the apostle of Beau Brummel in nature’s garb innocently viewing the
horizon and giving little heed to his natty bathing-suit, a black and
orange affair with immaculate white belt which lay at his feet.
The women, too, those who but a few moments before would have
tried in every way to conceal a hole in their stockings, were glad to
borrow bathing-dresses of any reasonable style if by chance they had
forgotten to pack their own, and stockings seemed of no importance.
To line up twenty or more on the beach and rush for a plunge, to breast
the billows or to grope amid the sands for sea clams, to race along the
beach for the sheer joy of life, is the glad part of what I call a picnic. And
then the food! No meal which must be coaxed along by a cocktail or
other appetizer, to prepare the way for course after course of indigestible
concoctions planned by fertile-minded chefs, but honest beef and
chicken and ham sandwiches, delicately prepared and tastefully
arranged. Sandwiches of lettuce and cheese and paprika; sandwiches
with sardines, with olives; graham sandwiches with a thin layer of
marmalade or guava intended for the children, but partaken of by all.
And stuffed eggs, the variety only to be found at a picnic and eaten in
two gulps, the one place where such table manners are tolerated.
And it is on picnics that the thermos bottle is most thoroughly
appreciated. The miracle of hot bouillon, hot coffee, iced tea, and a
variety of beverages, suitably chilled or heated, seems ever to be a source
of fresh surprise and pleasure.
Toward autumn, the picnics offer a new variety, for the children thrill
at the expectation of cooking their own dinner. The joys of a bonfire, the
excitement of burying potatoes, corn, and clams in seaweed, the frying of
ham and eggs, and the occasional treat of flapjacks when one of our
nautical friends happens to be of our number. These are but a few of the
pleasures of a picnic such as one encounters on the shores of Buzzard’s
Bay in August and September.
It must be admitted that there are certain drawbacks which seem
serious to the individual of fixed habits, tender feet, and uncertain
digestion. There is, for example, the beautiful white sand, glistening in
the sun, smooth as a billiard table and fine as powder. It must be
admitted that after the bath one is conscious of the pervading quality of
its particles. It is in one’s hair, one’s shoes, and often elsewhere about the
person. It is discovered invading the aforesaid sandwiches, which seem
well named at such times. A brisk wind slaps it into your eye or your
mouth in disconcerting fashion, and you become aware of its grating
presence. Then, again, there are clouds upon the horizon. To those who
are seriously affected by the sand, these clouds look ominous. They may
forebode a storm and a wetting. A certain clamminess of hands and feet,
occasioned by the bath, remind one that a change in the weather precedes
a cold in the head. These feelings mark the man of creature comforts and
he fails to join in the part-singing which comes after the hearty meal,
when pipes are lighted and the entire gathering stretch themselves upon
the sands for a lazy half-hour before the inevitable cleaning-up process
begins. This same individual declines to tell his best story, and should a
ball game be suggested, he will be found callous to all coaxing. He has
enough sand in his shoes as it is, or he has eaten too much for exercising,
or possibly the clouds on the horizon lower more formidably.
Yes, a picnic discloses the strength and weakness of character which
mark our friends, and yet, after all, it does more, for it brings out the best
in most of us, and few, even of our habitually conventional friends, fail
to respond to the delights of a seashore picnic or lack in the essential
philosophy of an outdoor, care-free existence.
 X
MODELS

Long before the Old Colony Railroad thought of running a line to

Cape Cod—although that in itself was not so very long ago, well within
the memory of man—there was one charm of the Cape which is fast
vanishing and entirely unknown to the casual visitor and unappreciated
by the perennial summer residents. In those days there was a host of
rugged, sturdy men, intelligent, courageous, upright, and keen-minded.
They were the Cape captains, the men who grew up among the sand-
dunes, to the rote of the sea. The men who carried the good name of
Cape Cod to the ends of the earth and who brought back with them the
fortunes which made the little towns, dotted here and there along the
shore, havens of comfort and rest.
Such men could tell stories which would vie with those of Conrad and
Stevenson, but for the most part their deeds go unrecorded except in their
ships’ logs, for they were a simple, reserved company. Of this epoch
there remains but one relic which is sought after by the present
generation, and it savors of the antique. In fact, it is the antiquarian rather
than the adventurer who ransacks the Cape at present for ships’ models.
 In those early days there were months at a time when the ship’s
company were idle, and it grew to be a custom for those clever with their
hands to fashion models of the schooners in which they sailed or of
seacraft notable for beauty of line or complexity of rig.
Many an old sea captain would pass his idle moments in fashioning
these miniature boats, and many members of the ships’ crews became
adept at the hobby, for a knowledge of tools was almost an essential for
every man on the Cape, where the trades of carpenter, painter, and
plumber were generally performed by the householder. Furthermore, a
sailor would infinitely prefer to whittle out a model than to swab down
the deck, and frequently a clever mechanic would be relieved by his
captain from this menial work, if he devoted his time to the perfection of
a model which was destined for the mantel of the captain’s best parlor.
Therefore, in the old days, there was scarcely a Cape family of
saltwater ancestry which did not boast of at least one model and often
more, the trademark of an honorable and hazardous occupation and a
relic of former days of plenty when the Cape was peopled only by the
native Cape-Codders and before steam took from them the vocation to
which they were reared.
To-day the captain of a full-rigged ship is as hard to find as the vessel
herself, and the Cape exists upon the summer residents and upon the less
productive occupation of fishing, which is largely in the hands of the
Portuguese, who have come in droves to settle upon our land of
Bartholomew Gosnold and his company of adventurers. And so the
interest in ships and in tales of the sea has disappeared along with those
who upheld the trade; and the models, familiar sights to the descendants,
have been relegated to the attic or have been sold as curiosities to the
ubiquitous dealers in antiques, who persistently come to the Cape for old
furniture, pewter, china—anything, in fact, which can be palmed off on
that voracious type of collector, the lover of antiques.
During the last few years, for some reason or other, these models have
become very popular. Just why it is not easy to explain. It is true that
they typify a lost trade which was full of adventure. It is also true that
they are decorative, many of them, but that hardly explains the ravenous
appetite which many collectors of antiques have recently developed to
obtain a genuine model. Dealers have secured agents in every town on
the Cape who are ransacking their neighborhoods for models, half-
models, pictures of boats made in bas-reliefs, weather vanes in the shape
of ships, and the prices are increasing by leaps and bounds. In fact, so
popular has this fad become that ex-sailors and carpenters with some
slight acquaintance with the sea are now developing quite a business in
fashioning models of special designs or of former famous ships. A few
years ago the model of a schooner about two feet in length fully rigged
would bring in the neighborhood of twenty-five dollars; to-day the same
model could not be secured for less than one hundred dollars. Often the
smaller, more exquisitely made specimens will bring more. The
descendants of the old captains have lost any sentimental regard for these
relics and gladly part with them for a comparatively small sum, but only
to the patient and skillful, who know Cape ways and Cape people, and so
it is almost impossible for the tourist to secure a model except from a
dealer.
Should the casual summer visitor attempt to bargain with his native
Cape neighbor, he would find him a wily bird, suspicious of being
imposed upon and as likely as not to put an absurd valuation upon his
possession; and yet that same Cape neighbor might part with the model
the next day to a total stranger for a smaller sum, for such is the nature of
the denizen of the Cape. This contrary-mindedness and disinclination to
do a favor is not unusual, but as against this trait, he will be found to be a
genial host and a kindly acquaintance often generous beyond his means.
And so to-day we witness the passing of the models, last relic of the
olden days, the golden days of Cape Cod, from those tiny Cape cottages
built by these same sturdy sea captains to the comfortable mansions of
the summer people whose knowledge of the sea is secured in July and
August by an occasional dip, a sail in a knockabout, and a glimpse of a
glorious sunset over the shining waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
 XI
“A WET SHEET AND A FLOWING SEA”

In my youthful days I often wondered at the regularity with which

elderly people would go out to drive day after day, sitting in the same
seat in the same carriage, behind the same horses, driven by the same
coachman along the same roads. It seemed to me a lamentable waste of
time. And now I have more or less (less as the years advance) the same
feeling toward those couples whose chief relaxation is a spin along the
state roads of their district in a well-appointed limousine, for I belong to
that class of motorists who use their cars purely for convenience and
prefer the fresh-air variety.
Yet, when it comes to sailing, for some reason which I am at a loss to
explain, my views are diametrically opposite. I am content to clamber
into my knockabout and to perform the routine labor of pumping “her”
out, unfurling and hoisting the sail, and casting off, then to cruise lazily
about our harbor, sailing over the same course day in and day out with
little variation, and to do this either alone or with a kindred spirit as the
case may be.
To many these cases may seem parallel, but to me they are widely
variant. There is a formality to a drive or a motor ride which starts with
the costume worn and ends with the character of conversation.
On a boat—and I am speaking entirely of small boats—the costume is
of a heterogeneous variety and the conversation of the freest. In fact,
there is something so thoroughly unconventional about life on the water
that even the stiffest of Brahminian Bostonians may occasionally be
heard to indulge in slang and to assume a rakish attitude, perched upon
deck.
But such criticism, or rather comparison, is highly superficial. There is
more to it than external appearance; for sailing brings out the best in
human nature, encourages philosophy, develops independence of thought
and act, and largely so because those who sail shed their coating of
reserve and allow their natural feelings fair play. There is no quicker way
to know and size up one’s friends than to go on a cruise for a few days.
There is no better way of enjoying and extending one’s friendships with
both sexes than spending a few afternoons sailing together, skirting along
the shore with a fair breeze, nor is there any quicker way of learning the
weaknesses of certain individuals than by observing their conduct under
perhaps less peaceful conditions at sea. For the best of skippers cannot
predict weather conditions, and there are times when wind and storm will
come upon one with surprising quickness.
Here in New England, the sailing fraternity may be divided into those
who prefer the Maine coast and those who cling to the Cape and
Buzzard’s Bay. As one of the latter class, I always claim our supremacy
by stating two points which I believe to be true: first, that we have more
wind, and second, that we have less fog. To me this is convincing. The
southwest wind which cools the Cape, blows nearly every day in summer
and with a strength that often requires reefing. Rarely between ten in the
morning and five at night will the mariner find himself becalmed in
Buzzard’s Bay. In fact, the stranger is generally amazed to see girls and
young boys sailing without the presence of an older person, in what
looks to him a three-reef breeze.
They have been brought up to it and realize that vigilance must always
be exercised on the water, and they know the qualities of their boat and
the power of the wind. I know of no better training for youngsters who
are proficient in swimming than to learn to sail and race their own little
boats. The development of a power of observation, accurate judgment,
prompt action, and steady nerve comes more quickly with the handling
of a boat than in any other way for those who lead our kind of life.
 Sailing is confined to boats, but boats are not by any means confined
to sailing, for latterly there are almost as many motor-boats to be found
chugging along the shores of the Cape as there are sailboats, although I
personally always pity the groups in the stern of one of these modern
affairs which makes its noisy passage leaving an odorous wake of oil and
smoke. But doubtless I am extreme in my views and old-fashioned in my
taste.
Give me a knockabout—a fifteen-footer for real comfort for a daily
sail, a stiff member of the twenty-one-foot class for cruising along shore.
Give me a comfortable catboat, broad of beam, for a family boat or for a
day’s fishing, or let me idle about in one of our little twelve-foot
Herreshoff class with my small son. In any one of them I shall find the
same sense of freedom, the same sort of pleasure, and the same love for
the salt sea, and from each I shall look at the windy, sandy shores of the
Cape with the same loyal affection.
 XII
MY CAPE FARM

If I have thought of it at all, I have thought of myself as a sociable

cuss. Not that I like sociables; I hate them, and that is probably why they
have gone out of fashion. What to my mind defines sociability is the
quality of enjoying and giving enjoyment to others, singly, in pairs, or in
groups; and in present days sociability is generally put to the test either
at dinners or at week-end parties, for these are the principal points of
contact between friends.
Latterly, however, my social bent has been somewhat warped by the
growing desire on the part of my friends to boast of their success as
producers of food. Whether it be premature senility, the result of
conservation, or merely the acquisition of wealth, which is being rapidly
returned to its own through the purchase of land and the ingenuity of
gardeners, it is a fact that at dinners of the cut-and-dried variety or a
family gathering, or, more especially, over a week-end, my host
invariably calls attention to the asparagus with a modest cough as
prelude, or my hostess mentions the number of eggs the farmer brought
in yesterday to be put down in water-glass. Sometimes it is not
asparagus, but peas, or corn, or perhaps a chicken, or even a ham. This
the host. His wife more generally dilates upon the milk products and the
preserving end of the bill of fare; but, for whatever cause, the thing got a
bit on my nerves, so that I found myself thinking of reasons for not
visiting So-and-So or for not dining with the Thing-um-Bobs on Friday
week, when I knew we hadn’t a thing on earth to do.
This frame of mind was, of course, all wrong. In the first place, these
friends were as good and as loyal as they were ten years ago, when, if
they had any garden at all, it consisted of a half-dozen radishes that no
one could eat without summoning a physician within four hours.
Furthermore, the aforesaid asparagus, with its accompaniments, was
better than the ordinary variety which has decorated the entrance to the
greengrocer’s establishment for the better part of a week. And lastly, as I
had no garden myself, why not enjoy the best and be thankful?
Probably the reason was envy and the season spring, when, contrary to
budding nature, one’s own physical being is not as blooming as it should
be.
Be this as it may, the final result has probably made me more of a bore
to my friends than they ever were to me, for to get even with them I
conceived the happy idea of catering to their epicurean tastes from my
own farm, which consisted of a scant two acres of shore line in that
section of Cape Cod which is renowned for its scarcity of soil.
The idea came to me soon after we had moved down for the summer
months, and my wife became so enthusiastic that it really became our
hobby for the season. We had planned for a succession of week-ends,
and many of these agricultural intimates were coming to us for return
visits. We would feed them upon the fat of our land or in this case largely
the fat of the sea.
It is interesting and instructive to learn just what varieties of food can
be secured from the immediate vicinity of any place, and to me
especially so of our Cape Cod.
During the entire summer I felt so personal an interest in our section
of the country that my small son exclaimed one day that I talked as if I
owned the entire Cape. I know I felt a proprietary interest in certain
fishing grounds, the whereabouts of which I would not confess even on
the rack. And it amuses me now to think of the circuitous routes I used in
getting to certain berry patches and stretches where mushrooms grew
overnight. In variety our dinners, or high teas (as we always called
them), were infinite as compared with those of our asparagus associates.
I remember one little repast which pleased me mightily, because it
came at the end of one of those hot days—they are rare on the Cape—
when the wind refused to blow from the southwest. We had had our
swim, but even golf was a bit too strenuous and food does not have its
usual appeal on such occasions even on the Cape. It also happened that
our friends of this particular week-end were literally congested with land
and its more generous offerings, and so when I practiced the usual
humiliatory cough and remarked that our simple repast came from my
Cape farm and they must excuse its simplicity, I was just a trifle nervous.
The melons were a gift from my plumber, a curious combination. If
only the plumber could plumb as well as he grows melons upon his
barren sandpile, our summer comfort would be increased by fifty per
cent. No better melons can be found than these little fellows. The clam-
broth, from my own clam-bed, was an appetizer. I seriously believe that
there is real energizing value in such clam-broth as this, boiled down
almost to a liqueur from newly dug clams. Then came scallops plucked
that day from the seaweed, where they lie at low tide blowing like
miniature whales. We all know how delicious they are in the autumn
served with tartare sauce, but have you ever tasted them creamed with a
dash of brown sherry and served with fresh mushrooms?
Just as the plumber supplies us with melons, so the fishman is the
local authority on lettuce. Our salad, therefore, came from Captain
Barwick, crisp and white with slices of early pears from a near-by tree,
and with it my favorite muffins of coarse, white cornmeal toasted, thin,
and eaten with beach-plum jam made from our own bushes in the
bramble patch close by the lane, and cottage cheese which our cook
positively enjoys making.
My wife had felt this to be a rather scant repast for those used to
dinners of six or eight courses, and so the dessert was a substantial
huckleberry pudding served cold from the ice-chest with whipped cream,
and to take the chill off we had a small glass of my home-made wild-
cherry brandy with our coffee; and while there are other beverages which
are preferable I confess it gave us a delightfully comforting sensation.
The hearty, genuine praise from my guests gave me a fleeting feeling
of shame at the way I had criticized their asparagus and numberless eggs,
but the pride of success carried me with it.
 “Oh, this is not anything; wait until to-morrow and let me show you
the varieties which my farm offers. In the catboat, I have a well in which
we keep fish alive. What say you to a butterfish for breakfast? For dinner
we can either go out to the fishing grounds for something with a real pull
to it, or we can motor over to Turtle Pond for a try at a bass, or we can
golf and take a couple of lobsters out of my pots bobbing up and down
out there by the point.”
“Hold on,” my friend interjected. “What I want to know is whether
every one on the Cape lives in this way, for if they do I think I shall be
moving down here by another season.”
“No,” I replied, “very few. In the first place, most people continue to
do just what their neighbors do—tennis, golf, swimming, sailing. The
fishing is poor unless you know where to go. The natives are not helpful
unless you know how to take them, and that is why I call it all my farm,
because I have taken it all unto myself and I reap a reward much richer
than I deserve.
“I pass much of my time hunting up new fishing grounds or the lair of
the soft-shell crab, or even the quiet, muddy recesses of the ‘little necks.’
I wander about the country exploring new berry patches, for there is a
great variety of these. And if you must know, I fraternize with certain
delightfully conversational individuals who sell me delicious fruit and
vegetables as well as ducks and chickens and a variety of odds and ends,
as, for instance, that little model over there. But you could not buy them.
No, sir, not until you learned the art of negotiation to perfection. You
may manage your estates to the Queen’s taste, but when it comes to
managing a Cape-Codder, ah, that’s not done so easily.”
I see my friends leading the conventional summer life and wonder at
times how they can come to the Cape year after year and yet be strangers
to its real fascination, because it has many other hidden allurements
besides this quest for food.
 XIII
SCALLOPS

Sport, according to our highest authorities, is “that which diverts and

makes mirth,” and from this general interpretation the term has been
applied to games, and to the various forms of hunting and fishing
commonly known, but I have yet to hear the word applied to the pursuit
of the scallop. And yet, scalloping more nearly approaches the original
meaning of sport than most of the games which are commonly classed
under this heading, for not only does the scallop divert and provoke the
mirth of his pursuer, but the pursuer in turn evokes a similar feeling and
impression upon those who chance to see him in action. Those who have
never tasted the joys and excitement of a scallop hunt have not
completed their education as real sportsmen. It is true that Badminton
does not devote a volume to this particular pastime; it is equally true that
the progressive American journalist, whose duty it is to supply the
sporting columns of his paper with all the news of current athletic events,
invariably ignores this important item, and our mighty Nimrods fail to
include scalloping among their feats of prowess; but in each case the
cause of the omission invariably can be traced to ignorance, and to the
fact that your scallop-hunter is a wary fellow who says but little and
boasts less, fearing inadvertently to disclose the favored haunts of his