shutters or pump their cesspools. But it was the natives who were the aristocrats, because they had been there since the beginning.
Names like Nickerson, Doane, Crosby, Snow, Sears, Eldredge, Cahoon, Bigelow, and Hilyard appeared on businesses all along Routes 6A and 28. For three centuries they had been appearing on fishing boats, masters’ logs, cranberry boxes, saltworks, salvage vessels, the rosters of the U.S. Lifesaving Service, and before anything else, on primitive purchase and sale agreements signed with the Indians.
In most Cape families, there had been Tories and Whigs, solid citizens and scoundrels, empire builders and clam diggers, geniuses and inbreds, and they had formed an aristocracy of strong backs and stiff spines, because nothing came easy on a peninsula surrounded by the sea. It was still said among the Bigelows who ran a Hyannis service station that while the Kennedys had the compound, the Bigelows had the history.
They were not close-knit clans. There were simply too many of them, and after three and a half centuries, some branches were so far apart they had nothing in common beyond their intertwined names. The Bigelows of Bourne barely knew the Dickersons who fished out of Provincetown, or the Bigelow who kept law offices in Boston and Barnstable. But they all knew Dickerson Bigelow, because he made it his business to know all of them. And he invited all of them for the glorious Fourth.
His house had been built in the 1840s, when American architects were looking to classical forms for inspiration and American shipbuilders were creating classical forms of their own. A forebear had invested a sea-made fortune in Shiverick & Sons Shipwrights, then built a Greek Revival house overlooking the harbor where the Shivericks built their clippers. The shipyard was gone, but the house still stood, monument to the same Greek ideal of beauty through efficiency embodied in the clippers.
Geoff thought that way about things. It was the way architects thought.
He liked the library best of all the rooms. The ancient Oriental gave it a sense of history. The books mellowed it, though Dickerson seldom read anything beyond the real estate section. And the artwork reminded Geoff that he was not the first of his family to mix with the Bigelows.
While he waited to hear Dickerson’s proposal, he sipped a beer and studied the painting above the fireplace. Reading the Compact had been painted by Geoff’s great-great-uncle Thomas Hilyard in 1895 and purchased by State Senator Charles Bigelow, Dickerson’s grandfather.
Americans had been taught that the creation of the Mayflower Compact was one of the pivotal events in the history of democracy, and artists usually poured the golden paint all over the ship. Tom Hilyard had painted a day so shrouded in mist you could almost smell the damp wool on the dark and brooding figures. The only splash of color was the red quill that Ezra Bigelow offered to Jack Hilyard, and for ninety-five years, people had been arguing over that: was Jack raising his hand to take the quill or to ward Bigelow away?
“That painting proves that our families have been cooperating since the Mayflower.” Douglas Bigelow ambled in wearing his white trousers and green golf shirt.
“If you believe that,” answered Geoff, “you’ve never looked at the painting.”
Douglas slipped the bottle of beer from Geoff’s hand, took a sip, then handed it back to him. “It shows a Bigelow and a Hilyard making history.”
Geoff wiped the mouth of the bottle and drained the beer. He liked Douglas, who was as tall as his father, not nearly as broad-beamed, and far more subtle, except in the choice of his second wife, she of the short skirts, long legs, and gold jewelry heavy enough to bench press.
“How’s your golf game?” asked Geoff.
“Long drives, accurate irons, putts like pool shots. How’s my sister?”
“Glad to be here for the glorious Fourth—”
“And ready to go back to Boston next
Names like Nickerson, Doane, Crosby, Snow, Sears, Eldredge, Cahoon, Bigelow, and Hilyard appeared on businesses all along Routes 6A and 28. For three centuries they had been appearing on fishing boats, masters’ logs, cranberry boxes, saltworks, salvage vessels, the rosters of the U.S. Lifesaving Service, and before anything else, on primitive purchase and sale agreements signed with the Indians.
In most Cape families, there had been Tories and Whigs, solid citizens and scoundrels, empire builders and clam diggers, geniuses and inbreds, and they had formed an aristocracy of strong backs and stiff spines, because nothing came easy on a peninsula surrounded by the sea. It was still said among the Bigelows who ran a Hyannis service station that while the Kennedys had the compound, the Bigelows had the history.
They were not close-knit clans. There were simply too many of them, and after three and a half centuries, some branches were so far apart they had nothing in common beyond their intertwined names. The Bigelows of Bourne barely knew the Dickersons who fished out of Provincetown, or the Bigelow who kept law offices in Boston and Barnstable. But they all knew Dickerson Bigelow, because he made it his business to know all of them. And he invited all of them for the glorious Fourth.
His house had been built in the 1840s, when American architects were looking to classical forms for inspiration and American shipbuilders were creating classical forms of their own. A forebear had invested a sea-made fortune in Shiverick & Sons Shipwrights, then built a Greek Revival house overlooking the harbor where the Shivericks built their clippers. The shipyard was gone, but the house still stood, monument to the same Greek ideal of beauty through efficiency embodied in the clippers.
Geoff thought that way about things. It was the way architects thought.
He liked the library best of all the rooms. The ancient Oriental gave it a sense of history. The books mellowed it, though Dickerson seldom read anything beyond the real estate section. And the artwork reminded Geoff that he was not the first of his family to mix with the Bigelows.
While he waited to hear Dickerson’s proposal, he sipped a beer and studied the painting above the fireplace. Reading the Compact had been painted by Geoff’s great-great-uncle Thomas Hilyard in 1895 and purchased by State Senator Charles Bigelow, Dickerson’s grandfather.
Americans had been taught that the creation of the Mayflower Compact was one of the pivotal events in the history of democracy, and artists usually poured the golden paint all over the ship. Tom Hilyard had painted a day so shrouded in mist you could almost smell the damp wool on the dark and brooding figures. The only splash of color was the red quill that Ezra Bigelow offered to Jack Hilyard, and for ninety-five years, people had been arguing over that: was Jack raising his hand to take the quill or to ward Bigelow away?
“That painting proves that our families have been cooperating since the Mayflower.” Douglas Bigelow ambled in wearing his white trousers and green golf shirt.
“If you believe that,” answered Geoff, “you’ve never looked at the painting.”
Douglas slipped the bottle of beer from Geoff’s hand, took a sip, then handed it back to him. “It shows a Bigelow and a Hilyard making history.”
Geoff wiped the mouth of the bottle and drained the beer. He liked Douglas, who was as tall as his father, not nearly as broad-beamed, and far more subtle, except in the choice of his second wife, she of the short skirts, long legs, and gold jewelry heavy enough to bench press.
“How’s your golf game?” asked Geoff.
“Long drives, accurate irons, putts like pool shots. How’s my sister?”
“Glad to be here for the glorious Fourth—”
“And ready to go back to Boston next
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