In Rugged Country of Pigeon Cove - April 7, 1964,

The wife and I and our four-legged brown bomber sallied forth on the first Sunday in April for a stroll through the scrubby hills of Pigeon Cove, the backlands of the Cape. Hillside Road was the starting point. No sooner had Molly the boxer waddled out of the four-door than up bellowed a chain reaction of yowls and growls that echoed and re-echoed through the hills, warning our little innocent that this was not her kingdom and she'd better mind her p's and q's.

On with the leash and up the road we saw a house with a mess of lobster pots, old and new, piled in the yard and a basketball hoop fastened to a gnarled old tree beside a pot-bellied stove that is bound to be due for a church auction sale sooner or later. We soon realized that it took courage to build in this corner of the Cape. Scrub and brush and woodland crowd home sites. Right in a front yard was a boulder that even the grand glacier couldn't stomach, a boulder that weighed more than the sins of the world after sunset.

Yips and yaps materialized in the shape of a mammoth mutt--but mighty good looking! Whoever she or he was, it had plenty of pounds on our 65-pounder. Its bark was soul reaching, but it was secured fore and aft, and though our sweet young thing almost chewed through the leather of her strap, her restrainer held as did our lady bird's control. We sauntered aristocratically though fearsomely past.

Within our gaze was a fanciful contrast of a decaying car nearby a nostalgic sleigh of yesteryear. It became a walk between contrasting generations. Bringing us back to the day that it was the site of a row of homes on Pigeon Hill Street, running parallel to this backwoods road.

For the auto-graveled road on which we started had settled down to a dirt path, hillbound amid brush and brier dotted by abandoned small quarry pits. Pits that could be much more picturesque and alluring if they weren't used for public dumps for empty tomato cans, peach cans, and other rubbish too filthy to mention. Not all the pits were so abused along the way, but too many for our walking pleasure.

As we climbed higher, a look back over our shoulders captured for us what must be one of the big attractions for those whose courage brings them to carve out their homes from this rugged terrain. The broad rich deep blue of the Atlantic could be clearly viewed from the brow of this hill, a view that cannot be surpassed in the whole wide world.

And for Molly we had reached the piece de resistance. For here in comparative solitude we could off with the leash and let her snout the ground and the frozen little pools all she wanted. We did so before we realized that off to starboard was a splendid looking tethered horse. Our Molly has always had a penchant for baiting 'orse's 'ooves, but her attention was given to a mammoth bushy tailed pussy-cat that gave our four-legged baby a run that left her breathing hard. That gal will never learn.

We took a turn that gave us conniption fits fearing we'd spend the night on dreary Dogtown, living on gooseberries, trying to find our way back to God's country. But again the little woman was right direction-wise; we came out to Joe DeGagne's back yard and Pigeon Hill Street.

It was a typical splendid walk of a Sunday. Why not try it, folks?

J.PP.C., Jr.