The Avenues of Pigeon Cove

For a long time, the wife had been hearing about "The Avenues" of Pigeon Cove. She wanted to stroll them of a Sunday with me. It promised to be a quiet pastoral and easy walk that wouldn't keep us afoot for more than an hour so we'be home in time see the Number One Son off for his winter stay in Cambridge nearer to his office.

If the truth was known, we'd have preferred our WPA project of leaf-raking and burning, and said as much to neighbor Bruni over the fence. But when the missus speaks, the tenth of an acre of ours has to go unprunned. As usual we cheated by bussing it to the outskirts of Haven Avenue.

That avenue is lined with oaks, full branched, just waiting for the fall to transform them into a fair share of color. It's an avenue of individualistic houses like the one with the quaint gingerbread borders of the porch and around the eaves. All the rage in the 19th century, it has even a greater appeal today. The house is modest in size and could easily have emerged from a Grimm's fairy tale.

Next door loomed a squashed-in construction of an appealing home, with arched windows and a full-length door leading onto a porch roof, like an escape hatch. Two sentinels stood stiffly in front, as close together as two tall elms could get. The lure of The Avenues of the Cove soon caught up with us. A carved horse weathervane, a barn with holes under the eaves as if they were for the convenience of our feathered friends, the sight of Ocean Avenue heading straight for a deep blue sea, all of it was taking us out of a traffic-jammed Rockport on a Sunday afternoon.

That sea! White sails galore dotted it from Andrew's Point to the Gap. Amateurs and pros were having the time of their lives making the most of one of the final days afloat. Not that we envied them, because sail bores us no end. But each to his own poop deck, say we.

First thing we knew, we had come into a Haven Avenue of woodland escaping from its cluster of homes. As we approached its sylvan wonders, our hefty boxer Mollie bid up with a blasting bow-wow defending her own domain. But that four-footer of ours bound to enjoy the woods her own way, snubbed her pugnacious compatriot. For us, we breathed a sigh of relief that could be heard on Thacher's

The barberry bushes were heavy laden. On both sides, the redness gleamed forth and back to us came memories of being served them at supper with molasses thickened among them on the plate. Just a kid, we loved the serving which although it meant nothing to us at the time saved the budget no end.

A brilliant red pung decorated the lawn of a yard as we came upon the second section of Haven Avenue that was populated. Always an ample supply of stone in house construction greeted us. Staunch stone shafts for entry ways, stone foundations sturdy enough to support a skyscraper. As if the Cove prides itself on endurance in structure as well as character.

We had turned into Phillips Avenue, where we were impressed by the fact that here is a bonafide "Scenic Shore Drive," unheralded but very much alive. The highway job is magnificent, the ocean view without compare. And the folks living along it seem to take particular pride in their holdings. Like the property of the Walter E. Johnsons, where a wrought iron turnstile marks the entrance on beautifully landscaped grounds facing the broad Atlantic. The wife tried the stile for luck. Maybe she made a wish, for all we know.

Whatever hocus-pocus she might have uttered, only a bare minute later out blatted that ungodly cow-croak of a Pigeon Cove fire alarm sounding 534 and our pastoral stroll went galley west. In less time thaan it takes to cry Benton Story, down he came with all his fire wagons and laddies hunting for a blaze that never was. It was just that the McLeod estate, whose grounds we had admired, puffed out more smoke than a passerby thought was within the code. Said the missus, not knowing it was just an imaginary box, "I wonder if I pulled that alarm when I moved the stile?" She didn't!

But it was all in good stead. The boys of Central and the Cove barn had a swell Sunday outing and a chance to polish up the brass afterward, besides a chance to chew the fat.

Through all the clanging, busting up the Cove serenity, Molly proved her superiority over the two-leggers by being no respecter of the Johnsons' beautiful hedge, and again a forthright disdain of a belligerent lady boxer. It just warn't her fighting day.

As for us, "The Avenues of the Cove" had proved a mite too exciting, so into the car and home we headed, only to be caught in a bumper-to-bumper crush because of a wedding of a popular couple, plus the alarm for a fire that just wasn't there.

But we'll be back to the Cove. It's a grand country!

J.P.C., Jr.