The Life and Adventures of Major Roger Sherman Potter | Page 3

one the Most Truthful
Accounts of a Warrior Returning Home Without a Kingdom, and in a
Pelting Rain

THE ADVENTURES OF MAJOR ROGER SHERMAN POTTER.

CHAPTER I
.
WHICH TREATS OF THINGS NOT PARTICULARLY
INTERESTING, AND MIGHT HAVE BEEN OMITTED WITHOUT
PREJUDICE TO THIS HISTORY.

CAPE COD, you must know, gentle reader, is my bleak native home,
and the birth-place of all the most celebrated critics. The latter fact is
not generally known, and for the reason that the gentry composing that
fraternity acknowledge her only with an excess of reluctance. Her poets
and historians never mention her in their famous works; her blushing
maidens never sing to her, and her novelists lay the scenes of their
romances in other lands. One solitary poet was caught and punished for
singing a song to her sands; but of her codfish no historian has written,
though divers malicious writers have declared them the medium upon
which one of our aristocracies is founded. But I love her none the less
for this.
It was a charming evening in early June. I am not disposed to state the
year, since it is come fashionable to count only days. With my head
supported in my left hand, and my elbow resting on my knee, I sat
down upon the beach to listen to the music of the tide. Curious thoughts
crowded upon my mind, and my fancy soared away into another world.
The sea was bright, the breeze came soft and balmy over the land, and
whispered and laughed. My bosom heaved with melting emotions; and
had I been skilled in the art of love, the mood I was in qualified me for
making it. The sun in the west was sinking slowly, the horizon was
hung with a rich canopy of crimson clouds, and misty shadows played
over the broad sea-plain, to the east. Then the arcades overhead filled
with curtains of amber and gold; and the sight moved me to meditation.
My soul seemed drinking in the beauties nature was strewing at the feet
of her humblest, and, perhaps, most unthankful creatures. Then the
scene began to change; and such was its gently-stealing pace that I

became moved by emotions my tongue had no power to describe. The
more I thought the more I wondered. And I sat wondering until Dame
Night drew her dusky curtains, and the balconies of heaven filled with
fleecy clouds, and ten thousand stars, like liquid pearls, began to pour
their soft light over the land and sea. Then the "milky way" came out,
as if to take the moon's watch, and danced along the serene sky, like a
coquette in her gayest attire.
How I longed for a blushing maiden to tune her harp, or chant her song,
just then! Though I am the son of a fisherman, I confess I thought I
heard one tripping lightly behind me, her face all warm with smiles. It
was but a fancy, and I sighed while asking myself what had induced it.
Not a brook murmured; no willows distilled their night dews; birds did
not make the air melodious with their songs; and there were no
magnolia trees to shake from their locks those showers of liquid pearls
which so bedew the books of our lady novelists. True, the sea became
as a mirror, reflecting argosies of magic sails, and the star-lights tripped,
and danced, and waltzed over the gently undulating swells. A moment
more and I heard the tide rips sing, and the ground swell murmur, as it
had done in my childhood, when I had listened and wondered what it
meant. The sea gull, too, was nestling upon the bald sands, where he
had sought rest for the night, and there echoed along through the air so
sweetly, the music of a fisherman's song; and the mimic surf danced
and gamboled along the beach, spreading it with a chain of
phosphorous light, over which the lanterns mounted on two stately
towers close by threw a great glare of light: and this completed the
picture.
While contemplating the beauties before me, I was suddenly seized
with a longing for fame. It was true I had little merit of my own, but as
it had become fashionable at this day for men without merit to become
famous, the chance for me, I thought, was favorable indeed. I
contemplated my journey in quest of fame, and resolved never to falter.
"Fame," I mused, "what quality of metal art thou made of, that millions
bow down and worship thee?" And all nature, through her beauties,
seemed returning an answer, and I arose from my reverie, and wended
my way toward the cabin of my aged parents. A bright light streamed
from one of the windows, serving as my beacon. I