The Pine-tree coast . p furrow through the mass of woodenbuildino-s, constantly interjecting its noise, smoke, and clatter into the sentimentof the protesting sea. Nevertheless, Old Orchard is the typical watering-placefor those who detest the name of solitude. An esplanade of hard, white sand,with an undulating wall of surf at the bottom, and another of warm dunes atthe top, makes its front street, — a street five miles long, built, graded, swept,and kept in repair by the ocean. Cottages and hotels are ranged along thesea-front; hotels and cottages cross the dunes behind, mount the bald slope
The Pine-tree coast . p furrow through the mass of woodenbuildino-s, constantly interjecting its noise, smoke, and clatter into the sentimentof the protesting sea. Nevertheless, Old Orchard is the typical watering-placefor those who detest the name of solitude. An esplanade of hard, white sand,with an undulating wall of surf at the bottom, and another of warm dunes atthe top, makes its front street, — a street five miles long, built, graded, swept,and kept in repair by the ocean. Cottages and hotels are ranged along thesea-front; hotels and cottages cross the dunes behind, mount the bald slopesrising at the back, and finally disappear among cool groves of pine, whose darkgreen instantly relieves the white glare of the sands, and the nakedness of theunshaded expanse of red roofs, ]3eaked gables, and gaudy turrets packed in onemass underneath a broiling sun. This assemblage of houses, accidental in everything excej^t an eye to themain chance, has the appearance of having sprung up in a night, like a colony. of red, white, and orange toadstools after a summer shower. You would bewilling to wager something that it was not here yesterday. Everything new,or as good as new; nothing to mellow this offensive newness or to tempt one toa second look. Shoj)s, caf6s, booths, fruit-stands, shooting-galleries, bazaarswithout end, crowd together in interminable rows. Every one is busily em-ployed in catering to the wants of the army of travellers, who have come hereto divert themselves, and who demand to be diverted. You pass through a cross-fire from newsboys, hotel-porters, and bootblacksto the wooden sidewalk. A man in a soiled white apron, with sleeves rolledup, comes out of a doorway and rings a dinner-bell in your face. Dinner, sir?You pass on. A second brings out a gong, with which you are deafened. Thisperformance begins again on the arrival of every train. Apparently it is alwaystime to eat here. All at once you hear a terrible rumbling on one side of you ! ON OLD ORCHAE
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookpublisherbostonesteslauriat
