Chapter IV

New Friends and the Green Stairs



The town filled up with artists earlier than usual that summer. Stable
lofts and old boathouses along the shore blossomed into studios.
Sketching classes met in the rooms of the big summer art schools which
made the Cape end famous, or set up their models down by the wharfs. One
ran into easels pitched in the most public places: on busy street
corners, on the steps of the souvenir shops and even in front of the town
hall. People in paint-besmeared smocks, loaded with canvases, sketching
stools and palettes, filled the board-walk and overflowed into the middle
of the street.

The _Dorothy Bradford_ steamed up to the wharf from Boston with her
daily load of excursionists, and the "accommodation" busses began to ply
up and down the three miles of narrow street with its restless tide of
summer visitors.

Up along, through the thick of it one June morning, came the Towncrier, a
picturesque figure in his short blue jacket and wide seaman's trousers, a
red bandanna knotted around his throat and a wide-rimmed straw hat on the
back of his head.

"Notice!" he cried, after each vigorous ringing of his big brass bell.