Aug. 4, 1916, 
gave one look at the telegram and, without opening it, 
went off into hysterics. After she’d been brought around 
by most of the nearby neighbors someone thought to tear 
the envelope and read the message. It was like this: 
Mrs. Hattie Phillips, Care Henry Silas Sommers, Old 
Neck, Massachusetts : 
In the cellar is a tub. Under the tub is a hen, Let 
her go. Henry Silas Sommers. 
Henry had a dry wit and was a good story teller. 
He had more yarns at the end of his tongue than any 
man in town. The one I remember best now is the one 
about Capt. Elias Herron. Here’s the way Henry used 
to tell it: 
The Perfect Commuter 
“I mind a story they used to tell about Cap’n Elias 
Herron. You fellows remember Cap’n Elias, don’t you? 
This was in the old days before the railroad came to the 
Neck an’ we had to go over to Shepard’s Falls to get 
the cars. *Twas a three-mile drive an’ like as not when 
you'd get there the train’d be gone and there’d be no 
other till afternoon. Well, it seems the Cap’n had to go 
to Newburyport one time, an’ so he rowed over from the 
light, hired a buggy from Stacey an’ set out for the Falls. 
He got there all right, but before he could get his horse 
put up an’ leg it to the station the train was pullin’ out. 
The Cap’n he waved an’ shouted an’ swore a little—an’ 
you know Cap’n Elias could swear mighty well! But 
they didn’t see him an’ kept right on goin’. So the Cap’n 
he lit out after the train. He had pretty long legs, the 
Cap’n had, an’ they say as long as they could see him from 
the station he was gainin’ on the train at every leap! 
He cal’lated he might catch up with it at Saunder’s mill, 
which was only half a mile away. In those days the 
train used to stop three or four minutes at a station; 
they. wasn’t in such an all-fired hurry as they are now. 
“Well, when the Cap’n got to Saunder’s there wasn’t 
any train in sight. But the agent he was on the platform 
an’ the Cap’n asks: ‘Young feller, have you seen a train 
go by here?’ The agent he stares and finally says: ‘Yes, 
sir, the Newburyport train just went through.’ ‘How far 
ahead is she?’ asks the Cap’n.’ ‘Maybe half a mile by 
now, says the agent. ‘Sho,’ says the Cap’n. ‘Blamed 
if she ain’t gainin’ on me! An’ off he set again down 
the track. 
“Well, sir, he hadn’t gone irore’n a quarter of a mile 
further when he sees it. Seems they’d got a hot-box 
or carried away a tops’l or something, an’ the Can’n he 
walks up pretty well tuckered out an’ climbs aboard. An’ 
pretty soon the conductor comes through the train an’ 
sees him sittin’ there an’ says: ‘Why, Cap’n Herron, 
where'd you come fron?’ An’ the Cap’n, bein’ sort of het 
up and riled, says: 
““T come from Shepard’s, consarn ye, an’ I’d be in 
Newburyport now if your dod-gasted old train hadn’t 
been in the way!’” 
HALF-DAYS IN MARBLEHEAD 
(Continued from page 8) 
Colonial teas that the old Lee mansion seems to come into 
its own. Then it is that the treasured, attic-stored finery 
of grandmother’s day is brought forth and the present- 
day daughters of Marblehead become the stately, digni- 
fied dames of long ago. The old mansion is a perfect 
setting. The very walls seem to rejoice and beam ap- 
proval on the revival of the scenes they once knew. 
It is then no effort of the imagination to go back across 
the years. The present slips away of its own accord. 
It seems to have no place in such a scene, and we find 
NORTH SHORE BREEZE and Reminder 63 
ourselves transported to the delightful days of simplicity 
of life and living, of freedom from sham and pretense, 
of faith in God and our fellowmen. 
HE Summer Sociar RecrstEr, just issued, when com- 
pared with last year shows an increase of six percent 
in the number of inland summer residences, an increase of 
three percent in the total number of summer changes, and 
the effect wrought by the war in residential addresses of 
American families is still further indicated by a compari- 
son with the last two years, for whereas in 1914 874 fam- 
ilies gave foreign bankers for their summer address, last 
year there were only 208 and this year it has dwindled to 
143. Notwithstanding this the foreign departures since 
the first of April are double those of last year. 
The Summer Social Register comprises the summer 
addresses for the following cities covered by the Social 
Register where families are not to be found at their win- 
ter address appearing in the previous issues for the year: 
New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, 
Providence, St. Louis, Pittsburg, Cleveland, Cincinnati. 
Dayton, St. Paul, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Baltimore, 
Buffalo, New Orleans, Southern Cities, Seattle, Portland 
and Southern California. 
There are noted: Inland residences, 6772; by 
sea, 4009. 
The figures show but slight variation fron last year 
with the exception of such places as Bar Harbor, New- 
port, etc., and both shores of the sound, all of which indi- 
cate an increase of 10 percent; 63 families are summering 
on the Pacific coast as compared with 84 last year; 161 
families are summering on their yachts and their address- 
es may be found care of the yacht club under which their 
yachts are recorded. In this connection there is noted a 
marked increase in the number of yachts in commission 
this year, there being 923 as compared with 748 last year. 
The name of the yacht, together with a cut describing it 
as a schooner, sloop or steamer, is placed opposite the 
naire of its owner and at the back of the Summer Social 
Register all the yachts are arranged in alphabetical order 
opposite the names of their owners as a key for ready 
reference. There are also noted the marriages since April 
1 of 783 persons as compared with 850 last year, and the 
deaths of 183 men and 177 women as corpared with 220 
men and 180 women during the same ‘period last year. 
the 
A respectable cat may look at a king—if there isn't 
a mouse in sight. 
AN APPRECIATIVE AuDIENCE filled the beautiful library 
at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Bayard Warren of 
Pride’s Crossing last Friday afternoon when a musicale 
was given which wes in charge of Mrs. Hall McAllister 
of Boston. The artists were Mme. Marie Sundelius, 
who has sung in the Metropolitan Opera company, and 
Mr. Johan Van Bommel of the Hague opera house. Mrs. 
McAllister’s daughter, Miss Louise, is always at the 
piano in these mid-summer musicales on the North Shore. 
She was attractively sowned in pale pink chiffon with 
taffeta trimmings. Mme. Sundelius wore a white em- 
broidered mull dress and Mrs. McAllister was in purple 
with trimmings of black chiffon. The program closed 
with a duet from ‘Hamlet.’ In the audience were seen 
Mrs. John Hays Hammond, John Hays Hamond, Jr., 
Mrs. W. Scott Fitz, Mrs. Edward J. Holmes, Mrs. M. G. 
Haughton, the Misses Edwards. Mrs. Alexander Steinert, 
Mrs. Edward S. Grew. Mrs. Godfrey L. Cabot, Mr. and 
Mrs. Amory Eliot, Mrs. John Denney, Mrs. James M. 
Newell, Miss Katherine Sigourney and Mrs. Wm. E. 
Littleton, 
