The Abilene reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1884-09-04
Cane Cod Women.

eff there was ever blighted race of
women" said gentleman of this city,
recently returned from a visit to Cape
Cod, 1T exists in the peninsular vii
lagos of Massachusetts, villages which
depend on the fisheries for the support of
their inhabitants. Nowhere else in all
New England will one see so high an
average of female beauty, especially in
symmetry of form and freshness of
complexion, as is noticeable among the
Young girls of these Cape Cod fisher
mems towns, girls ranging from fifteen
to twenty years OF age. But it will not
take one long to discover the startling
and melancholy fact that if this girlish
beauty and freshness is unusual and
unexpected. it is also only too apparent
that its duration is brief. The change
produced in these girls by the lapse of
a few wears is painful in the extreme.
No matronly graces are to be seen
among them after their girlhood days
are past. The charming middle stage
of maturing womanhood, between the
freshness and buoyancy of the girl of
twenty and the woman of thirty-hve or
forty, is entirely absent. The height
ened color of the cheeks is gone. The
/ ewes are sunken and wear a constant
] look of sadness and anxiety. GRAY hair
/ in heads over which a score and half
of years have scarcely passed, and deep
! lines in faces which should show no
trace of age for twenty-five years to
come, are rather the rule than the
exception. These women, besides suf-
/ fering from all the inevitable sorrows
which fall to woman's lot, no matter in
what station she NAV be placed, have
an added intense and perpetual sorrow
all their own Theirs is life of con-
tinual suspense and anxiety which is al
most certain in time to be embittered
by an overwhelming grief.
1.-The most obtuse observer needs not
to ask the cause of this lack of complete
matronly beauty among those women
whose budding days open with the
greatest promise of superb physical
womanhood, and for the utter eXtinc-
ton of that light-heartedness and
brightness which marked their girlish
life. The cause suggests itself at once
to one who sees the congregations OF
women on the benches and in the quiet
streets of the sleepy villages. He will
notice occasionally feeble old man
among them, generally supported on
the arm of some female companion,
who, most likely, carries on her other
arm a chubby-faced child of lusty lungs.
But in these groups, or anywhere about
the village, the observer will look IN
vain for the presence of males between
the lettering years of these relics of the
past and the prattling days of baby.
hood. 1t is the fishing season, and
there are no men or boys on shore
Their smacks are tossing on the -treach
crous waters of the fishing banks, and
their return, if they return at all, is a:
uncertain as the weather, which forms
the one great subject of conjecture anC
apprehension among the villagers.
Husbands, sons, fathers, brothers anC
sweethearts are somewhere out on the
bosom of the sea, probably homewart
bound, perhaps steering for still more
distant waters, perhaps struggling fol
life among the waves. Fair weather
keeps hope warm in many an anxious
woman's heart; the bowling northeastel
chills it with doubt and despair. Con
stantly watching by day, waking in thu
night to listen to sounds from the sea
whether they may be the roaring of thu
dreaded tempest or merely the moan o
the surf on the beach. is it any wonde'
that the torture of mind and heart, ant
strain of nerve and vital force that mus
follow this perpetual suspense and long
inc should destroy the fountains o
youth and beauty in these patient
suffering women and place upon then
the marks of age while they are We
young?
~ ct the girls grow up with but ont
thought of what their future lot will be
with but one object in view upon which
their visions of happiness are based
Go among any group of these bright
buoyant girls in any of the villages o
the class [ am speaking of, and you will
find that nine out of ten of them lool
forward to q union with some one VIII
will spend his life fishing in the sum
mer and coasting in the winter. Th
idea that there might be any other fu
ture for them than the one which is t
come to them as fishermen'S wives, o
that the life of a fiSherman's wife
ANYTHING different from the natural sc
uuence of married life, never seems t
occur to them.
Looking at one of these bright, hap
DIV girls, chatting and romping ami'
half dozen sad-eyed young wives AM
mothers on the beach OF at the landin!
, where some one is always waiting an
watching for sail in the offing, on
, cannot prevent his imagination from
seeking a most melancholy channel
There is the girl DOW. 1t will not b
long before she will be a wife. Imag
, inc her two wears married, sitting alon
, in her little home, her baby in the era
, die. and the north wind bowling with
, ont. She knows too well that at tina
moment the one for whose return she
, longing and praying may be struggling
, in the breakers, while the Highlan
! light. which she can see, is shining pit
, ilessly on his agony. for she has only t
climb spur of land that rises behln
her house to see the skeleton of 4 shl
! which fOundered only few month
ago, and all her crew were lost in sigh
of home. The gravestones IN the littl
churchyard recall to her every Sunda
how. in one night, by the wreck of fshin
craft homeward bound, over sevent
! women of her own village were wild
. owed. or those already widowed LEI
. childless, and nearly every home mad
desolae 1t is to future attende
with painful suggestions such as these