The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-07-24

veaIed to waiting world. and when Bar
Harbor does burst upon the public it VIII
De as June dawn after foggy night.
There is no casino at Bar Harbor, but
one Is on foot. The first step is the en-
gagement of the Lindall band, of Boston,
which has been engaged 10 play twice a
week during the summer on the veranda
or the Newport house, and where all the
world will gather. This will be the first
time In the modern history of Bar Harbor
where its favorires will be on exhibition
en- masse. At present you can only see
them IN their houses or driving. Even ct
pals they are only seen in limited num-
bers, the place is so divided into cliques.
There is the New York Clique, the Bos-
ton clique, the Philadelphia clique, the
Southern clique. Shall / add the Fungi
cilque? But about the band stand all fac
tons VIII unite and be suuburnt together.
Honor TO whom honor is due; TO Parke
Goodwin's charming daughter, Mrs. de
Castro. Bar Harbor owes this welcome in
novation. and to her doubtless will owe
Its casino. Any one of the big. desei ted
hotels could be reconstructed for the pur-
pose, and one of them doubtless will be.
The kebo Valley club house. that pretty
building prettily situated about two miles
and half from the town, is only a semi
success. The rusticators took 70 it kindly
at first, for the subscription ball saves in
dlvldual trouble. But the drive is a long
one, and sometimes the fog is down and
sometimes the wind will blow. Moreover
the blackboard has its price and the young
man demonstrates. Still 1t nourishes in a
way. Dinner dances are given, at which a
few elect ones eat, and others come later
and disport themselves; tennis tourna-
ments and private theatricals are held
there; 1t has Its restaurant and race track,
It's baseball field, and, for the primitive,
the croquet lawn.
There is no sea-bathing at Bar Harbor,
for the water is cold and rocks are many
but Mr.. Vanderbilt has constructed pool
in which he and his family, and doubtless
ms friends. will enjoy warmer waters and
imagine themselves in the ocean. But. as
compensation, the fishing of Bar Harbor
is exceptional, and the men these quiet
days spend much of their time at the
lakes.
Speaking of cliques, the heart of that
small slice of the New York Four Hun
dred, which has long been addicted to Bar
Harbor, rejoices this year. A large pro-
portion of its kind animated by a sudden
and concerted impulse has swept thither-
ward, and its winter companions will be
lonesome no more. The fungi, of course,
flourish rankly in Bar Harbor. as else
where. They have the finest houses, the
SWEETEST turnouts, the Frenchiest clothes,
the joy of the old New Yorker over the
even temporary regeneration of Bar Har-
Dor is pathetic.
One wealthy man won't live in big
house because so many of the Fungi do;
he deliberately rented his and exists in a
real cottage. Another remarked to me
that she hoped the world would know of
this new order of things and cease to think
of Bar Harbor as represented by other
than really conservative people. Then
she talked of her children, the diseases of
her plants, the dinners she had been to,
the view and the drives, and was, alto
gether, the most interesting woman ever
met.
Ofcourse Mr.. Blaine is the first, last
and most abiding interest of Bar Harbor,
not only to the tourist but to native and
rusticator. Just now his family are in Sc
clusion in StanwoOd, high on the hill,
and are rarely seen abroad. But not an
hour passes that you do not hear the
name of Blaine. The fact that he no
by shaggy nag, but takes his outings in
modern rig Of some elegance, is a fact
of interest as deep as the precocities of
Baby Mckee and the teething of Baby
Ruth. Not another thing, however, will
he do for people to talk about. Did he
leave Bar Harbor to pay call on the
coast or go to Augusta on business he
by one or more of the cor
respondents here as if he were a
thief with a plethoric wallet. The poor
man has no more independence than the
Emperor OF Russia, and it is no wonder he
stays in his house. The work of following
Mr.. Blaine is sometimes remarkable for
its ingenuity. for he is as slippery as an
eel. One day last year it became suddenly
buzzed abroad that he was about to leave
Bar Harbor. A clever woman representa-
tive of a metropolitan paper Immediately
received orders from headquarters to fol-
low him. She dared not take even hand
bag. but, thrusting a few necessities into
picnic basket. rushed to the boat. To her
despair he did not turn up, and she could
elicit no information. She knew too much
to give up, however, and finally at the last
moment Mr.. Blaine appeared. and
she kept close to him until he
bought his ticket for Augusta. But even
then she did not feel sure of him and
dared not go to bed on the sleeper, but
paced the floor and watched the stations
when the train stopped. Sure enough he
arose in the night. He got off at Els
worth, and she hustled Off after him 10
find that carriage was drawn up behind
the station awaiting him. Then while he
was visiting his friends she was SO afraid
that he would leave by another route that
she actually drove four miles to the sta
ton under suspicion twice a day, return
ing in time for the Ellsworth trains. She
did not lose him, and no one save detec-
tive could do better. And all for what?
Last summer when the United States
was convulsed with daily kilograms of his
ebbing tide the place was so thick with
correspondents that 1T was like plague of
grasshoppers. They dressed up as butcher
boys and vegetable vendors and assaulted
the Blaine kitchen; they haunted the
grounds, they slept in the telegraph office,
they grew lean and worn and weary, while
Mr.. Blaine waxed placid and fat. 1t is
good deal to say that, much as Bar Harbor
loves Blaine, one and all hungrily antici-
patesthe mad excitement of his death.
The cottagers would forget the view, the
correspondents would become bowling
dervishes and end with brain fever trying
to penetrate the Blaine mansion tor a sight
of the corpse (snap camera in HANDY,
shuddering. not at death, but at possible
crusher did they run up against Mrs.
Blaine, the main army of them, however
banging futilely and loudly on the front
door. If Mr.. Blaine dies away from Bar
Harbor, Bar Harbor will arise and sue the
Almighty; but if he doesn't, no one who
has not been here can realize the cyclone
which will tear in twain this peaceful
island But more anon.