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speaks. In yonder corner are two Irish women, each with a little red-fretted baby, in the universal Erin uniform of yellow; their little heads bobbing helplessly about in the bumping cars, screaming lustily for the comfort they well know is close at hand, and which the public are notified they have at last found, by a ludicrously instantaneous suspension of their vociferous cries. Beautiful as bountiful provision of Nature! which, if there was no other proof of a God, would suffice for me.

There is a surly old fellow, who won't have the windows open, though the pale woman beside him mutely entreats it, with her smelling-salts to her nose. Yonder is an old bachelor, listening to a sweet little blue-eyed girl, who, with untasked faith in human nature, has crept from her mother's side, and selected him for an audience, to say-" that once there was a kid, with two little totty kids, and don't you believe that one night when the old mother kid was asleep," etc., etc. No wonder he stoops to kiss the little orator; no wonder he laughs at her naïve remarks; no wonder she has magnetised the watch from his pocket "to hear what it says;" no wonder he smooths back the curly locks from the frank, white brow; no wonder he presses again and again his bachelor lips to that rosy little mouth; no wonder, when the distant city nears us, and the lisping "good-by" is chirruped, and the little feet are out of sight and sound, that he sighs,God and his own soul know why! Blessed child

hood-thy shortest life, though but a span, hath yet its mission. The tiniest babe never laid its velvet cheek on the sod till it had delivered its Maker's message-heeded not then, perhaps-but coming to the wakeful ear in the silent night-watch, long after the little preacher was dust. Blessed childhood!

It is funny, as well as edifying, to watch hotel arrivals; to see the dusty, hungry, lack-luster-eyed travelers drag into the eating-room—take their allotted seats-enviously regard those consumers of dainties who have already had the good fortune, by rank of precedence, to get their hungry mouths filled; to see them at last "fall to," as Americans only know how. Heaven help the landlord! Beefsteak, chicken, omelette, mutton-chops, biscuit and coffee-at one fell swoop. Waiters, who it is to be hoped, have not been kept breakfastless since early daylight, looking on calm, but disgusted. Now, their appetites appeased, that respectable family yonder begin to notice that Mr. and Mrs. Fitzsnooks and Miss Fitzsnooks opposite, who are aristocratically delicate in their appetites, are shocked beyond the power of expression. They begin, as they wipe their satisfied lips with their table-napkins, and contemplate Miss Fitzsnooks's showy breakfast-robe, to bethink them of their dusty traveling-dresses; as if-foolish creatures-they were not in infinitely better taste, soiled as they are, than her gaudy finery at so early an hour-as if a man was not a man "for a' that"—ay, and a woman, too—as if there

could be vulgarity without pretension-as if the greatest vulgarity was not ostentatious pretension. “Fairmount,” of which the Philadelphians are so justly proud, is no misnomer. He must be cynical, indeed, hopelessly weak in the understanding, who would grumble at the steep ascent by means of which so lovely a panorama is enjoyed. At every step some new beauty develops itself to the worshiper of nature. In the gray old rocks, festooned with the vivid green of the woodbine and ivy, considerately draping statues for eyes-I confess it, more prudish than mine. The placid Schuylkill flowing calmly below, with its emerald-fringed banks, nesting the homes of wealth and luxury; enjoyed less, perhaps, by their owners, than by the industrious artisan, who, reprieved from his day's toil, stands gazing at them with his wife and children, and inhaling the breeze, of which, God be thanked, the rich man has no monopoly.

Of course I visited Philadelphia "State-House;" of course I talked with the nice old gentleman who guards the country's relics; of course I staredwith my '76 blood at fever heat-upon the big bell which clanged forth so joyfully our American independence; of course I stared at the piece of stonestep, from which the news of our Independence was first announced; and of course I wondered how it was possible for it, under such circumstances, to remain stone. Of course I sat down in the venerable, high-backed leather chair, in which so many

great men of that time, and so many little men of this have reposed. Of course I reverently touched the piece of a pew which formerly was part of "Christ Church," and in which Franklin and Washington had worshiped. Of course I inscribed my name, at the nice old gentleman's request, in the mammoth book for visitors. And of course I mounted to the Cupola of the State House to see "the view;" which, with due submission, I did not think worth (from that point) the strain on my ankles, or the confused state of my cranium, consequent upon repeated losses of my latitude and longitude, while pursuing my stifled and winding

way.

"The Mint?" Oh-certainly, I saw the Mint! and wondered, as I looked at the shining heaps, that any of Uncle Sam's children should ever want a cent; also, I wondered if the workmen who fingered them, did not grow, by familiarity, indif-. ferent to their value-and to their possession. I was told that not the minutest particle of the metal, whether fused or otherwise, could be abstracted without detection. I was glad, as I always am, in a fitting establishment, to see women employed in various offices-such as stamping the coin, etc., and more glad still, to learn that they had respectable wages. Heaven speed the time when a thousand other doors of virtuous labor shall be opened to them, and silence for ever the heart-rending "Song of the Shirt."

GLANCES AT PHILADELPHIA.

NUMBER THREE.

ALWAYS an if! If the Philadelphians would not barricade their pretty houses with those ugly wooden outside shutters, with those ugly iron hinges. I am sure my gypsy breath would draw hard behind one. And if the Philadelphians would not build. such garrison-like walls about their beautiful gardens. Why not allow the passer-by to view what would give so much pleasure? certainly, we would hope, without abstracting any from the proprietors. Clinton avenue, as well as other streets in Brooklyn, is a beautiful example of this. Light, low iron railings about the well-kept lawns and gardens— sunset groups of families upon piazzas, and O-prettier yet-little children darting about like butterflies among the flowers. I missed this in Philadelphia. The balmy air of evening seemed only the signal for barring up each family securely within those jail-like shutters; behind which, I am sure, beat hearts as warm and friendly as any stranger could wish to meet. I must say I feel grateful to any householder who philanthropically refreshes the public eye with the vines and flowers he has wreathed about his home. I feel grateful to any woman I meet, who rests my rainbow-sated eye by a modest, tasteful costume. I thank every well-made man who passes me with well-knit limbs and expanded chest, en

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