The Book of
Philadelphia
By Robert
Shackleton
©1918
The Penn
Publishing Company
Philadelphia
Chapter IX
STREETS AND
WAYS
Page 128
HERE is a stationary quality noticeable in Philadelphia's
population more than in other cities. In Boston, although many of the wealthy
and prominent, the people of "family," still live in the same
district, the same streets, the same houses, of long ago, there is little of
this permanence with the other classes. In such newer great cities as Cleveland
one will find conservative families established in four successive homes in one
generation, caused by "changing neighborhoods." In Philadelphia,
however, people of all classes continue year after year, generation after,
generation, to live in the same houses. And it is a distinctive feature of the
city, that the people are proud of their own districts. The people of Diamond
Street are as proud of Diamond Street as the people of Rittenhouse Square are
proud of Rittenhouse Square.
There are no
"blocks" in Philadelphia street' nomenclature. The term
"block" is unknown.
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There are
"squares," to express street spaces between cross-streets. I one day
heard a Philadelphian naïvely
wondering, having heard a New Yorker refer to a "block," whether that
word had come to New Yorkers from the fact that Adrian Block was an important
figure in early New York life.
One takes
easily to the use of "squares" in this city from the fact that the
city was laid out by Penn in literal squares; the streets are primly precise,
crossing one another at severe right angles; this unswerving checker-board
severity, however, being relieved by the diagonal lines of a few avenues which
cut across the city on the bias. One sees in the plan of the city, in its
impression of gentle rigidity, an indication of the very spirit of Quakerism.
There is a pleasing satisfactoriness in the way in which the city is laid out;
and there comes the memory of the argument between the Philadelphian and the
New Yorker as to the merits of their respective cities, and of how the
Philadelphian, driven to anger by his opponent's continued imperviousness, at
length cried triumphantly, "But at least you must admit that Philadelphia
is well laid out” To which the New Yorker, "I knew that Philadelphia was
dead but I did not know it was laid out!" Ah, well—those many, many jests
on Philadelphia!—and how calmly, Philadelphia goes on her important way,
ignoring them! And yet, when a certain line of stories continues to develop
with additional similar stories developing, for generations, there must be
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some ground
for them. And the ground seems to be a certain content that is inherent in the
average Philadelphian's character or temperament. But content is a pleasant
thing to get along with, and is one of the qualities which go to the making up
of the delightful Philadelphia type.
The quality of
content has made for the continued uniformity of streets and houses and looks
and manners; very pleasing, all this, interesting and unusual. For forty.
years, so Philadelphians will tell you, the quarrymen of Burlington, Vermont,
supplied the white marble steps and copings for Philadelphia buildings, large
and small; what a contented continuity of trade! And they will add that no Burlington
man ever lost a cent by a Philadelphia bad debt!
Yet
contentment may have its bad side. In speaking, with a newspaper editor, of the
street car system which makes eight cents the fare for most of the people, with
what those from other cities deem poor service, he laughed contentedly and
said, “But I own street railway stock!" And a lawyer who had been made a
member of a commission to investigate tuberculosis conditions told me that he
found conditions so bad, in the district assigned to him, that his report was
quietly suppressed.
One of the
street railway executives, at a dinner with a party of about a score, spoke of
an intended car that was to be without possibility of ventilation. "And if
the public object we'll put the cars on anyhow!" he exclaimed. But this
was not really
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so defiant as
it seemed. He knew that Philadelphians, rich and poor, did not like
ventilation, even though they may indulge, contradictorily, in open-air
sleeping at home. For even the open-air sleeper, the moment he enters a trolley
or railway car, in cold or even cool weather, desires every particle of fresh
air shut out. Even business offices, and private homes, yes, even doctors'
offices, are kept to the same general standard. When, as a war measure, it was
proposed to have no heat in the street cars, but to let them be heated entirely
by the animal heat of the passengers, it impressed the city as an obviously
excellent thing to do.
There is a
sort of cynical frankness here, as to the power of the powerful, that I have
not noticed elsewhere in such degree. And those who suffer from the powerful
feel but a sense of fatalism. "Allah is great!"—Allah being the man
with money.
In the matter
of street cars, the company acts on the knowledge that the class who would naturally
be the powerful objectors ride in their own motors, or walk from railway
station to office, or from their homes to their offices. Philadelphia,
curiously, for so large a city, is so built as to permit of doing without
trolley cars on the part of a host of people. With marvelous convenience, the
railroads have placed their stations in the heart of the city, so that
commuters may walk to their places of business. And the most active business
area is so small as to cover only walkable distances. And a great number of
fine homes and a still greater number of more
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ordinary
homes, are within walkable distance from offices, from the shopping district,
and from the theaters.
The sense of
content, in the city, of satisfaction, with things because they are
Philadelphian, becomes naturally a sense of patience; also a heritage of the
Quakers. And never was there a city so patient. I have seen a packed
trolley-load of people, a carload so tight-packed that there was not another
inch of standing room, turned out on a windy corner, with the thermometer
hovering around zero, for that car to be switched off and returned, while the
people waited under the command of "Next car!" And there was not a
word, not a symptom, of protest, or even of impatience or anger. The next car
came, and it was itself so jammed that only a few of the people standing in the
icy wind could board it. Still, not a word or an indication of resentment!
And I remember
one recent cold morning last, winter, at Germantown station, quite a group
waiting for a train which was behind time.
In the first place, no one thought of taking a street car. These were
commuters who had day after day taken the train, and a custom must not be
broken. Nor did any one telephone for a taxicab, although every man and woman
had the appearance of being amply able to afford many taxicabs, and although it
was presumably important for most of these well-to-do folk to get to their
destinations. Time was not made for Philadelphians. They would wait. I waited
too; in gathering impressions
for this book it would never
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have done to
desert those patient people. They waited for over an hour, without a single
effort on the part of a single individual to find some other method of getting
away, and without the slightest sign or word of impatience. And this, not from
self-control, for they did not feel either anger or worry; they did not feel
impatience. There was every indication that they would patiently stay there
till going-home time, if necessary, and that then they would, with a mild sense
of duty done, just go home. When, after the wait of over an hour, the train was
seen rounding a curve, there was not the faintest sign of relief or interest,
and the people boarded it just as if it had come in on time.
But one need
not dwell on the overdevelopment of content, except so far as to point out how
it lies at the root of the city's characteristics, and that it could be traced
out curiously in various developments.
The typical
Philadelphian is neat, well-groomed, precise, even immaculate. And the women
are admirably gowned, good looking, many of them pretty or even positively
beautiful. The average is higher in the good looks of women than in any other
city that I know, whether in Europe or America. Thackeray referred to them as
the "pretty Quakeresses"; but Chestnut Street, on a sunny winter
afternoon, does not nowadays precisely suggest Quakeresses.
One of the
points that marks that this city has traits of the nearby South is that you
will see
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negroes, in
bitter weather, wrap up their feet in huge bundles of burlap or old carpeting,
and thus stumble about, with ragged coats pinned across their chests and turned
up toward their ears.
The real
Philadelphian, however, and now I mean the typical white Philadelphian, has an
almost insuperable aversion to giving way, in outward appearance, to cold, and
even on bitter cold days does not even turn up the collar of his overcoat; his
aversion to doing this amounting almost to personal inhibition. It simply isn't
done, in Philadelphia; and if it isn't done, the Philadelphian, whether of
north or south of Market Street, does not do it. But stoic as he is in the
matter of his coat collar in a snow storm, it seems to be quite proper to put
on a little pair of funny velvet ear-muffs!
In the shops
or in advertisements, one never meets with "Bargains." The very word
gives the Philadelphian a cold shock. There may be "special sales,"
however, and there is the lure of "reductions," which the most
exclusive shop can offer without loss of caste. Yet the word
"bargains," so disliked by Penn's present-day successors, was used by
Penn himself. On the same ship with him, in coming over, was a man named Duché, ancestor of the rector of that name, and Penn borrowed
thirty pounds of him. On landing, and looking over the new city's site, Penn
offered Duché a fine space in the very heart of expected
development, in lieu of the money as actual money was scarce; it would have
been a "bargain," wrote Penn; and he also, in writing
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down that Duché refused the "bargain" and wanted the money
instead, called Duché the very
un-Quakerlike name of “blockhead"; which the over-cautious man was himself
soon ready to admit that he was.
Early
Philadelphia showed its love for trees by giving tree names to the principal
east and west streets of the city, as Chestnut, Walnut, Spruce, Fine, Locust,
Cedar, Filbert, Mulberry, Sassafras; and most of these names have been
retained.
It has
ill-naturedly been said that Philadelphia is as narrow as her streets; but in
reality she is a city of imagination. Surely, none but a city of sweeping
breadth of outlook could put up such a sign as is placed at one of the busiest
corners, that of Broad and Walnut; it is a signpost, marking the points to the
westward, and only two cities are named; Lancaster, practically a suburb—and
San Francisco!
The city is good.
It frankly admits this, and believes it. To be sure, some Philadelphians,
goaded by the complacent claims of their own city, have called it "corrupt
and content"; which is, however, quite too severe. The contentment is
basic, temperamental, inescapable, and apparently not very bad in results, with
much that is resultantly pleasant; and as to being corrupt, it is merely that
the city is about like other cities. She became accustomed, years ago, to a
political control which (I say this in all seriousness and from considerable
knowledge) out-Tammanyed Tammany; and her self-styled "reformers"
have been neither better nor worse than "reformers" elsewhere.
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In view of the
present-day eagerness for public office it is curious to note that it was only
some quarter of a century before the Revolution that two men, in one year,
elected in turn to the mayoralty, refused in turn to serve, and were each fined
the sum of thirty pounds for such neglect of civic duty. And two or three years
after this, although meanwhile a salary of one hundred pounds was attached to
the office, a man elected to the office disappeared and "kept out of
sight, his wife merely declaring that he was away from home, until another man
was elected and installed.
From the
earliest days, Philadelphia has officially recognized offenses against the law,
although the attitude of the people has been that crime does not exist. There
was a time when a man would be fined twelve pennies if he smoked in the public
street; showing what a height of civic virtue was attained; and old records
tell of a butcher who was punished as a "common swearer" because of
"swearing three oaths in the market-place, and uttering two very bad
curses." Could criminal record be more delightfully naïve! But even at
that, curiosity is balked, for the “two very bad curses" are not given in
the record.
In the first
year of Philadelphia's life, in 1682, it was ordered that a "cage” be
built, "seven feet long by five feet broad," for lawbreakers:
assuredly, narrow quarters! And the scenes around the stocks and pillories of
the early years were not edifying.
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The laws of
Pennsylvania have always had odd quirks, hence the colloquial references to a
"Philadelphia lawyer"; and landlord and tenant laws are unusual. For rent
due, the landlord is given power to levy upon not only the personal property of
the tenant but upon that of a tenant or even a guest! If the tenant takes away
his own property, while owing rent, he is guilty of theft. At least,
"Philadelphia lawyers" tell of these things, and they tell, too,
strange stories of "ground rents" lying, mysteriously hidden under
many a lease, ready to arise and remain an incubus forever.
The police of
to-day, on the whole, are a capable seeming set of men, with somewhat more of
lack of discipline or lack of appearance of discipline than is customary
elsewhere. It is not unusual to see a policeman lounging against a wall; in hot
weather I have seen them sitting on the front steps of shuttered homes.
Philadelphians
have so much of both manner and manners, that the negroes who live here, and
there are great numbers of them, imitatively have also a higher than usual
average of manner and manners, and indeed of general conduct, for in no other
city is the standard of the negroes so high, especially of those who are house
servants, office employees, elevator operators, and such classes.
The newsboys
of the city have terribly raucous voices, and this comes from their fighting
against the noises of the streets, and in particular the noise of trolleys. For
the trolleys crash through, the narrow business streets, high-walled by
buildings on,
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either side,
with terrific thundering, banging, clanging, grinding sounds, excruciatingly
terrible.
Slang, except
now and then some selected word for a special occasion, is not necessary to the
speech of the better-class Philadelphian. He has his own phrases, however, and
it is typically Philadelphian to begin a sentence, "My thought is" He
is rather particular as to his speech, yet his particularity does not smack of
the schoolroom; but now and then you may even hear the Oxford pronunciation of
physiognomy, "fizzi-on-yu-mi." Once or so in a lifetime you will
hear, what you will never hear in any other American city and rarely in England
away from the tower of Magdalen, the pronunciation of “Deuteronomy" with
long "o's" and with the accent on the next to the last syllable.
The
Philadelphian dislike of the simple word "the" is among the curious
manifestations of the city. There are two sets of city council; what may be
termed the upper and the lower houses; but Philadelphia never refers to
"the councils"; no Philadelphian could by possibility do so. It is
always just one word, "councils"; and "councils" do not
meet in the City Hall, huge building though it is. No. It is always "City
Hall," without the "the.” I do not know why or how this can be. I put
it down as among those unexplainable facts which travelers notice, in Europe or
Asia or in Pennsylvania. And, as a rule, although not with absolute uniformity
of usage, a man does not have his money in the bank; it is “in bank.”
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There is no
"Union League Club" here, as there is in New York, and other cities
for, with recognition of correctness, it is just the "Union League."
It is a typical Philadelphia on to give "hospitable," a word much
used in this extremely hospitable city, with the accent, oddly and markedly, on
the "spit." Great numbers of Philadelphians, although in this case
not the most careful speakers, refer to the "rad-iators" on the front
of their motor, cars, and to the "shock abzorbers" (with a
"z" sound!) on the rear axle.
There is not
the variety of odd street signs that one expects to see in an old city; but one
is amused by such a baker's announcement as "The Cake that made Mother
stop Baking." The oldest confectioner of the city still displays the good
old-fashioned word, "Sweets." There are still such reminders of the
past as, "goat, sheep and deer skins." I noticed on the front of a
mansion that had been given over to the use of the Naval Auxiliary of the Red
Cross, in the very heart and center of Philadelphia's exclusiveness, on
Rittenhouse Square, the sign, without saving punctuation, "Parcels and
Packages received here for the Men of our Navy weighing less than 100
pounds."
Though a city
with a reputation for slowness, one notices an unusual number of places where
clothes are pressed or shoes mended "while you wait." But, of course,
this does not tell how long you may be expected to wait!
Butchers are
still known as "licensed victualers.”
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One gets the
impression of an unusual number of bird-seed stores and of places where dogs
and other small animals are sold. There are many more opticians,
proportionately, than in other cities, and I have heard Philadelphians
themselves explain this by the city's constant contrast of red brick and white
marble. There is more than the usual number of shoe stores, because
Philadelphians walk more than the people of most American cities, their homes
and railway stations being so near the center.
Perhaps
Franklin unconsciously set the supposed Philadelphia standard, in the matter of
sleep, by promptly falling asleep, the very first day he was in the city, in
the first building that he, entered, which happened to be a meeting-house. It
is still a city that is delightfully dormered; there are dormer windows, in the
older portions, in every direction; and one may readily fancy a connection
between "dormer" and sleep; although, for many people it would be
amusingly sufficient, as a proof of sleepiness, to say that the city actually
maintains a number of cricket clubs!
It is a city
that goes to bed early and the "twelve o'clock visitor in a nine o'clock
town" is frequent. In the older residence streets, those which still have
solid shutters, you will hear the resonant bang of shutter after shutter,
shortly after eight. The dog is either turned out or called in according to the
kind of owner, and then the houses are black. This is, however, to some degree
deceptive, as the old-fashioned sitting-room is up one flight and at the
RESIDENTAL RITTENHOUSE SQUARE
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rear of the
house; but even so, the hours are
generally early for a big city.
Naturally, an idiosyncratic
city develops some idiosyncratic people; and one of the Philadelphia judges is
blessed with so careful a wife that she has all the family silver carried into
her room, for safe-keeping, every night; and friends (it is always friends!)
say that the judge often pounds furiously on the breakfast table, impatiently
waiting for the so very carefully guarded silver to appear.
Over and over,
one comes back to the subtle satisfaction that is, written on the Philadelphia
face. “Smug” says one visitor. They "never bristle," says Henry
James. “I can always tell what city a man comes from"—you remember the old
story— working around to, "Now, you are from Philadelphia," and the
indignant, "No, I'm not! I've been
sick for a month and that’s why I look that way.”
I think the feeling comes, first, from the
inherited spirit of non-resistance, and secondly from the sense of conscious
regularity which comes from living among severely regular streets and regular
numberings.
Streets at
right angles, numbered in numerical succession, and precisely one hundred
numbers to a block; the streets north of Market just the same as south of
Market with the differentiating "North" or "South” in referring
to them—this alone must have a tremendous effect on the mental makeup of the
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people. Direct
a man to, say, 2020 South Twentieth Street, and he knows that he must go twenty
squares south on the twentieth street from the Delaware River.
I happened to read, in a English book, a few days
ago, of an American, in London, who was under suspicion of giving a false name
and address, because he gave it as “one thousand one hundred and ninety-one,
Walnut Street, Philadelphia;” obviously an invention, to the British mind
(though one really does not see why); till a traveled Englishman remarked that
there really is such a street in Philadelphia and
that, as it was at least ten miles in length, it might possibly reach that
numbering. As a matter of fact, it
reaches the number within less than two miles.
The regularity operates, too, to hold people close to
the customary. They go precisely to the
places where they have always gone, to see the things they have always
seen. They rarely leave the beaten path;
which is why, after all, most, of them do not follow that of the primrose. I was told, one day, by the head of a
prominent house, that numbers of his employees who live out Germantown way had
never been in West Philadelphia and that numbers of
his West Philadelphia employees had never seen Germantown. And a member of an active woman’s club told
me that her follow members came from “then ends of the earth,” at which I
expressed interest, feeling that with allowance for unintentioned exaggeration,
at least Bristol and Chester were
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meant, only to find that it was deemed marvelous to
have one or two from Camden and Manayunk.
No other city presents, in its sidewalks, so many
pitfalls to the unwary, with stone steps projecting, and blocks of marble at
the curb, and open basement stairs, and trees in the middle of the sidewalks
even on Broad Street. The Glasgow
admonition to its public, of “Gang warily” ought to be printed, with the
Glasgow addendum of the reference to the text, which is the 23d verse of the 3d
chapter of Proverbs.*
The shops are attractive, especially the little shops
for specialties; rare books, prints, old books, antiques. No other American city equals Philadelphia in this except New York, and the New York
specialty shops are so scattered as to require years to make their
acquaintance.
In walking in Philadelphia, more than in
other cities, one is always meeting friends, and especially on Chestnut Street;
Chestnut being the most walked upon street, and its walkable district being
very small, say from Eleventh to Sixteenth.
Constantly one notices the good looks, the good manners, the good
clothes. And there comes the memory of
that extremely active Philadelphian partisan, of Revolutionary days, Captain
Allen McLane, for a bill to him, from a Philadelphian merchant, itemized a pair
of boots, $600, 4 handkerchiefs, $100 each, a little calico and silk and chintz
(curious purchases to go with boots and handkerchief!), making in all a total
of $3,144; with the saving clause, however, that if paid in specie eighteen
pounds would settle it!
__________
Transcriber’s Note:
“You can go safely on your way and never even
stumble.” Proverbs 3:23, “The Good News Bible,” The American Bible Society.
Page 144
As to walking
on Chestnut Street—it is not likely that there will ever, be anything more
important, more impressive, then the March of the Continentals along this
street, led by Washington, on their way to the battlefield of Brandywine;
ragged, ill-shod, ill-clothed, ill-fed, they marched bravely on, with drumming
and fifing, and each with a green twig in his, hat.
I have
noticed, in Philadelphia, more than the number usual in American cities, of the
miserable, the maimed, the blind, crouched on the stone steps or huddled
against some wall, not precisely begging but silently offering pencils or
matches. But I think this represents leniency of the authorities rather than
unusual misery. Another class make the buildings at the corner of Chestnut and
Broad streets, the most noteworthy business corner of the city, greasy with their
slouching shoulders; this representing the survival of an old custom, arising
long before the present modern structures stood there. In the old days, many a
Philadelphian stood at this corner, especially if of the "Bohemian"
type; Walt Whitman and a few of his worshipers being often noticeable. Rebecca
Harding Davis, herself a Philadelphian, has described him as
"fishy-eyed," and, as "writing poems to every part of his own
anatomy." In truth, he sorely shocked the fastidious; but those who object
to the fact that he was worshiped by a following ought to remember that at that
time, in England, Tennyson was worshiped to such a degree that on leaving a
dining-room after dinner, each lady
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was expected
to kiss his hand, and that even American ladies did this!—and as the English
Poet walked along the road he made such a, pretense of being fearful of being
seen that he covered his face from the gaze of the vulgar. It is pleasant to think, that our Walt did
not do that, whether at Broad and Chestnut streets or elsewhere.
Imbedded in
the gummy, oily pavement around City Hall are innumerable little black metallic
specks which, if one stops to look at them, wondering what such pavement
construction means, will be found to be fragments dropped from motor cars,
bolts, grease-cups, rods, nuts, all the various parts that can be shaken off
when a car suddenly stops—and the sudden stops are frequent. The absurd story
may, have originated here, suggested by this medley of debris, of the escaping
patient from a sanatorium who leaped into a doctor's waiting motor car and
dashed off with it for liberty, stopping at a nearby corner to get two amazed
Chinamen into the rear seat, and then continuing till a terrific crash ended
the flight; when a policeman, hurrying up, could find only "a nut and two
washers"!
I learned, one
day, motoring around City Hall, what may presumably be looked upon as the
average value of a woman's life, not in the judgment of life insurance folk but
in that of the police; at least, on day in mind, I remember that a policeman,
after necessary stoppage of cars, motioned to go on; and I went on; but at that
very moment a woman careless as to step out from the sidewalk
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directly in front
of the car, which it was fortunately possible, to stop while she was still a
few inches away. At which, the policeman marched over to me. "Didn't you
see me motion you to come on?" he said. "If I had not stopped that
woman would have been run over," I replied. "Never you mind about the
women," he said darkly. "You do as I tell you or it'll cost you
eighteen dollars."
When
Philadelphia is mentioned, South of Market Street claims the name. North of
Market is much like Brooklyn is to a New Yorker. North of Market is a great
area, mile after mile of brick houses, three storied and some two storied,
individual, shoulder to shoulder, houses of well-to-do merchants rising in
clean, Holland-like shininess of door varnish, clean panes and exact curtains,
white doorsteps, sometimes with a glimpse of sideyard and a garden of greenery,
with roses and wistaria in extreme orderliness. Then, without apparent reason,
may come a change to squalor, with untidy pavements, shaky shutters, and
desolateness sitting like a blight over all. Then one will pass a great area of
endless two-story, company-built little houses in wearying repetition,
monotonous in unchanging likeness, hundreds upon hundreds, street and corner
and street, street and corner and street. The newer of these districts have
unvaried houses topped by metal cornices with peeling paint. Then one will come
upon areas of homes, one after another, alike as peas in a pod, of be-porched
dwellings, and the houses form a continuous line so the porches
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extend on both
sides of the way, like continuous boardwalks, with little jumpable hurdles to
mark each bound. Each of these porches, all rather narrow, is filled to
capacity with large-sized rockers, all covered in summer, thousands of them
with strips of white linen towelling, neat, clean and frequently replaced.
North of
Market Street shows acres of the mediocre, of the conservative, mostly of the
comfortable. It shows an even array of primly starched lace curtains of the
'80's, evenly hung across the glass, a curtaining which has vanished from other
cities but which is traditionally the outward and visible emblem of prosperity
here. Within the houses are treasured the what-nots and the Victorian
black-walnut furniture, just as south of Market Street the mahogany of
Chippendale's time is honored and preserved.
Even these
quiet folk sitting swaying in their tight-wedged, rocker-lined porches are
saying to each other: "Yes; she was of good family, a Klinkerfoos from
Schaefferstown, and her grandmother was born a—“and thus on and on. One wonders
whether it is the climate of the city or the blood or the food. It is so
marked, that it must be from all.
Most of the
streets in the central business portion of Philadelphia are necessarily one-way
streets, narrowness and the volume of traffic, and at crossings there is an
infallible way of picking out strangers from resident Philadelphians; for they
before crossing, looks both to the right and
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the left, for possible motor-cars, whereas the Philadelphian looks in one direction only.
Tradition has it that two spots were
reserved, by William Penn, to remain forever vacant, ready for the use of
visiting Indians; and tradition further holds that one was the spot in the rear
of some buildings on Second Street, between Chestnut and Walnut, and the other
on Walnut Street near Broad. Neither of
these places is now available for the wandering Indian, not have the spots been
used as playgrounds or resting spots.
The busybody is a unique feature of
Philadelphia life; it being, not an individual, but a set of smallish mirrors,
one of them being on a concave curve. It
is so adjusted, at a second-floor window, that a person within the room may see
in reflection, without being seen in turn, every passer-by on the sidewalk or
any caller who may be on the doorstep; all of which gives a stranger the idea
of an entire city peeping at him unobserved.
I never like to find myself thinking critical
thoughts of Philadelphia. And one of my pleasant memories is of
meeting, one day, in a little Connecticut town, an old man, a veteran of the
Civil War, who told me of his journey home with a companion veteran after
Appomattox. They stopped off at
Philadelphia, and wandered aimless about, tired and dirty and miserable, and
they paused at a gate in a high wooden fence in an alley; having become so
heartsick and ashamed that they had left the main streets; and they saw an aged
lady motion to them,
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from her window, to come in, and they went in, and
she and her sister, quiet Friends, welcomed them, and gave them hot water and
fresh towels, under a grapevine in the neat little brick-paved yard—how those
fresh towels lingered lovingly in the old man’s memory!—and good things to eat
and to drink; and tears were in the old man’s eyes, and his voice broke
quaveringly, as he told of how he loved the very thought of those gentle women
of Philadelphia.
[Old Mansions on Rittenhouse Square]
