f country
training--you see yourself, somewhat misty through the years, barefoot in a
grassy lane, with stick in hand, urging the gentle beast. There is a subtle
persuasion in the junkman's call. In these tones did the magician, bawling
for old lamps, beguile Aladdin. If there were this morning in my lodging an
unrubbed lamp, I would toss it from the window for such magic as he might
extract from it. And if a fair Princess should be missing at the noon and
her palace be skipped from sight, it will follow on the rubbing of it.

The call of red cherries in the park--as you might guess from its Italian
source--is set to an amorous tune. What lady, smocked in morning cambric,
would not be wooed by such a voice? The gay fellow tempts her to a
purchase. It is but a decent caution--now that Spring is here--that the
rascal does not call his wares by moonlight. As for early peas this
morning, it is Pan himself who peddles them--disguised and smirched lest
he be caught in the deception--Pan who stamps his foot and shakes the
thicket--whose habit is to sing with reedy voice of the green willows that
dip in sunny waters. Although he now clatters his tins and baskets and
cries out like a merchant, his thoughts run to the black earth and the
shady hollows and the sound of little streams.

I have wondered as I have observed the housewives lingering at their
windows--for my window also looks upon the park--I have wondered that these
melodious street cries are not used generally for calling the wares of
wider sale. If a radish can be so proclaimed, there might be a lilt devised
in praise of other pleasing merceries--a tripping pizzicato for laces and
frippery--a brave trumpeting for some newest cereal. And should not the
latest book--if it be a tale of love, for these I am told are best offered
to the public in the Spring (sad tales are best for winter)--should not a
tale of love be heralded through the city by the singing of a ballad, with
a melting tenor in the part? In old days a gaudy rogue cried out upon the
broader streets that jugglers had stretched their rope in the market-place,
but when the bears came to town, the news was piped even to the narrowest
lanes that house-folk might bring their pennies.

With my thoughts set on the Spring I chanced to walk recently where the
theatres are thickest. It was on a Saturday afternoon and the walk was
crowded with amusement seekers. Presently in the press I observed a queer
old fellow ca