wo-wheeled drays and carts, the men
selling lobsters on the corner, the newsboys with their "papahs," the
faces of the women so thin and pale, the men, neat, dapper, small, many
of them walking with finicky precision as though treading on
eggs,--everything had a Yankee tang, a special quality, and then, the
noise! We had thought Chicago noisy, and so it was, but here the clamor
was high-keyed, deafening for the reason that the rain-washed streets
were paved with cobble stones over which enormous carts bumped and
clattered with resounding riot.

Bewildered,--with eyes and ears alert, we toiled up Haymarket Square
shoulder to shoulder, seeking the Common. Of course we carried our
hand-bags--(the railway had no parcel rooms in those days, or if it had
we didn't know it) clinging to them like ants to their eggs and so
slowly explored Tremont Street. Cornhill entranced us with its amazing
curve. We passed the Granary Burying Ground and King's Chapel with awe,
and so came to rest at last on the upper end of the Common! We had
reached the goal of our long pilgrimage.

To tell the truth, we were a little disappointed in our first view of
it. It was much smaller than we had imagined it to be and the pond was
ONLY a pond, but the trees were all that father had declared them to be.
We had known broad prairies and splendid primitive woodlands--but these
elms dated back to the days of Washington, and were to be reverenced
along with the State House and Bunker Hill.

We spent considerable time there on that friendly bench, resting in the
shadows of the elms, and while sitting there, we ate our lunch, and
watched the traffic of Tremont Street, in perfect content till I
remembered that the night was coming on, and that we had no place to
sleep.

Approaching a policeman I inquired the way to a boarding house.

The officer who chanced to be a good-natured Irishman, with a courtesy
almost oppressive, minutely pointed the way to a house on Essex Street.
Think of it--Essex Street! It sounded like Shakespeare and Merrie
England!

Following his direction, we found ourselves in the door of a small house
on a narrow alley at the left of the Common. The landlady, a kindly
soul, took our measure at once and gave us a room just off her little
parlor, and as we had not slept, normally, for three nights, we decided
to go at once to bed. It was about five o'clock, one of the noisiest
hours of a noisy street, but we fell almost instantly into t