hat the Town Hall
should be repainted. Opposition would require too much effort, and the
thing is done. But the Gulf Stream soon takes its revenge on the
intruder, and gradually repaints him also, with its own soft and mellow
tints. In a few years he would no more bestir himself to fight for a
change than to fight against it.

It makes us smile a little, therefore, to observe that universal
delusion among the summer visitors, that we spend all winter in active
preparations for next season. Not so; we all devote it solely to
meditations on the season past. I observe that nobody in Oldport ever
believes in any coming summer. Perhaps the tide is turned, we think,
and people will go somewhere else. You do not find us altering our
houses in December, or building out new piazzas even in March. We wait
till the people have actually come to occupy them. The preparation for
visitors is made after the visitors have arrived. This may not be the
way in which things are done in what are called "smart business
places." But it is our way in Oldport.

It is another delusion to suppose that we are bored by this long epoch
of inactivity. Not at all; we enjoy it. If you enter a shop in winter,
you will find everybody rejoiced to see you--as a friend; but if it
turns out that you have come as a customer, people will look a little
disappointed. It is rather inconsiderate of you to make such demands
out of season. Winter is not exactly the time for that sort of thing.
It seems rather to violate the conditions of the truce. Could you not
postpone the affair till next July? Every country has its customs; I
observe that in some places, New York for instance, the shopkeepers
seem rather to enjoy a "field-day" when the sun and the customers are
out. In Oldport, on the contrary, men's spirits droop at such times,
and they go through their business sadly. They force themselves to it
during the summer, perhaps,--for one must make some sacrifices,--but in
winter it is inappropriate as strawberries and cream.

The same spirit of repose pervades the streets. Nobody ever looks in a
hurry, or as if an hour's delay would affect the thing in hand. The
nearest approach to a mob is when some stranger, thinking himself late
for the train (as if the thing were possible), is tempted to run a few
steps along the sidewalk. On such an occasion I have seen doors open,
and heads thrust out. But ordinarily even the physicians drive slowly,
as if they wished to dis