children the statement that there was to be
a tavern, or a hotel, without a sign, was still
more extraordinary. We were used to seeing
swinging signs on posts in front of the taverns.
Thus I remember "The Indian Queen" in
Bromfield Street, "The Bunch of Grapes" in
State Street, "The Lamb" I think where the
Adams House now is, "The Lion" where the
Boston Theatre is, and nearly opposite these
the Lafayette Tavern. This means that large
pictures of an Indian queen, a bunch of grapes,
a lamb, a lion, and of Lafayette swung back
ward and forward in the wind. There was a
sign in front of the Marlborough Tavern, and
one nearly opposite, south of Milk Street, but
I do not remember what these were. All these
inns would now be thought small. They were
then called taverns, and to New Englanders
seemed very large. Of course they were large
enough for their purpose. When I was nine
or ten years old my father, who was thought
to be a fanatic as a railroad prophet, offered in
Faneuil Hall the suggestion that if people
could come from Springfield to Boston in five
hours an average of nine people would come
Page:A new England boyhood by Hale, Edward Everett.djvu/39
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'TIS SEVENTY YEARS SINCE.
3