Travels in Philadelphia/September Afternoon

by Christopher Morley

 

SEPTEMBER AFTERNOON

What an afternoon it was! Sunshine and blue sky, blended warmth and crispness, the wedding of summer and autumn. Sunshine as tender as Cardinal Mercier's smile, northern breeze sober as the much-harassed lineaments of the Tomsmith. Citizens went about their business "daintily enfolded in the bright, bright air," as a poet has put it. Over the dome of the postoffice, where the little cups of Mr. Bliss's wind gauge were spinning merrily, pigeons' wings gleamed white in the serene emptiness. The sunlight twinkled on lacquered limousines in dazzles of brightness, almost as vivid as the "genuine diamonds" in Market street show windows. Phil Warner, the always lunching bookseller, was out snapping up an oyster stew. Men of girth and large equator were watching doughnuts being fried in the baker's windows on Chestnut street with painful agitation. The onward march of the doughnut is a matter for serious concern in certain circles, particularly the circle of the waist line.

Strolling up Ninth street one was privileged to observe a sign of the times. A lunch room was being picketed by labor agitators, who looked comparatively unblemished by toil. They bore large signs saying:

The C——— Restaurant
Is Unfair to
Organized Labor.

 

Side by side with these gentry marched two blonde waitresses from the lunch room, wearing an air of much bitterness and oilcloth aprons emblazoned

Our Employes Are NOT on Strike
All Our Help Get good wages
Some of the Waiters Want Our Women
to Quit So They May Take Their Places.

"We're doing this of our own free will," said one of these damsels to me. "These guys never worked here. Our boss gives us good money and we're not going to walk out on him." She leaned a blazing lamp toward one of the prowling picketers, an Oriental of dubious valor. I would be sorry for the envoy if the lady spreads her lunch-hooks across the area by which his friends recognize him. Almost next door to this campaigning ground is the famous postal-card shop in which one may always read the secret palpitations of the public mind. The first card I noticed there said:

Many Happy Returns of the Day
What day? Pay Day.

Arch street seemed to be taking a momentary halt for lunch. On the sunny paths of old Christ Church burying ground a few meditators strolled to and fro, and one young couple were advancing toward the wooing stage on a shady bench. The lady was knitting a sweater, the swain arguing with persuasion. The Betsy Ross House, still trailing its faded bunting and disheveled wreaths, looked more like an old curio shop than ever. One wishes the D. A. R. would give it a coat of paint and remove the somewhat confused sign POUR PATRIA. A little further on one finds a sign

Select Evening Trip
Down the delaware
On Palace Streamer Thomas clyde
Theatrical Moonlight

This reference to nautical pleasures brought it to my mind that I had never enjoyed a voyage on the palace ferries of the Vine street crossing, and I moved in that direction. On Front above Arch one meets the terminus of the Frankford L, a tangle of salmon-colored girders. Something perilous, I could not see just what, was evidently going on, for a workman in air shouted, "Watch yourself!" This terse phrase is one of the triumphs of the American language, as is also the remark I heard the other evening. It referred to a certain publican who conducts a speak-easy at an address I shall not name. This publican had apparently got into an argument solvable only by the laying on of hands, and had emerged bearing an eye severely pulped. "Some one's been workin' on him," was the comment of one of his customers.

Watching myself with caution, I dodged down the steep stairs by which Cherry street descends from Front to Delaware avenue. In the vista of this narrow passage appeared the sharp gray bow of the United States transport Santa Teresa. The wide space along the docks was a rumble of traffic, as usual: wagons of golden bananas, sacks of peanuts on the pavement. But along the waterside bulwark were the customary groups of colored citizens shooting dice. Crap, I surmise, is a truly reverent form of worship: nowhere else does one hear the presiding deities of the congregation addressed with such completely fervent petition. A lusty snapping of fingers and an occasional cry of "Who thinks he feels some?" rose from one group of happy competitors. Here again the student of manners may notice a familiar phenomenon, the outward thrust of the negro toe. It seems that the first thing our brother does on buying a new pair of shoes is cut out a section of leather so that his outmost phalange may sprout through.

The tranquil upper deck of the Race street recreation pier is a goodly place to sit and survey the shining sweep of the river. The police boat Ashbridge lies there, and one may look down on her burnished brasses, watch the tugs puffing up and down, and the panorama of shipping from Kaighn's Point to a big five-masted schooner drawn up at Cramps'.

Approaching the Vine street ferry a mood of reckless vagabondage is likely to seize the wayfarer. Posters inform that the Parisian Flitters with "40 French Babies 40" are in town, and one feels convinced that life still teems with irresponsible gaiety. A savor of roasting peanuts spreads upon the air. Buying a bag, one darts aboard the antique ship Columbia, built in 1877, and still making the perilous voyage to Cooper's Point.

There is an air of charming leisure about the Vine street ferry. Two mules, attached to a wagon, waved their tall ears in a friendly manner as we waited for the sailing date to arrive, and I tried to feed them some peanuts. All the mules I have ever been intimate with were connoisseurs of goobers, but somewhat to my chagrin these animals seemed suspicious of the offer. After several unavailing efforts to engage their appetites their amused charioteer informed me that he didn't think they hardly knew what peanuts were. These delightful mules watched me with an air of embarrassing intensity throughout the crossing. They had quite the air of ladies riding in a Pullman car whose gaze one has inadvertently interrupted and who have misconstrued the accident.

These mules were so entertaining that I almost forgot to study the river. On the Camden side I was somewhat tempted to go exploring, but a friendly seaman assured me the Columbia would shortly return to her home port and entreated me not to allow myself to be stranded abroad. So all I have to report of Cooper's Point is a life-size wooden figure of a horse near the ferry slip. Then we made the return trip over the sparkling beer-colored water, speaking a sister vessel of the Shackamaxon route.

 

Dock Street

 

There is much to catch the eye on a ramble up Vine street from the river, but probably most interesting is a very unexpected stable about number 120. Passing under an archway, one finds a kind of rural barnyard scene; great wooden sheds on each side of an elbow alley, with lines of wagons laid away. There is an old drinking trough of clear water, horses stand munching in the sunshine, and a queer tangle of ragged roofs and small windows overhangs this old-fashioned scene. A few doors further on is an equally unexpected sign in a barber shop window: Cups and Leeches Applied. One also finds a horseshoeing forge in full blast, with patient animals leaning their heads against the wall and rosy irons glowing in the darkness. With similar brightness shone a jug of beer that I saw a man carrying across the street at the corner of Fifth. The sunlight sparkled upon the bright brown brew, and as peanuts are thirsty fodder I pushed through the swinging doors.