San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1894-06-30
ON THE LoITER.

Old Rastus johnson, in his
Emancipation Day DIRE So of black
summer coat, black trousers,
white shirt, white tie and white
vest, to say nothing of his great
white rolling eyeballs and long
rows of pearly white teeth, mount
ed Sui phur Wells street car the
other afternoon on his way to
Riverside park celebration, and
made himself very comfortable by
stretching his limp, lame leg at
full length upon the seat. Uncle
Rastus did not monopolize his
place long, for before the car
reached the Mill bridge, the old
Negroes sense of servile politeness
induced him to get up and with
many curtesy and awkward
smile, tender his monopoly to a
bevy of giggling girls.
Among the passengers in the car,
who by the way, were all, except
Uncle Rastus, bound for the baths,
was an elderly and very portly
man, dressed all in white. His
little gray eyes seemed to peer
through two little chinks in his
head, and were almost entirely
hidden by his puffy cheeks. His
lower lip dropped and hung from
mis- teeth as if pulled down by
sheer weight and fairness, and
when he took off his queer broad
round straw hat, the gorgeous
colOrs of the western sunset were
reproduced with all their resplend-
eIt beauty in the gloss of his hair
less head. He had a solemn, sour
look upon his face as if his mildew-
ed soul stood at eternal daggers'
points with all the world, and the
precipitation that fast trickled
down his chin, helped to make
him look the grimmer.
Just across from him and face
to face, as if that giddy sprite called
irony of fate had played the trick,
there sat a middle aged man of
lesser stature and lesser corpulence.
His broad face, made broader
by the long transverse lines under
meath his eyes, was turned by fits
and spells in every direction, as
though TO show, in contradistinc-
tion to the sour man, that his soul
was at peace with all the world.
AS If nature had not already boun-
tifully supplied his broad face
with transverse wrinkles, he grows
his moustache in unbroken tufts
across his cheeks from the nostrils
10 each ear. In addition thereto
he keeps his mouth slightly open,
so that he looks like one who is
ever hugely tickled, and when he
parts his lips a little more to speak
or TO take fuller breath, he looks
like you or me when we are laugh
ing most heartily.
Next to the laughing man there
sits dignided young woman with
"a uperabundance of rouge and
powder on her face. She too, is on
her way to enjoy the baths, but,
more of her after she energies.
As you sit in the cosy, mild,
tempered, cooling room and gaze
upon the pretty pool before you,
with the fame, the genius, the
beauty and fairness of the city
tumbling, splashing, swinging and
swimming in the warm Tuning
water, you seem to forget the hum
ming electric cars, the wheeling
steam engines and kindred things |
of this late date, for the scene calls |
to mind, as il in a dream,
the baths of ancient times if |
not the imperial thermal of Rome,
at least some other patrician re-
sort of that pompous race OF peo-
pie. Indeed, that imposing young
man on yonder balustrade, with
his curly hair, dark complexion,
clean shaven face, preparing for a
graceful plunge into the water,
might we'll pass for some success
full warrior awaiting at the gates
permission for his triumphant en-.
try. His features, his whole de-
meanor, as we'll as his dark, white
striped, loose garments, similar
to those worn by all the other
bathers, fully bear out this idea.
Then there is still younger man
whose physique and mien of face
bear the stamp of Roman mould,
and whom, as he walks down the
aisle, in his loose, red bordered