Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-05-07
AROUND THE CITY

Passengers who take the Potomac steam
ers are not always to be judged by theil
looks.
A'i'ei The farmer. In country store
Passengers clothes, who is going home
from a visit to his city kin.
most likely bears the name of his ancestor
who came over with Baltimore" and the
weather-beaten woman who is over-anxious
about the preserve jars deck hand is trund-
ling over the gang plank with jeopardizing
jauntiness Is the handed-down posterity of
some dame who danced minuets with roy
atty. in the days of patches and powdered
wigs. 1t is always a satisfaction to get a
peep into other ruts than our own: II only to
wonder what people can want with things
we have no use for ourselves. Those sacks.
for instance that the black fellows are
wheeling by the ton. Sacks like that never
come into our lives. The wharf master ex-
plains that they are to be filled with grain
and shipped to the Baltimore market-and
those queer. cumbersome things of steel and
wood. You are told that they are the lat
est things In plows. Plows-good gracious!
Suppose you had to follow that thing over
the clods of a twenty-acre field behind a
mule, from dawn until sunset, instead of
sitting at your fine desk under an electric
fan from 8 to 4:30i-and then, somehow, you
look up at the farmer in the country clothes
ness of the country is In his eyes, and there
Is sense of self-ownership in his outline
that makes you wonderland wonder-if
you indeed have the best of ft--you and
your city job.
On Tuesday afternoon the laughing, per-
spring deck hands had wheeled tons of in
congruous freight to the steamers hold, and
the blue officer in the pilot house had set
the whistle blowing when the hands, quite
in the course of their work, swarmed over
to hearse and pulled out pine box that
incloSed some coffined son of old Maryland
who was going home to sleep. One of the
truckmen took off his rag OF a cap and in
stinctively, the others who were not already
bareheaded followed his lead. They step
ped together with a solemn, unstudted state
liness-and the clamorous good-byes that
were being exchanged between the passen-
gers on deck and their friends on the wharf
below were hushed as the black fellows
bore over the gang plank one who had
many times been a passenger. and who was
making his last trip-as freight.
y X
A flock of small boys were playing a red
hot game Of base ball in Northeast Wash
ington the other afternoon.
Amende The catcher had taken his
Honorable. stand on a pavement along
which an elderly woman was
approaching: a batter was UP. and the
pitcher, after going through all the contor-
cred the ball. 1t went wild and struck the
old person in the small of her back. The
blow was such severe one that she had
to take a seat on a nearby STEP Three or
four good SamaritanS who had been watch
ing the game went to her assistance, and
the victim was soon able to go on her way.
Then 1t was that the captain Of the team
felt that it was up to him to say something.
With hat in hand, and with an apologize
look on his honest, ugly little face, he said
to the woman:
Lady, I'm sorry you got hit, but it wasn't
batted ball
This lucid explanation settled things salts
factorily all around. The old woman thank
ed him with a relieved look, land the boy
went back to his comrades with the strut
of one who has done himself proud.
An ancient colored woman, Of the "aunty''
type, was waiting for her train. The sun
beamy old soul had ON a
Old and purple calico frocR 30 stin
New with starch that it stood out
like, a brocade. Her necker-
chief and apron were Of white barred mus
lin, and her turban was tucked deity
around her head, after the fashion of the
slave days of her youth. In Difference TO
the twentieth century. the turhan was black
instead of bandana; and topping 1t was a
shameless little straw sailor that tried to
belittle the fine old face-and failed. AS
sic StoOu III liilc " pass lHlouSi LILO 6dlc
she blocked the passageway long enough
to call back at another woman:
"Goo'by, Cahline, honey. I'll be speckin'
you down for de chuch picnic, eff you kin
git off fun yo' service place"
Caroline was in ready made blue, with a
cartoon of a hat and a boa of dirty white
chiffon. She posed with her stomach cavsd
in and her hustle bumped out in exaggerat-
ed imitation of some admired model-pre-
sumably the first owner of the wrec 1ed
boa. Plainly, she was responsible for her
mothers sailor
Huh! Service place, nothin'! When I
gifts good an ready to come I'm comm
see?''
Caroline had graduated from cornfieId dia-
lect to the slang of the tough and was
plainly proud of her city education. She
also took particular pains to let the people
around see that she was ashamed of her
countrified nanny.
And the people around could see for
themselves that the mother was proud of
her child.
A very pretty girl and very pretty little
boy were walking along in the dusk. At a
certain corner one of two
NO tar-black youngsters who
Lady" were playing in the gutter
called out:
Lady, you drapped somethin'."
"Hi. dat amt no lady," interrupted the
other, "dat's white CONAN" Which shows
that the term lady has not become obso-
lete. 1t is simply working in a new field