Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-06-23
AROUND THE CITY

A group of men stood in front of q hotel
near The Star building. They must have
been jolly-souled fellows, for, as a woman
passed. one of them was insisting with
exuberant loudness:
Yes. sir, this old avenue looks like a
roof garden. all right! There's your col
ored lights and your flags
where's our summer girls?' demanded a
too literal member of the party.
And our tragedies and soft drinks?'
Say, boys, don't jump hard on my
beautiful imagination! 1t sure does look
like a roof garden"
1t sure did. The grace of twilight seemed
to sooth the mangled street; red lanterns
cleaned like fake nature glow worms, and
many little green and scarlet flags that had
done sentinel duty all day dropped if
asleep at their posts. tinkle of strong
music came out from a hotel dining room
and somewhere in the shadows a street
piano was grinding rag-time.
The woman who passed must also have
possessed a beautiful Imagination, for as
she threaded the roped-in maze. winding
toward the car tracks, she said to her
self:
especially if you have never seen one!
Another woman was standing at the
planked crossing, staring down into ditch
that showed deep and ragged edged, by the
IL.
staring down with such intensity that the
woman with the beautiful imagination asked
her If she had lost anything. This is the
answer she got:
hole yesterday when she getting off
car, and her skull is so gashed that the
doctor thinks she will die. l know it
wasn't her fault because she is always
careful on account of being cripple. She's
twenty-three> years old. and | don't see
how | could live without her.
Then something went wrong with the lis
tener's beautiful imagination. 1t refused
to work. The roof garden vanished and
the avenue was just dug-up waste Quilted
with bitches that had taken blood toll
1t all depends on the point of view.
A man and woman. labeled with James
town badges, entered the Washington Mon
ument as the elevator was about to ascend.
The man made for the cage, but the woman
showed no symptom of hurry.
We're going to walk up and ride down"
she announced. I'm afraid of elevators
IF you are going to ride one way what's
the difference between up and down?' ask
ed the man, who plainly objected to the
stairs.
Plenty of difference When you are
going up the danger keeps on increasing.
gets less and less. What are you waiting
for? Come along"
Moneys on her side of the house"
chuckled by-stander, the man follow
GU tie NOiidn up lle Steps
The Public Library is a quiet place after
O'Clock at night. 1t is so quiet that two
readers who fingered outside the other
evening had the stone benches all to them
selves Down on the pavement people
passed occasionally and out in the street
cars went whizzing by, but the flag
ged plaza lay between like so much silvery
silence
Suddenly small figure swooped from the
shadows and skinned across the plaza as
smaller figures followed. They formed
circles and ripping lines and Zigzags past
counting; each small figure supple as the
first and all as silent as the night.
They are playing Follow My Leader"
explained one reader to the other.
But they were doing nothing of the kind.
They were working their muscles.
One of the boys said SO. And he ought
to know.
Three women We're lunching at breezy
table on the top floor of a department
store.
Yes, like to come to the city" purred
the oldest woman, who a small, shy
faced person with tremulous voice and
sparse white hair, but tell Jennie I'll be
glad to get back home; the people where
she boards are SO queer"
Jennie, buxom and middle aged, laughed
with an abandon that showed good, Wig
orous teeth with a gold one on the side:
"Grandma's shocked at my landlady be-
cause she's seventy-eight years old and
can't make up her mind which of the two
old fossils to marry, and because old Mrs.
Blank gets love letters and reads them
aloud at the table,
II won't sit and listen to them" put in
grandma; her SOFT old face prim with
righteousness. aged people don't carry
on like that down in my part of the coun-
try. We know when our counting days are
over"
Yes it's a regular epidemic with u.s."
said Jennie who was fixing grandma's
salad DaSSinP her the and mourning
cream in her tea II sometimes feel fir
tatious symptoms myself, and there are
times when l feel so afraid of grandma's
catching the disease that if she wasn't
fetida and tie around her neck"
And grandma's outraged blush, pink and
beautifully girlsh, was worth going miles
to see, II one were fond Of walking.