Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-09-02
TRAVELS IN PHILADELPHIA
BY Christopher Morley

has muscked the spell of the river drive
On winter nights ghost-music plays
(The bells of long forgotten sleighs)
Along the Wissahickon.
And many silver-headed wight
Who drove that pleasant road by night
Signs now for his old appetite
For waffes hot and chicken.
And grandmas now, who then were bellies
How many placid bosom swells
At thought of loves old charms and spells
Along the Wissahickon
"But, my dear fellow" said one of these
silver headed wights TO Madrigal when he
had written the poem ''it wasn't chicken,
it was catfish that was famous in the Wis
sahickon suppers." "All right" said Mad
rigal, Twill you please have the name of the
creek changed to Wissahatfsh to fit the
rhyme?" The necessities of poets must be
consulted, unless we are to 60 over, pen,
ink and blotter to the blattings of vers libre.
pUT plague on the talk about "the good
- old daysn' Certainly in those times the
road along the creek was never such
dreaming haunt of quietness as it is today.
An occasional proud damsel, cantering on
horse, accompanied by sort of Lou Tel
legen groom; a rambling carriage or two q
few children padding in the stream, and
bropzed fellow galloping along with eager
solitude. The creek pours smoothly over
rocky shelves, churning in white soapy
triangle of foam below cascade or slip
ping in clear green channels through an aisle
OF buttonwoods and incredibly slender tulip
poplars. Here and there is canoe, teeter-
ing gently in a nook of shade, while Colin
and Amaryllis are uttering bashful pleas
antries each to other-innocent plagiar-
isms as old as Eden, that seem to them
selves 80 gorgeously new and delicious The
road bends and slopes, under cliffs of fern
and evergreen, where moist pungency of
balsam and tnrpentine breathes graciously in
the nose of the sneezer. Gushing springs
splash on the steep bank.
A LREADY, though only the end of August,
"A there was faint tinge of bronze upon
the foliage. We were at a loss to know
whether this was truly sign of coming
fall or some unnatural blight witheripg
the trees. Can trees suffer from hay fever
At any rate we saw many dead limbs, many
great trunks bald and gouty on the eastern
cliffs and kind of pallor and palsy in the
color of the leaves The forestry of the re :
gion did not seem altogether healthy, even to
the ignorant eye. We have seen in recent
years what a plague has befallen one noble
species of tree: it would be a sorry thing il
Philadelphia's noblest beauty spot were raw
aged by further troubles.
TALKING and sneezing by turns, we came
l. to Valley Green, where placid caravan
serai sits beside the way, with broad, white
porch to invite the traveller, and very
feminine barroom innocently garnished with
syphons of soda and lemons balanced with
ladylike neatness on the necks of grape
Juice bottles. Green canoes were drawn up
on the river bank a grave file of six small
yellow ducklings was waddling toward the
water a turkey (yery similar in profile to
Mr.. Chauncey Depew) was meditating in the
| roadway. A bantam cock and his dame made
up in strut what they lacked in stature, and
| a very deaf gardener was trimming garden
| of vivid phloK. Here was a setting that
| cried loudly for the kissing tea urn. Yet to
| think again Of refreshment seemed disre
pectful to the noble lunch of a noble host
! enjoyed only four hours earlier, and we
passed stoicaly by, intending to go as far
as Indian Rock. mile further But at O
| little waterfall, by the Wises Mill road, we
halted with d common instinct. We turned
backward and sought that gracious veran-
| da at Valley Green. There. in pot of tca
! aud buttered toast with marElalade, We for
got our emunctory woes.
We set match to tobacco and strode up.