Page:A new England boyhood by Hale, Edward Everett.djvu/39

Rh children the statement that there was to be a tavern, or a hotel, without a sign, was still more extraordinary. We were used to seeing swinging signs on posts in front of the taverns. Thus I remember "The Indian Queen" in Bromfield Street, "The Bunch of Grapes" in State Street, "The Lamb" I think where the Adams House now is, "The Lion" where the Boston Theatre is, and nearly opposite these the Lafayette Tavern. This means that large pictures of an Indian queen, a bunch of grapes, a lamb, a lion, and of Lafayette swung back ward and forward in the wind. There was a sign in front of the Marlborough Tavern, and one nearly opposite, south of Milk Street, but I do not remember what these were. All these inns would now be thought small. They were then called taverns, and to New Englanders seemed very large. Of course they were large enough for their purpose. When I was nine or ten years old my father, who was thought to be a fanatic as a railroad prophet, offered in Faneuil Hall the suggestion that if people could come from Springfield to Boston in five hours an average of nine people would come