Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/192

 of a painter. A lamplighter comes along kindling the gas burners, which twinkle down the long white lane. A rich essence of pig steeps in the air, but it is not unpalatable to one accustomed to the country. As one sits on the porch of the store friendly dogs nose about one, and the village children come with baskets to do the evening purchasing.

A map of the city gives one little help in exploring this odd region of The Neck. According to the map one might believe that it is all laid out and built up in rectilinear streets. As a matter of fact it is a spread of meadows, marshes and scummy canals, with winding lanes and paths stepping off among clumps of trees and quaint white cottages half hidden among rushes, lilies and honeysuckle matting. Off to the east rise the masts and wireless aërials of League Island. It is a strange land, with customs of its own, not to be discerned at sight. Like all small communities, sharply conscious of their own identity, it is proud and reserved. It is a native American settlement: the children are flaxen and sturdy, their skin gilded with that amazing richness and beauty of color that comes to small urchins who play all day long in the sun in scant garmenting.

Over another railway siding one passes into the fens proper, and away from the village of Stonehouse lane. (I wonder, by the way, what was the stone house which gave it the name? All the present cottages are plainly wood.) Now one is in a