Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/258

 spreads upon the air. Buying a bag, one darts aboard the antique ship Columbia, built in 1877, and still making the perilous voyage to Cooper's Point.

There is an air of charming leisure about the Vine street ferry. Two mules, attached to a wagon, waved their tall ears in a friendly manner as we waited for the sailing date to arrive, and I tried to feed them some peanuts. All the mules I have ever been intimate with were connoisseurs of goobers, but somewhat to my chagrin these animals seemed suspicious of the offer. After several unavailing efforts to engage their appetites their amused charioteer informed me that he didn't think they hardly knew what peanuts were. These delightful mules watched me with an air of embarrassing intensity throughout the crossing. They had quite the air of ladies riding in a Pullman car whose gaze one has inadvertently interrupted and who have misconstrued the accident. These mules were so entertaining that I almost forgot to study the river. On the Camden side I was somewhat tempted to go exploring, but a friendly seaman assured me the Columbia would shortly return to her home port and entreated me not to allow myself to be stranded abroad. So all I have to report of Cooper's Point is a life-size wooden figure of a horse near the ferry slip. Then we made the return trip over the sparkling beer-colored water, speaking a sister vessel of the Shackamaxon route.