Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/44

 on the stone. If I were an artist I should love to picture the quaint huddle of tawny red brick overlooking St. John's churchyard, the vistas of narrow little streets, the corners and angles of old houses. The sunny walls of the burying ground are a favorite basking place for cats of all hues—yellow, black and gray. I envy George Hahn his quiet hours of work in that silent inclosure, but he assured me that the grass is rank and grows with dreadful speed. The somewhat desolate and forgotten air of the graveyard, with its broken stones and splintered trees, adds greatly to the wistfulness of its charm.

Behind the churchyard is a kind of enchanted village. Summer street bounds the cemetery, and from this branch off picturesque little lanes—Randolph street, for instance, with its row of trim little red houses, the white and green shutters, the narrow cobbled footway. It was ironing day and, taking a furtive peep through basement doors, I could see the regular sweep of busy sadirons on white boards. Children abound, and I felt greatly complimented when one infant called out Da-Da, as I passed. Parallel with Randolph street run Fairhill and Reese—tiny little byways, but a kind of miniature picture of the older Philadelphia. Snowy clothes were fluttering from the lines and pumps gushing a silver stream into washtubs. Strong white arms were sluicing and lathering the clothes, sousing them in the bluing-tinted water. Everywhere children were playing merrily