Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/46

 Reese street, but does not run through. It is a quiet little brick yard, with three green pumps (also plopping into washtubs) and damp garments fluttering out on squeaky pulley lines from the upper windows. The wall at the back of the court is topped with flowers and morning-glory vines. On one of the marble stoops a woman was peeling potatoes and across the yard a girl with a blue dress was washing clothes. It seemed to me like a scene out of one of Barrie's stories.

Who is the poet or the artist of this little village of ruddy brick behind St. John's graveyard? Who will tell me how the rain lashes down those narrow passages during a summer storm, when the children come scampering home from Franklin Square? Who will tell me of the hot noons when the hokey-pokey man tolls his bright bell at the end of the street and mothers search their purses for spare pennies? Or when the dripping ice wagon rumbles up the cobbles with its vast store of great crystal and green blocks of chill and perhaps a few generous splinters for small mouths to suck? I suppose poets may have sung the songs of those back streets. If they haven't they are very foolish. The songs are there.