Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/77

 sound every citizen knows, the rasping, sliding clatter of a wagon turning off the car track so that a trolley can pass it. The front wheels have left the track, but the back pair are scraping along against the setts before mounting over the rim.

Every street has its own distinctive noises and the attentive ear accustoms itself to them until they become almost a part of the day's enjoyment. The deep-toned bell of Independence Hall bronzing the hours is part of our harmony here, and no less familiar is the vigorous tap-tap of Blind Al's stick. Al is the well-known news-dealer at the corner of Chestnut and Fifth. Several times a day he passes along under our windows, and the tinkle of his staff is a well-known and pleasant note in our ears. We like to imagine, too, that we can recognize the peculiarly soft and easy-going rumble of a wagon of watermelons.

But what we started to talk about was the balcony, from which we can get a long view of Chestnut street all the way from Broad street almost to the river. It is a pleasant prospect. There is something very individual about Chestnut street. It could not possibly be in New York. The solid, placid dignity of most of the buildings, the absence of skyscrapers, the plain stone fronts with the arched windows of the sixties, all these bespeak a city where it is still a little bit bad form for a building to be too garishly new. I may be wrong, but I do not remember in New York any such criss-cross of wires above the streets. Along