I have not
myself been in Lucca, but I conceive that its piazza is not like our
square, with a pump and horse-trough in the midst; but that it has
probably a fountain and statuary, though not possibly so magnificent an
elm towering above the bronze or marble groups as spreads its boughs of
benison over our pump and the horse-car switchman, loitering near it to
set the switch for the arriving cars, or lift the brimming buckets to the
smoking nostrils of the horses, while out from the stable comes clanging
and banging with a fresh team that famous African who has turned white,
or, if he is off duty, one of his brethren who has not yet begun to turn.
Figure, besides, an expressman watering his horse at the trough, a
provision-cart backed up against the curb in front of one of the stores,
various people looking from the car-office windows, and a conductor
appearing at the door long enough to call out, "Ready for Boston!"--and
you have a scene of such gayety as Lucca could never have witnessed in her
piazza at high noon on a summer's day.
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