She could read the dates of all the houses on the painted
cornices of the water-spouts, and saw the cabalistic devices of old
insurance companies on the property they covered. Pigeons flying about
the low roofs clucked and chuckled as if their milky purity had been
incensed, and little dogs seemed to draw near and trot after, too
familiarly, as if they scented sin.
There were two working-men from Zane & Rainey's ship-yard who had known
kindness to their wives from Agnes when those wives were in confinement.
Both took off their hats respectfully, but with astonishment
overwhelming their pity.
Half the fire company had congregated at one corner of the street--lean,
runners of men in red shirts, and with boots outside their trousers.
They did not say a word, but gazed as at a riddle going by. Yet at one
place a Sabbath scholar of Agnes came out before her, and, making a
courtesy, said:
"Teacher, take my orange blossom!"
The flower was nearly white, and very fragrant. Duff Salter reached out
and put it in his button-hole.
So excited were the sensibilities of Agnes that it seemed to her the old
door-knockers squinted; the idle writing of boys on dead walls read with
a hidden meaning; the shade-trees lazily shaking in summer seemed to
whisper; if she looked down, there now and then appeared, moulded in the
bricks of the pavement, a worn letter, or a passing goose foot, the
accident of the brickyard, but now become personal and intentional.
Pages:
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254