One phase of those days must by no means go unrecorded--namely, the
Broadway omnibuses, with their drivers.
The vehicles still (I write this paragraph in 1881) give a portion
of the character of Broadway--the Fifth avenue, Madison avenue, and
Twenty-third street lines yet running. But the flush days of the old
Broadway stages, characteristic and copious, are over. The Yellow-birds,
the Red-birds, the original Broadway, the Fourth avenue, the
Knickerbocker, and a dozen others of twenty or thirty years ago, are all
gone. And the men specially identified with them, and giving vitality
and meaning to them--the drivers--a strange, natural, quick-eyed and
wondrous race--(not only Rabelais and Cervantes would have gloated upon
them, but Homer and Shakspere would)--how well I remember them, and
must here give a word about them. How many hours, forenoons and
afternoons--how many exhilarating night-times I have had--perhaps June
or July, in cooler air-riding the whole length of Broadway, listening
to some yarn, (and the most vivid yarns ever spun, and the rarest
mimicry)--or perhaps I declaiming some stormy passage from Julius Caesar
or Richard, (you could roar as loudly as you chose in that heavy, dense,
uninterrupted street-bass.) Yes, I knew all the drivers then, Broadway
Jack, Dressmaker, Balky Bill, George Storms, Old Elephant, his brother
Young Elephant (who came afterward,) Tippy, Pop Rice, Big Frank,
Yellow Joe, Pete Callahan, Patsey Dee, and dozens more; for there were
hundreds. They had immense qualities, largely animal--eating, drinking;
women--great personal pride, in their way--perhaps a few slouches here
and there, but I should have trusted the general run of them, in their
simple good-will and honor, under all circumstances. Not only for
comradeship, and sometimes affection--great studies I found them also.
(I suppose the critics will laugh heartily, but the influence of those
Broadway omnibus jaunts and drivers and declamations and escapades
undoubtedly enter'd into the gestation of "Leaves of Grass.")