(_On the bench in the Park, midafternoon, dreamily noting the drift,
of the human species back and forth._) To think--this multitude is
but a wee little fraction of the earth’s population! And all blood
kin to me, every one! Eve ought to have come with me; this would
excite her affectionate heart. She was never able to keep her
composure when she came upon a relative; she would try to kiss every
one of these people, black and white and all. (_A baby wagon
passes._) How little change one can notice--none at all, in fact. I
remember the first child well----Let me see ... it is three hundred
thousand years ago come Tuesday. This one is just like it. So
between the first one and the last one there is really nothing to
choose. The same insufficiency of hair, the same absence of teeth,
the same feebleness of body and apparent vacancy of mind, the same
general unattractiveness all around. Yet Eve worshiped that early
one, and it was pretty to see her with it. This latest one’s mother
worships _it_; it shows in her eyes--it is the very look that used
to shine in Eve’s. To think that so subtle and intangible a thing as
a _look_ could flit and flash from face to face down a procession
three hundred thousand years long and remain the same, without shade
of change! Yet here it is, lighting this young creature’s face just
as it lighted Eve’s in the long ago--the newest thing I have seen in
the earth, and the oldest. Of course, the dinosaur----But that is in
another class.
She drew the baby wagon to the bench and sat down and began to shove
it softly back and forth with one hand while she held up a newspaper
with the other and absorbed herself in its contents. Presently,
“My!” she exclaimed; which startled me, and I ventured to ask her,
modestly and respectfully, what was the matter. She courteously
passed the paper to me and said--pointing with her finger:
“There--it reads like fact, but I don’t know.”
It was very embarrassing. I tried to look at my ease, and
nonchalantly turned the paper this and that and the other way, but
her eye was upon me and I felt that I was not succeeding. Pretty
soon she asked, hesitatingly:
“Can’t--can’t--you--read?”
I had to confess that I couldn’t. It filled her with wonder. But it
had one pleasant effect--it interested her in me, and I was
thankful, for I was getting lonesome for some one to talk to and
listen to. The young fellow who was showing me around--on his own
motion, I did not invite him--had missed his appointment at the
Museum, and I was feeling disappointed, for he was good company.
When I told the young woman I could not read, she asked me another
embarrassing question:
“Where are you from?”