One of the odd things about human beings is, that wherever they happen
to live they accept it as a matter of course. In various foreign cities
I have often been amused (as every traveller has) to see people going
about their affairs just as though it were natural and unquestionable
for them to be there. It is just the same at home. Everyone I see on the
streets seems to be not at all amazed at living here instead of (let us
say) Indianapolis or Nashville. I envy my small Urchin his sense of the
extreme improbability of everything. When he gets on a trolley car he
draws a long breath and looks around in ecstasy at the human scenery. I
am teaching him to say in a loud, clear tone, as he gets on the car,
"Look at all the human beings!" in the same accent of amazement that he
uses when he goes to the Zoo. Perhaps in this way he will preserve the
happy faculty of being surprised.
It is an agreeable thing to keep the same sense of surprise in one's
home town that one would have in a strange city. You will find much to
startle you if you keep your eyes open. Yesterday, for instance, I was
lucky enough to meet a gentleman who had stood only a few feet away from
Lincoln when he made the Gettysburg Speech. Then I found that in a
certain cafeteria which I frequent the price you pay for your lunch is
always just one cent less than that punched on the check. The cashier
explained that this always gives a pleasant surprise to the customers,
and has proved such a good advertising dodge that the proprietor made it
a habit. And I saw, in a clothing dealer's window on Ninth Street, some
fuzzy caps for men, mottled purple and ochre, that proved that the
adventurous spirit has not died in the breast of the male sex.
There is much to exercise the eye in a voyage along Ridge Avenue.
Approaching by way of Ninth Street, one sees in the window of a barber
shop the new contract that the employing barbers have drawn up with
their journeymen. This agreement shows a sound sense of human equities,
proclaiming as it does that "the owner must not do no act to injure the
barber personal earnings." It suddenly occurred to me, what I had not
thought of before, how the barbers of Great Britain must have grieved
when a London newspaper got up (some years ago) an agitation in favour
of every man in England raising a beard in memory of King Edward. The
plan was that the money thus saved was to be devoted to building--I had
almost said "growing"--a battleship, to be named after the Merry
Monarch. Of course, one should not speak of raising a beard, but of
lowering it. However----
Ridge Avenue begins at Ninth and Vine, in a mood of depression. Perhaps
the fact that it runs out toward the city's greatest collection of
cemeteries has made it morbidly conscious of human perishability. At any
rate, it starts among pawnshops, old clothing and furniture, and bottles
of Old Virginia Bitters, the Great Man Restorer. The famous National
Theatre at Callowhill Street has become a garage; it is queer to see the
old proscenium arch and gilded ceiling dustily vaulted over a fleet of
motortrucks. After a wilderness of railway yards one comes to a curious
bit in the 1100 block; a little brick tunnel that bends around into a
huddle of backyards and small houses, where a large green parrot was
stooping and nodding on a pile of old boxes. This little scene is
overlooked by the tall brown spires of the Church of the Assumption on
Spring Garden Street.
There is matter for tarrying at the Spring Garden Street crossing. Here
is an ambitious fountain built by the bequest of Mary Rebecca Darby
Smith, with the carving by J. J. Boyle picturing another Rebecca (she of
Genesis xxiv, 14) giving a drink to Abraham's servant and his camels. It
is carved in the bronze that the donor gave the fountain "To refresh the
weary and thirsty, both man and beast," so it is disconcerting to find
it dry, as dry as the inns along the way. The horse trough is boarded
over and thirsting equines go up to Broad Street for a draught. The
seat by the fountain was occupied by a man reading the New York
_Journal_, always a depressing sight.
Across from the fountain is one of the best magazine and stationery
shops in the city. Here I overheard a conversation which I reproduce
textually. "What you doing, reading?" said one to another. "Yes, reading
about the biggest four-flusher in the Yew-nited States," said he,
looking over an afternoon paper which had just come in. "Who do you
mean?" "Penrose. Say if it was a Republican in the White House, theyda
passed the treaty long ago." The proprietor of this shop is a humorist.
Someone came in asking for a certain brand of cigarettes. He does not
sell tobacco. "Next door," he said, and added: "And you'll find some
over on the fountain."
Ridge Avenue specializes in tobacco shops, where you will find many
brands that require a strong head. Red Snapper, Panhandle Scrap, Pinch
Hit, Red Horse, Brown's Mule, Jolly Tar, Penn Statue Cuttings, Nickel
Cross Cut, Cotton Ball Twist. In the shop windows you will see those
photographs illustrating current events, the two favourites just now
being a picture of Mike Gilhooley, the famous stowaway, gazing
plaintively at the profile of New York, and "Jack Dempsey Goes the
Limit," where Jack signs up for a $1,000 war-savings certificate. One
wonders if Jack's kind of warfare is really so profitable after all.
There are a number of little side excursions from the avenue that repay
scrutiny. Lemon Street, for instance, where in a lane of old brown
wooden houses some children were playing in an empty wagon, with the
rounded tower of the Rodef Shalom synagogue looming in the background.
Best of all is Melon Street and its modest tributary, Park
Avenue--stretches of quiet little brick homes with green and yellow
shutters and mottled gray marble steps. These little houses have the
serene and sunny air so typical of Philadelphia byways. Through their
narrow side entrances one sees glimpses of green in backyards. In the
front windows move the gently swaying faces of grandmothers, lulled in
the to and fro of a rocking chair. There are shining brass knobs and
bell-pulls; rubber plants on the sills, or perhaps a small bowl of
goldfish with a white china swan floating. In one window was a sign
"Vacancies." Over it hung a faded service flag with a golden star. Who
could phrase the pathos of these two things, side by side?
At Broad Street, Ridge Avenue leaps up with a spurt of high life. In the
window of a hotel dining room a gentleman sat eating his lunch,
stevedoring a buttered roll with such gusto that one felt tempted to
applaud. There are the white pillars of a bank and the battleship gray
of the Salvation Army headquarters. Beyond Broad, the avenue spruces up
a bit and enters upon a vivacious phase. Dogs are frequent: white bull
terriers lie sunning in the shop windows. Offers to lend money are
enticing. There is a fascinating slate yard at 1525, where great gray
slabs lie in the sun, a temptation to urchins with a bit of chalk. In
the warm bask of the afternoon there rises a pleasing aroma of fruits
and vegetables piled up in baskets and crates on the pavement. Grapes
give off a delectable savour in the golden air. Elderly ladies are out
in force to do the marketing, and their eyes are bright with the
bargaining passion. Round the windows of a ten-cent store, most
fascinating of all human spectacles, they congregate and compare notes.
A fruit dealer has an ingenious stunt to attract attention. On his cash
register lies a weird-looking rotund little fish--a butter fish, he
calls it--which has a face not unlike that of Fatty Arbuckle. Either
this fish inflates itself or he has blown it full of air in some
ingenious manner, for it presents a grotesque appearance, and many
ladies stop to inquire. Then he spoofs them gently. "Sure," he says,
"it's a jitney fish. It lives on the cash register. It can fly, it can
bite, it can talk, and it likes money."
At the corner of Wylie Street stands an old gray house with a mansard
roof and gable windows. Against it is a vivid store of fruit glowing in
the sun, red and purple and yellow. Here, or on Vineyard Street, one
turns off to enter the quaint triangular settlement of Francisville.