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The first duty of the conscientious explorer is to study his own
neighbourhood, so we set off to familiarize ourself with Vesey Street.
This amiable byway (perhaps on account of the proximity of Washington
Market) bases its culture on a solid appreciation of the virtue of good
food, an admirable trait in any street. Upon this firm foundation it
erects a seemly interest in letters. The wanderer who passes up the
short channel of our street, from the docks to St. Paul's churchyard,
must not be misled by the character of the books the bibliothecaries
display in their windows. Outwardly they lure the public by Bob
Ingersoll's lectures, Napoleon's Dream Book, efficiency encyclopaedias
and those odd and highly coloured small brochures of smoking-car tales
of the Slow Train Through Arkansaw type. But once you penetrate, you may
find quarry of a more stimulating kind. For fifteen cents we eloped with
a first edition of Bunner's "Love in Old Cloathes," which we were glad
to have in memory of the "old red box on Vesey Street" which Banner
immortalized in rhyme, and which still stands (is it the same box?) by
the railing of St. Paul's. Also, even nobler treasure to our way of
thinking, did we not just now find (for fifteen cents) Hilaire Belloc's
"Hills and the Sea," that enchanting little volume of essays, which we
are almost afraid to read again. Belloc, the rogue--the devil is in him.
Such a lusty beguilery moves in his nimble prose that after reading him
it is hard not to fall into a clumsy imitation of his lively and frolic
manner. There is at least one essayist in this city who fell subject to
the hilarious Hilaire years ago. It is an old jape but not such a bad
one: our friend Murray Hill will never return to the status quo ante
Belloc.
But we were speaking of Vesey Street. It looks down to the water, and
the soft music of steamship whistles comes tuning on a cold, gusty air.
Thoroughly mundane little street, yet not unmindful of matters
spiritual, bounded as it is by divine Providence at one end (St. Paul's)
and by Providence, R. I. (the Providence Line pier) at the other.
Perhaps it is the presence of the graveyard that has startled Vesey
Street into a curious reversal of custom. On most other streets, we
think, the numbers of the houses run even on the south side, odd on the
north. But just the opposite on Vesey. You will find all even numbers on
the north, odd on the south. Still, Wall Street errs in the same way.
If marooned or quarantined on Vesey Street a man might lead a life of
gayety and sound nourishment for a considerable while, without having
recourse to more exalted thoroughfares. There are lodging houses in that
row of old buildings down toward the docks; from the garret windows he
could see masts moving on the river. For food he would live high indeed.
Where will one see such huge glossy blue-black grapes; such enormous
Indian River grapefruit; such noble display of fish--scallops,
herrings, smelts, and the larger kind with their dead and desolate eyes?
There are pathetic rows of rabbits, frozen stiff in the bitter cold
wind; huge white hares hanging in rows; a tray of pigeons with their
iridescent throat feathers catching gleams of the pale sunlight. There
are great sacks of nuts, barrels of cranberries, kegs of olive oil,
thick slabs of yellow cheese. On such a cold day it was pleasant to see
a sign "Peanut Roasters and Warmers."
Passing the gloomy vista of Greenwich Street--under the "L" is one of
those mysterious little vents in the floor of the street from which
issues a continual spout of steam--our Vesey grows more intellectual.
The first thing one sees, going easterly, is a sign: THE TRUTH SEEKER,
_One flight Up_. The temptation is almost irresistible, but then Truth
is always one flight higher up, so one reflects, what's the use? In this
block, while there is still much doing in the way of food--and even food
in the live state, a window full of entertaining chicks and ducklings
clustered round a colony brooder--another of Vesey Street's interests
begins to show itself. Tools. Every kind of tool that gladdens the heart
of man is displayed in various shops. One realizes more and more that
this is a man's street, and indeed (except at the meat market) few of
the gayer sex are to be seen along its pavements. One of the tool shops
has open-air boxes with all manner of miscellaneous oddments, from mouse
traps to oil cans, and you may see delighted enthusiasts poring over the
assortment with the same professional delight that ladies show at a
notion counter. One of the tool merchants, however, seems to have
weakened in his love of city existence, for he has put up a placard: