And how sweet--how fat and alive and friendly the old colored hack
driver, standing there by the stone post! He has a number on his cap;
he is catalogued somewhere, but not in the library. Thank heaven he is
no book, but just a good black human being. I rush up and shake hands
with him. He nearly falls into his cab with astonishment; but I must
get hold of life again, and he looks so real and removed from letters!

"Uncle!" I whisper, close in his ear, "have ye got it? Quick--

"'Cross me twice wid de raabbit foot--
Dar's steppin' at de doo'!
Cross me twice wid de raabbit foot--
Dar's creakin' on de floo'!'"

He makes the passes, and I turn down Boylston Street, a living thing
once more with face toward--the hills of Hingham.

It is five o'clock, and a winter evening, and all the street pours
forth to meet me--some of them coming with me bound for Hingham,
surely, as all of them are bound for a hill somewhere and a home.

I love the city at this winter hour. This home-hurrying crowd--its
excitement of escape! its eagerness and expectancy! its camaraderie!
The arc-lights overhead glow and splutter with the joy they see on the
faces beneath them.

It is nearly half-past five as I turn into Winter Street. Now the very
stores are closing. Work has ceased. Drays and automobiles are gone.
The two-wheeled fruit man is going from his stand at the Subway