Vignettes of San Francisco by Almira Bailey
page 48 of 86 (55%)
page 48 of 86 (55%)
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"raised," Western.
Portsmouth Square "To be honest, to be kind." Loiterers, vagabonds, slow-going Orientals, poets and blackguards, all day long come and drink at Stevenson's fountain. Some of them look up and read it all and some only get as far as "to earn a little, to spend a little less" - . Small-footed Chinese women pass, humping along on their stumps and their babies running along beside have larger feet than the mothers who bore them, Bench warmers gaze after them with lazy curiosity. A fat Italian granddaddy washes a kiddie's hand from the fountain and a man with a demijohn and a sense of humor goes smilingly down the path and what he has in the demijohn is none of our business. "To make on the whole, a family happier for his presence." It is noon and a bride has brought lunch for herself and her husband off the job in his white overalls, and the two eat together on the beautiful grassy slope. The poplar trees around Stevenson's fountain whisper poetry all day long and the little iron boat on top looks sad not to be sailing away on high adventure to the South Sea islands. "To renounce when it shall be necessary and not be embittered." A woman with a baby carriage comes by. Something tender and sane and everyday and basic about her and her baby. A Chinese woman passing looks for all |
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