burdens, and hung the old-fashioned oil-cloth sack on the handle of
the brake behind, where Mr. Latham with keen anxiety, and Lydia with
shame, watched it as it swayed back and forth with the motion of the
car and threatened to break loose from its hand-straps and dash its
bloated bulk to the ground. The old man called out to the conductor
to be sure and stop in Scollay's Square, and the people, who had
already stared uncomfortably at Lydia's bundles, all smiled. Her
grandfather was going to repeat his direction as the conductor made
no sign of having heard it, when his neighbor said kindly, "The car
always stops in Scollay's Square."

"Then why couldn't he say so?" retorted the old man, in his high
nasal key; and now the people laughed outright. He had the nervous
restlessness of age when out of its wonted place: he could not remain
quiet in the car, for counting and securing his parcels; when they
reached Scollay's Square, and were to change cars, he ran to the
car they were to take, though there was abundant time, and sat down
breathless from his effort. He was eager then that they should not be
carried too far, and was constantly turning to look out of the window
to ascertain their whereabouts. His vigilance ended in their getting
aboard the East Boston ferry-boat in the car, and hardly getting
ashore before the boat started. They now gathered up their burdens
once more, and walked toward the wharf they were seeking, past those
squalid streets which open upon the docks. At the corners they
entangled themselves in knots of truck-teams and hucksters' wagons
and horse-cars; once they brought the traffic of the neighborhood to
a stand-still by the thoroughness of their inability and confusion.
They wandered down the wrong wharf amidst the slime cast up by the
fishing craft moored in the dock below, and made their way over heaps
of chains and cordage, and through the hand-carts pushed hither and