. Our Philadelphia. g country-like trees over to which I looked from mybedroom window. As a child, instinctively I got to knowthat inside every house, within sight and beyond, I wouldfind the same front and back parlours, the same back-building dining-room, the same number of bedrooms, thesame engraving of George Washington over the dining-room mantelpiece, the same big red cedar chest in thethird story hall and, in summer, the same parlours turnedinto cool grey cellars with the same matting on the floor,the same linen covers on the chairs, the same curtainlesswindows and carefully closed shut
. Our Philadelphia. g country-like trees over to which I looked from mybedroom window. As a child, instinctively I got to knowthat inside every house, within sight and beyond, I wouldfind the same front and back parlours, the same back-building dining-room, the same number of bedrooms, thesame engraving of George Washington over the dining-room mantelpiece, the same big red cedar chest in thethird story hall and, in summer, the same parlours turnedinto cool grey cellars with the same matting on the floor,the same linen covers on the chairs, the same curtainlesswindows and carefully closed shutters, the same whitegauze over mirrors and chandeliers—^to light upon an itemfor gauze to cover pictures and glass in Washingtonshousehold accounts while he lived in Philadelphia is oneof the things it is worth searching the old archives for. Instinctively, I got to know too that, in every one ofthese well-regulated interiors where there was a little girl,she must, like me, be striving to be neither seen nor heard. BACK-YARDS, ST. PETERS SPIRE IN THE DISTANCE A CHILD IN PHILADELPHIA 47 all the long morning, and sitting primly at the front win-dow all the long afternoon, and that, if she ever played athome it was, like me, with measured steps and modulatedvoice: at all times cultivating the calm of manner ex-pected of her when she, in her turn, would have just such ared brick house and just such a delectable back-yard ofher own. Thus, while the long months at the Conventkept me busy cultivating every spiritual grace, during theoccasional holiday at Eleventh and Spruce I was welldrilled in the Philadelphia virtues. CHAPTER III: A CHILD INPHILADELPHIA—CONTINUED NATURALLY, I could not live in Spruce Streetand not believe, as every Philadelphian shouldand once did, that no other kind of a house ex-cept the Spruce Street house was fit for a Philadelphian tolive in. The Philadelphian, from infancy, was convincedbj^ his surroundings and bringing-up that there was butone way of doin
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