ummer evening. There had been a shower
that turned the dust of the unpaved roadway to mud. The air was close and
muggy. The houses, built right up to the sidewalks, over which, in little
gutters, the steaming sewage ran, seemed to have discharged their
occupants into the street to enjoy the cool of the day. Barefooted
children by the score paddled in the mud. All the steps were filled with
loungers; some of the men had discarded not only coats but shirts as
well, and now sat in flaming red underwear, holding babies.

They say that "woman's work is never done," but to the women of Mickle
Street this does not apply--but stay! perhaps their work IS never done.
Anyway, I remember that women sat on the curbs in calico dresses or
leaned out of the windows, and all seemed supremely free from care.

"Can you tell me where Mr. Whitman lives?" I asked a portly dame who was
resting her elbows on a windowsill.

"Who?"

"Mr. Whitman!"

"You mean Walt Whitman?"

"Yes."

"Show the gentleman, Molly; he'll give you a nickel, I'm sure!"

I had not seen Molly. She stood behind me, but as her mother spoke she
seized tight hold of one of my fingers, claiming me as her lawful prey,
and all the other children looked on with envious eyes as little Molly
threw at them glances of scorn and marched me off. Molly was five, going
on six, she told me. She had bright-red hair, a grimy face and little
chapped feet that made not a sound as we walked. She got her nickel and
carried it in her mouth, and this made conversation difficult. After
going one block she suddenly stopped, squared me around and pointing
said, "Them is he!" and disappeared.

In a wheeled rattan chair, in the hallway, a little back from the door of
a plain, weather-beaten house, sat the coatless philosopher, his face and
head wreathed in a tumult of snow-white hair.

I had a little speech, all prepared weeks before and committed to memory,
that I intended to repeat, telling him how I had read his poems and
admired them. And further I had stored away in my mind a few blades from
"Leaves of Grass" that I purposed to bring out at the right time as a
sort of certificate of character. But when that little girl jerked me
right-about-face and heartlessly deserted me, I stared dumbly at the man
whom I had come a hundred miles to see. I began angling for my little
speech, but could not fetch it.

"Hello!" called the philosopher, out of the white aureole. "Hello! come
here, boy!