Each dirty cheek is stuffed as though a plague of mumps had
fallen on the street. Or there may be a game of baseball--a scampering
on the bases, a home-run down the gutter--to engage me for an inning.
Or shinny grips the street. But if a street organ comes--not a mournful
one-legged box eked out with a monkey, but a big machine with an extra man
to pull--the children leave their games. It was but the other day that I
saw six of them together dancing on the pavement to the music, with skirts
and pigtails flying. There was such gladness in their faces that the
musician, although he already had his nickel, gave them an extra tune. It
was of such persuasive gayety that the number of dancers at once went up to
ten and others wiggled to the rhythm. And for myself, although I am past my
sportive days, the sound of a street organ, if any, would inflame me to a
fox-trot. Even a surly tune--if the handle be quickened--comes from the box
with a brisk seduction. If a dirge once got inside, it would fret until it
came out a dancing measure.

In this part of town, on the better streets, I sometimes study the fashions
as I see them in the shops and I compare them with those of uptown stores.
Nor is there the difference one might suppose. The small round muff that
sprang up this winter in the smarter shops won by only a week over the
cheaper stores. Tan gaiters ran a pretty race. And I am now witness to
a dead heat in a certain kind of fluffy rosebud dress. The fabrics are
probably different, but no matter how you deny it, they are cut to a common
pattern.

In a poorer part of the city still nearer to the East River, where
smells of garlic and worse issue from cellarways, I came recently on
a considerable park. It was supplied with swings and teeters and drew
children on its four fronts. Of a consequence the children of many races
played together. I caught a Yiddish answer to an Italian question. I fancy
that a child here could go forth at breakfast wholly a Hungarian and come
home with a smack of Russian or Armenian added. The general games that
merged the smaller groups, aided in the fusion. If this park is not already
named--a small chance, for it shows the marks of age--it might properly be
called _The Park of the Thirty Nations_.

Or my inclination may take me to the lower city. Like a poor starveling
I wander in the haunts of wealth where the buildings are piled to forty
stories, and I spin out the ciphers in my brain in an ende