or a
cent apiece; at the Dutch bakery there were pretzels, with salt and
ashes sticking on them, that the Dutch boys liked; but the American boys
made fun of them, and the bread at the Dutch bakery was always sour.
There were four or five taverns where drink was always sold and
drunkards often to be seen; and there was one Dutch tavern, but the
Dutchmen generally went to the brewery for their beer, and drank it
there. The boys went to the brewery, to get yeast for their mothers; and
they liked to linger among the great heaps of malt, and the huge vats
wreathed in steam, and sending out a pleasant smell. The floors were
always wet, and the fat, pale Dutchmen, working about in the vapory air,
never spoke to the boys, who were afraid of them. They took a boy's
bottle and filled it with foaming yeast, and then took his cent, all in
a silence so oppressive that he scarcely dared to breathe. My boy
wondered where they kept the boy they were bringing up to drink beer;
but it would have been impossible to ask. The brewery overlooked the
river, and you could see the south side of the bridge from its back
windows, and that was very strange. It was just like the picture of the
bridge in "Howe's History of Ohio," and that made it seem like a bridge
in some far-off country.

There were two fire-engines in the Boy's Town; but there seemed to be
something always the matter with them, so that they would not work, if
there was a fire. When there was no fire, the companies sometimes pulled
them up through the town to the Basin bank, and practised with them
against the roofs and fronts of the pork-houses. It was almost as good
as a muster to see the firemen in their red shirts and black trousers,
dragging the engine at a run, two and two together, one on each side of
the rope. My boy would have liked to speak to a fireman, but he never
dared; and the foreman of the Neptune, which was the larger and feebler
of the engines, was a figure of such worshipful splendor in his eyes
that he felt as if he could not be just a common human being. He was a
storekeeper, to begin with, and he was tall and slim, and his black
trousers fitted him like a glove; he had a patent-leather helmet, and a
brass speaking-trumpet, and he gave all his orders through this. It did
not make any difference how close he was to the men, he shouted
everything through the trumpet; and when they manned the breaks and
began to pump, he roared at them, "Down on her, down on he