Everywhere
was the smell of coffee and of frying steaks. A little later, following
in the path of the day laborers, came the clerks and shop girls,
dressed with a certain cheap smartness, always in a hurry, glancing
apprehensively at the power-house clock. Their employers followed
an hour or so later--on the cable cars for the most part whiskered
gentlemen with huge stomachs, reading the morning papers with great
gravity; bank cashiers and insurance clerks with flowers in their
buttonholes.
At the same time the school children invaded the street, filling the air
with a clamor of shrill voices, stopping at the stationers' shops, or
idling a moment in the doorways of the candy stores. For over half an
hour they held possession of the sidewalks, then suddenly disappeared,
leaving behind one or two stragglers who hurried along with great
strides of their little thin legs, very anxious and preoccupied.
Towards eleven o'clock the ladies from the great avenue a block above
Polk Street made their appearance, promenading the sidewalks leisurely,
deliberately. They were at their morning's marketing. They were handsome
women, beautifully dressed. They knew by name their butchers and grocers
and vegetable men.
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