These always had
for title, "Reverie," or "An Idyll," or "Dreams of Love."
"I think those are lovely, don't you, Mac?" she said.
"Yes, yes," answered McTeague, nodding his head, bewildered, trying to
understand. "Yes, yes, lovely, that's the word. Are you dead sure now,
Trina, that all that's hand-painted just like the poppies?"
Thus the winter passed, a year went by, then two. The little life
of Polk Street, the life of small traders, drug clerks, grocers,
stationers, plumbers, dentists, doctors, spirit-mediums, and the like,
ran on monotonously in its accustomed grooves. The first three years
of their married life wrought little change in the fortunes of the
McTeagues. In the third summer the branch post-office was moved from the
ground floor of the flat to a corner farther up the street in order
to be near the cable line that ran mail cars. Its place was taken by
a German saloon, called a "Wein Stube," in the face of the protests
of every female lodger. A few months later quite a little flurry of
excitement ran through the street on the occasion of "The Polk Street
Open Air Festival," organized to celebrate the introduction there of
electric lights. The festival lasted three days and was quite an affair.
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