It was really a perfect spring
morning, the air crisp, fresh, and sunny, and the streets full of
life and activity. I looked into the faces of the people I met,
and it began to strike me that most of them seemed oblivious of
the fact that they should, by good rights, be looking downcast
and dispirited. They had cheered their approval the night before
when the speakers had told them how miserable they were (even
acknowledging that they were slaves), and yet here they were
this morning looking positively good-humoured, cheerful, some of
them even gay. I warrant if I had stepped up to one of them that
morning and intimated that he was a slave he would have--well, I
should have had serious trouble with him! There was a degree of
sociability in those back streets, a visiting from window to
window, gossipy gatherings in front area-ways, a sort of pavement
domesticity, that I had never seen before. Being a lover myself
of such friendly intercourse I could actually feel the hum and
warmth of that neighbourhood.
A group of brightly clad girl strikers gathered on a corner were
chatting and laughing, and children in plenty ran and shouted at
their play in the street. I saw a group of them dancing merrily
around an Italian hand-organ man who was filling the air with
jolly music.
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