Oh, how full the streets are now with their great high tenement-houses, pouring out their myriads of children all day long, of every nationality! But you still hear the old plays, "Open the Gates," and "Scotland's Burning," and "Uncle John is very Sick," and "Ring around a Rosy." Little Sally Waters still sits in the sun,--
"Rise, Sally, rise, Wipe your eyes out with your frock."
And the strange Chinatown, with its cabalistic signs, its men in blue shirts and pigtails, and often snowy white stockings and queer pointed slippers!
They wind slowly about Central Park. Was the Crystal Palace here? And no park? To them it seems as if New York must have been born this way, with electric lights, and push-buttons, and telephones, and cars, and telegraphs, and everything. And did grandmamma come up here to the Fair; and was it anything like the Museum of Art? And wasn't there any menagerie, or playground, or donkey-riding or bicyclers?
Here is Washington Arch, with its memory of a great anniversary. Over on the west side there is a curious spot fenced in with wooden palings, where Alexander Hamilton planted thirteen trees for the Union, when there were only thirteen States, and named them all. Even before his sad death, South Carolina was braced to keep her from growing crooked; but she went awry in spite of it all. They have moved the house in which he lived, across the street, to save it from destruction; and it is in the shadow of a church. And here is the old mansion where Aaron Burr lived a brief while with Madame Jumel for his wedded wife,--a beautiful old place on a hill.
They go on up to the grand Washington Bridge. They are very fond of the story of Anthony Woolf swimming across the Harlem that dark night to get away from the Hessian regiment, and begging shelter of kindly hearts. They turn into a shaded road, and pass by lovely grounds, where wealth has made gardens and terraces akin to those of Paradise. And winding down the old road leading to the vale, they find a little dark-eyed girl whose great-great-grandfather was this same Anthony Woolf. And the Revolutionary War was a century and a quarter ago! Here they have lived for generations. The Cousin Jennie has gone, but the tall bright-eyed man who married her is still hale and hearty, with snowy hair and beard.