He thought it was a bit unfair of the advertisers (this was in the Long Island train) to take advantage of public attention by issuing a card with the announcement NOTICE TO PASSENGERS, looking very like official information, which turned out to be a chewing gum ad. We told him about the card in the subway which says PASSENGERS CHANGE HERE and then adds “to —— Union Suits.” This amused him, but we could see that he didn’t think it quite sporting. He was highly diverted by the little signs at the subway ticket booths—Sing Out How Many and The Voice with the Smile Wins. He was quite startled to learn that the author of Trivia (one of his favourite books) is an American. He was pleased by the informality of the Long Island conductor, who, seeing a lady friend among the passengers, sat down with her between stations and had a social chat.
Standing at the front of a subway train as it roared through the tunnel from Brooklyn seemed to give him innocent happiness. Again he commented, in the downtown region, on the general air of order and good management in the conduct of the traffic. He could see none of the brutal scurry that he had been taught to expect. Going up the Woolworth Tower was the greatest adventure of these few hours. This, we think, he will not soon forget. He was greatly pleased, being himself a householder, with the American kitchen. He thought it very well planned. Jericho cider he praised without reserve. A revolving apparatus for airing clothes in the back garden pleased him mightily. Delightful fellow, blessings upon him!
It is visits such as his that add to the stock of true international understanding.
IN HONOREM: MARTHA WASHINGTON
An American figure of national consequence has passed away from the scene of her many glories. We refer to Martha Washington, the Independence Hall cat.
When we worked in the old Philadelphia Ledger office, and paragraphs were scarce, we had an unfailing recourse. We would go over to the State House (as they call it in its home town), descend to the cool delightful old cellar underneath the hall, and call on Fred Eckersberg, the engineer. We would see Martha sleeking herself on the flagstones by the cellar steps (she was the blackest cat we ever knew, giving off an almost purple lustre in hot sunlight) or perhaps we would have to search her out among the coal bins where she was fixing a layette for the next batch of kittens. In any case, Martha having been duly admired, Fred Eckersberg would gladly talk about her and tell us what were the latest adventures of her historic life. Which was always good copy, for Fred, having been on friendly terms with Philadelphia reporters for many years, knew the kind of anecdotes that would please them. One of Fred’s unconscious triumphs was the time he told us of his perplexity about ringing in the New Year in the Independence Hall belfry. It was about Christmas time, 1919. “Last January,” he said, “I rang One-Nine-One-Nine to welcome in the New Year. But what am I going to do this time? How can I ring One-Nine-Two-Nought?” We told him we saw no way out of it but to start early in the afternoon of New Year’s Eve and ring the whole One Thousand Nine Hundred and Twenty tolls.
We could say a good deal about Martha Washington: her kittens are surely the most noble in the land, charter members of the Colonial Felines of America, all born in the Hall, directly underneath the lobby where the Bell stands. When the most famous brood of all were swaddled, four fine jetty daughters born in November, 1918, Fred christened them Victory, Freedom, Liberty, and Independence. He paid us the greatest compliment of our life by offering us Victory, but at that time we were living in a small apartment in the city and we didn’t think it would be a sufficiently dignified home for such a kitten, who deserved nothing less than a residence on the Main Line (Oh, Philadelphia!), with scrapple made on the premises.
But it is time to get down to the point of our story. Martha has left the Hall. Poor Fred, in his bereavement, has taken pen in hand. We can see him, sitting at his desk down there in the ancient cellar, with all his emblems, souvenirs, and clippings posted up above him and an oblong of gold-and-green brightness shining down through the doorway from the leafy sunshine of the Square. We can see him talking it over with his comrades “the boys”—the State House carpenter and the gardeners, as they sit at their lunch in the cellar. There is the empty saucer, dry and dusty now; in the good old days Fred always brought in a little bottle of milk every morning for Martha. And this is what Fred writes us, word for word: