The shopping I had not the money to do would have kept me within a more exclusive radius, for a shopping expedition restricted the Philadelphian who had any respect for herself to Chestnut Street between Eighth and Fifteenth. Probably I was almost the only Philadelphian who knew there were plenty of cheap stores in Second Street, but that I bought the first silk dress I ever possessed there was one of the little indiscretions I had the sense to keep to myself. A bargain in Eighth Street might be disclosed as a clever achievement, if not repeated too often. The old Philadelphia name and the historic record of Lippincott's, for generations among the most successful Philadelphia publishers, would have permitted a periodical excursion into Market Street, even if unlimited latitude, anyway, had not been granted to wholesale houses in the choice of a street. The well-known reliability of Strawbridge and Clothier might warrant certain purchases up-town and a furniture dealer as reliable, whose name and address I regret have escaped me, sanction the housekeeper's penetrating still further north. But it was safer, everything considered, to keep to Chestnut Street, and on Chestnut Street to stores approved by long patronage—you were hall-marked "common" if you did not, and the wrong name on the inside of your hat or under the flap of your envelope might be your social undoing. The self-respecting Philadelphian would not have bought her needles and cotton anywhere save at Mustin's, her ribbons anywhere save at Allen's. She would have scorned the visiting card not engraved by Dreka. She would have gone exclusively to Bailey's or Caldwell's for her jewels and silver; to Darlington's or Homer and Colladay's for her gloves and dresses; to Sheppard's for her linen; to Porter and Coates, after Lippincott's, for her books; to Earle's for her pictures;—prints were such an exotic taste that Gebbie and Barrie could afford to hide in Walnut Street, and the collector of books such a rarity that Tenth, or was it Ninth? was as good as any other street for the old book store where I had so unpleasant an experience that I could not well forget it though I have forgotten its proprietor's name. A sign in the window said that old books were bought, and one day, my purse as usual empty but my heart full of hope, I carried there two black-bound, gilt-edged French books of the kind nobody dreams of reading that I had brought home triumphantly as prizes from the Convent: but I and my poor treasures were dismissed with such contempt and ridicule that my spirit was broken and I could not summon up pluck to carry them to Leary's, in Ninth Street, who were more liberal even than Charles Lamb in their definition, and to whom anything printed and bound was a book to be bought and sold.
If hunger overtook the shopper, she would have eaten her oyster stew only at Jones's on Eleventh Street or Burns's on Fifteenth; or if the heat exhausted her, she would have cooled off on ice-cream only at Sautter's or Dexter's, on soda-water only at Wyeth's or Hubbell's. The hours for shopping were as circumscribed as the district. To be seen on Chestnut Street late in the afternoon, if not unpardonable, was certainly not quite the thing.
VI
Shopping without money had no charm and could never help to dispose of my interminable hours. The placid beauty of the shopless streets was of a kind to appeal more to age than youth. I wonder to this day at the time I allowed to pass before I shook off my respect for Philadelphia conventions sufficiently to relieve the dulness of my life by straying from the Philadelphia beaten track. The most daring break at first was a stroll on Sunday afternoon over to West Philadelphia and to Woodland's. Later, when, with a friend, I went on long tramps through the Park, by the Wissahickon, to Chestnut Hill, it was looked upon as no less unladylike on our part than the new generation's cigarette and demand for the vote on theirs. But if I did my duty, I was sadly bored by it. Often I turned homeward with that cruel aching of the heart the young know so well, longing for something, anything, to happen on the way to interrupt, to disorganize, to shatter to pieces the daily routine of life. I still shrink from the sharp pain of those cool, splendid October days when Philadelphia was aglow and quiveringly alive, and with every breath of the brisk air came the desire to be up and away and doing—but away where in Philadelphia?—doing what in Philadelphia? I still shrink from the sharp pain of the first langourous days of spring when every Philadelphia back-yard was full of perfume and every Philadelphia street a golden green avenue leading direct to happiness could I have found the way along its bewildering straightness.
JOHNSON HOUSE, GERMANTOWN
If youth only knew! There was everywhere to go, everything to do, every happiness to claim. Philadelphia waited, the Promised Land of action and romance, had I not been hide-bound by Philadelphia conventions, absorbed in Philadelphia ideals, disdaining all others with the intolerance of my years. According to these conventions and ideals, there was but one adventure for the Philadelphia girl who had finished her education and arrived at the appointed age—the social adventure of coming out.