Even the huge advertising sign-boards which usually shout to passers-by along the approaches to cities are rather scarce in this country, for it is about midway between two branches of the only railroad on Long Island, and there is no need for a trolley. There is nothing but country roads, with more or less comfortable farm-houses and large, squatty barns; not only old farm-houses, but what is much more striking, farm-houses that are new. Now, it does seem odd to build a new farm-house in a city.
The Dreary Edge of Long Island City.
Out in the fields the men are ploughing. A rooster crows in the barn-yard. A woman comes out to take in the clothes. Children climb the fence to gaze when people pass by. And one can ride for a matter of miles and see no other kind of life, except the birds in the hedge and an occasional country dog, not suburban dogs, but distinctly farm dogs, the kind that have deep, ominous barks, as heard at night from a distance. By and by, down the dusty, sunny, lane-like road plods a fat old family Dobbin, pulling an old-fashioned phaëton in which are seated a couple of prim old maiden ladies, dressed in black, who try to make him move faster in the presence of strangers, and so push and jerk animatedly on the reins, which he enjoys catching with his tail, and holds serenely until beyond the bend in the road.
The Procession of Market-wagons at College Point Ferry.
Of course, this is part of the city. The road map proves it. But there are very few places along this route where you can find it out in any other way. The road leads up over a sort of plateau; a wide expanse of country can be viewed in all directions, but there are only more fields to see, more farm-houses and squatty barns, perhaps a village church steeple in the distance, a village that has its oldest inhabitant and a church with a church-yard. Away off to the north, across a gleaming strip of water, which the map shows to be Long Island Sound, lie the blue hills of the Bronx. They, too, are well within Greater New York. So is all that country to the southwest, far beyond the range of the eye, Jamaica, and Jamaica Bay and Coney Island. And over there, more to the west, is dreary East New York and endless Brooklyn, and dirty Long Island City, and, still farther, crowded Manhattan Island itself. Then one realizes something of the extent of this strange manner of city. It is very ridiculous.
Past dirty backyards and sad vacant lots.