"But where is he?"
"Oh, he's most generally around the alley, some place, or in some of the houses. He does odd jobs."
"Thanks," I said and, turning, walked up the alley, fearing lest I should not be able to find the old colored man who, perhaps more than any one outside my family, was the true friend of my boyhood.
Then, as I moved along, I saw him far away and recognized him by the familiar, slouching step. And as I walked to meet him, and as we drew near to each other in that long narrow alley, it seemed to me that here was another allegory in which the alley somehow represented life.
How glad we were to meet! William looked older, his close-cropped wool was whiter, he stooped a little more, but he had the same old solemn drawl, the same lustrous dark eye with the twinkle in it, even the same old corncob pipe—or another like it, burned down at the edge.
We stood there for a long time, exchanging news. Ed had gone down South with the Bakers when they moved away. Artis was on "the force."
The bold front of Michigan Avenue along Grant Park ... great buildings wreathed in whirling smoke and that allegory of infinity which confronts one who looks eastward
"The neighborhood's changed a good bit since you was here. Lots of the old families have gone. I'm almost a stranger around the alley myself now. I must be a pretty tough old nut, the way I keep hangin' on." He smiled as he said that.