"How it shows up even at night!" said Zebedee. "It reminds me of what a friend of mine once said: that the way to make yourself heard in a noisy crowd and to attract the attention of everyone is to whisper. The noisy crowd will be quiet in a moment and everybody will try to hear what you are saying. The low-toned whisper of that old bedstead is heard above all the clamor of the snow-white, high-toned tombstones."
"Humph! Isn't our pa poetical tonight!" teased Dum.
"I should say I am! I bet you are, too, but you are too old to confess it. I glory in it."
We turned down Tradd Street to Legare, which is, I fancy, the most picturesque street in the United States. We had learned that afternoon to pronounce Legare properly. We had naturally endeavored to give it the finest French accent, but were quietly put on the right track by Claire Gaillard. "Lagree" is the way, and now we aired our knowledge to the Greens, who were pronouncing it wrong just as we had.
"Tradd Street was named for the first male child born in the Colony, so the guide-book tells me," said Mrs. Green. "If there were any females born, they did not see fit to commemorate the fact."
"Perhaps the early settlers did not consider the female of the race anything to be walked on—maybe they were not the downtrodden sex that they are in the present day. A street is no good except to walk on or ride over, and surely a female's name would not be appropriate for such an object. My wife is very jealous for the rights of women, whether they be alive or dead," said Professor Green.
"They might at least name something after us besides things to eat. Sally Lunn and Lady Baltimore cake are not much of a showing, to my mind," laughed Mrs. Green.
"There's Elizabethan ruff, and de Medici collar, and Queen Anne cottage, and Alice blue," I suggested.
"Yes, and Catherine wheels, and Minnie balls, and Molly-coddles——"
"I give up! I give up! I was thinking of Charleston and the first male baby."