And that strange looking woman there, with her muff and parasol, her claret-colored cloak, with a huge cape, and that everlasting green veil! What business, now, has such a woman above ground—at this season of the year? Would she set your teeth chattering before the winter sets in? And what on earth does she carry that sun-shade for, toward nightfall, about the last of October—is the woman beside herself?
But she is gone; and in her stead appear three boys, who, but for the season of the year, might be suspected of birdnesting. They are all of a size—all of an age, or thereabouts—and all dressed alike, save that one wears a cloth cap, and the others fur. Yet, like as they are in age and size, and general appearance, anybody may see at a glance that one is a well-educated boy, and a bit of a gentleman—perhaps with spending money for the holydays, while the other two are clumsy scapegraces. Watch them. Observe how the two always keep together, and how, as they go by the windows of that confectionary-shop, first one lags a little in the rear, and then the other, till they have stopped and wheedled their companion into a brief display of his pocket-money. The rogues!—how well they understand his character! See! he has determined to have it his own way, in spite of their well-managed remonstrances and suggestions; and now they all enter the shop together—he foremost, of course, with a swagger not to be misunderstood for a moment. And now they have sprung the trap! and the poor boy is a beggar!
But who are they? Judge for yourself? Do they not belong, of course, to the same neighborhood? Have they not an air of good-fellowship, which cannot be counterfeited—a something which explains why they are always together, and why they are all dressed alike? How they loiter along, now that they have squeezed him as dry as an orange, as if they were just returning from a long summer-day's tramp in the wilderness after flowers and birds-nests—the flowers to tear to pieces, and the birds-nests to set up in the school for other boys to have a shy at. By to-morrow, they will be asunder for months—he at school afar off, and they at leap-frog or marbles. And after a few years, they will be forgotten by him, and he remembered by them—such being the difference in their early education—as the boy they were allowed to associate with, and to fleece at pleasure when he was nobody but Tom, Dick, or Harry, and thought himself no better than other folks.
But enough—let us leave the window. It is growing dark; and if you are not already satisfied, nothing ever will satisfy you, that the great mass of mankind have ears, but they hear not; and eyes, but they see not—and go through the world with their night-caps pulled over both. Poor simpletons!—what would they think of a man who should run for a wager with both feet in one shoe. Are you satisfied?
I am—of one thing.
And what is that?
Why, that a magazine-writer may coin gold out of any thing—out of the golden atmosphere of a summer-evening—or the golden motes he sees playing in the sunshine, on the best possible terms, with the common dust of the trampled highway—or the golden blossoms that fill the hedges—in a word, that with him it should be mere child's play to "extract sunshine from cucumbers."