CHAPTER IV
Under the After Awning
Sidewalks along Fifth Avenue were packed with persons of all nationalities, representatives of every variety of industrial activity in the life of the City. There was a reviewing stand erected in front of the massive library that displayed its lines of architectural beauty in place of the sloping, age-gray walls of the old reservoir at Bryant Square. City officials and families of officers in the troops soon to pass were assembled there to witness this march of soldiers on their way to entrain for the Mexican border. They were filled with the zeal of patriots, because their comrades had been foully killed on that same border by a treacherous foe, and they were being sent to avenge that insult against the life and dignity of their nation.
Came the rhythmic beat of feet on the pavement; came the blare of the band. The two swung together into a harmony of marching. These boys, ordered to the front, were going, steadfastly, as in duty bound. They loved this "send-off." They marched with vigor in their steps, because ten thousand handkerchiefs waved from the windows along the line of march.
On the sidewalks was assembled a strange crowd. There were the stenographers taking their noonday outing. Many were carefully over-powdered and perfumed. They were dressed after the latest fashion—a long way after it!
But the Midinettes were a very small proportion of those wild to see the real soldiers.
All New York had heard the troops were to march that day. And all New York turned out to see the regiments.
There are a myriad phases of metropolitan life. Those phases were illustrated that day in the crowds along the line of march. The bulk of those clustering at the curb were of a sort eager for a free show. In the countless loft buildings bordering the avenue were hordes of men and women too busy in earning a pitiful wage to think of anything so frivolous as a procession, with banners waving and bands playing. But while these had no thought of marching troops, there were innumerable others. For New York is a city gigantic. Within it are hosts. Some of these always are idle. Some, always eager for the free show of the streets.
So, to-day, when the troops are to march by with shrill of fife and blatant noise of band, the multitude comes scurrying, curious to see, patriotic with the emotional patriotism of one just become a citizen of a free country, where before he was the unrecognized and unhonored subject of despotism, from which he fled in search of liberty.