Wednesday afternoon. Chess is perpetual in this “Institute.”
A handsome youth, in beard and vizorless cap, plays every afternoon. All last
evening there was a game with five lookers-on.
To-day is brighter, and brings more people into the street.
I think I never saw so many black-haired, black-eyed, and black-clothed women,
which surprises me. I have just met a beautiful child of eight, in deep
mourning above her knees, and all below in full white pantalets and snowy long
stockings drawn over her shoes. A girl a few years older had the same rig, but
no mourning veil and a bright checked skirt. But the oddest little butterfly
was a girl of six or seven coming home from school this morning: a scarlet
cloak and hood, over a dark blue dress; then scarlet flannel drawers, loose and
short; then black stockings surmounted by gray socks, covering the shoes. On
the head, finally, a large round fur cap, with ears and no vizor. A sort of
servant attended her. I saw some pretty fair-haired boys with large vizorless
fur caps and loose gray wrappers, gathered by a belt of the same. The men are
far handsomer than the women. All wear fur caps and gloves (which I did
not see in Maine), and none the buffalo coats and red leggins which were
common there.
This morning I went to the markets — wood, meat, and grass
markets — all in open air. . . . I saw women sitting for hours in the freezing
cold. There is a queer mixture in the currency. In the hotel placards they
state $2 per day as their price, and “York shillings” seem as familiar as any
other currency. In the same shop you see one thing labelled as 7/6 (English)
and another as $6.00.
In fact, the American infusion is larger than I supposed.
Mr. Smith, a Worcester man, . . . called on me. . . . He was eager for
Worcester gossip. . . . He said there were many Yankees here and they
prospered, as he had. . . .
I am amused to find that other American things creep in here
also. My devoted little friend, Mr. Milne, is about to lose his place because
of what the Directors called “an act of insubordination,” in inviting Lucy
Stone here to lecture, on his own account, after they voted her “not a proper
person for the Institute to countenance!” . . . But the spunky Secretary is
resolved to have her here, in some other hall than the Institute's and I have
promised (sub rosรข)
to write the opinion of an American clergyman upon her, to be
inserted in the paper, when she comes.
* * * * * * * * * *
I noticed English-looking hotels with pictures of the Crown
and Anchor, the Fox and Hounds, etc. I saw but few colored people, but they
looked, without exception, well clothed and comfortable.
SOURCE: Mary Potter Thacher Higginson, Editor, Letters
and Journals of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1846-1906, p. 97-8
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