Samantha at the World's Fair by Marietta Holley
page 41 of 569 (07%)
page 41 of 569 (07%)
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He tore down them crazy, slantin', rotten old housen, and made a park of
that filthy hole, a lovely little park, with fresh green grass, a fountain of pure water, where the birds come to slake their little thirsts. He sot out big trees (money will move a four-foot ellum). There is green, rustlin' boughs for the birds to build their nests in. Cool green leaves to wave over the heads of the children. They lay their pale faces on the grass, they throw their happy little hearts onto the kind, patient heart of their first mother, Nature, and she soothes the fever in their little breasts, and gives 'em new and saner idees. They hold their little hands under the crystal water droppin' forever from the outspread wings of a dove. They find insensibly the grime washed away by these pure drops, their hands are less inclined to clasp round murderous weepons and turn them towards the lofty abodes of the rich. They do not hate the rich so badly, for it is a rich man who has done all this for them. The high walls of the prison that used to loom up so hugely and threatingly in front of the bare old tenement housen--the harsh glare of them walls seem further away, hidden from them by the gracious green of the blossoming trees. The sunshine lays between them and its rough walls--they follow the glint of the sunbeams up into the Heavens. |
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