The Bow of Orange Ribbon
A Romance of New York
9781465615626
211 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
It was one of those beautiful, lengthening days, when May was pressing back with both hands the shades of the morning and the evening; May in New York one hundred and twenty-one years ago, and yet the May of A.D. 1886,—the same clear air and wind, the same rarefied freshness, full of faint, passing aromas from the wet earth and the salt sea and the blossoming gardens. For on the shore of the East River the gardens still sloped down, even to below Peck Slip; and behind old Trinity the apple-trees blossomed like bridal nosegays, the pear-trees rose in immaculate pyramids, and here and there cows were coming up heavily to the scattered houses; the lazy, intermitting tinkle of their bells giving a pleasant notice of their approach to the waiting milking-women. In the city the business of the day was over; but at the open doors of many of the shops, little groups of apprentices in leather aprons were talking, and on the broad steps of the City Hall a number of grave-looking men were slowly separating after a very satisfactory civic session. They had been discussing the marvellous increase of the export trade of New York; and some vision of their city's future greatness may have appeared to them, for they held themselves with the lofty and confident air of wealthy merchants and "members of his Majesty's Council for the Province of New York."
