His mother
had not forgotten to warn him of possible dangers and snares; it was
then that he made her a promise which, at first from principle and
later from sentiment, he always most sacredly kept--that he would not
enter a playhouse. As he told the story, it was easy for a listener to
comprehend how many good wishes flew after the adventurer, and how
much wild beating of the heart he himself experienced as the coach
rolled away; how bewildering the city streets appeared when he found
himself at the brief journey's end. After he had reported himself to
Mrs. Greene, and been received with most affectionate hospitality, and
had promised to reappear at tea-time, he sallied forth to the great
business of sight-seeing.
"I wandered up and down the streets," he used to say. "Somehow it
wasn't just what I expected, and the crowd was worse and worse after I
got into Washington Street; and when I got tired of being jostled, it
seemed to me as if the folks might get by if I waited a little while.
Some of them looked at me, and so I stepped into an alleyway and
waited and looked out. Sometimes there didn't seem to be so many
passing, and I thought of starting, and then they'd begin again. 'Twas
a terrible stream of people to me. I began to think my new clothes and
the buttons were all thrown away. I stayed there a good while." (This
was said with great amusement.) "I began to be homesick. I thought it
made no difference at all about my having those boughten buttons.
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