XI
OLD SALEM TOWN
A Scarlet Letter Day in the Witch City
Over all the hum of business activity that rises
from Salem town sleeps the glamour of old-time
memories. Factories drone, traffic roars or clatters,
and the multiple message of modern civilization
goes forth to eye and ear, but among all these
sits the ancient city dreaming long dreams and
careless of the children of to-day.
Along Charter Street and down Derby the once stately mansions of the great merchants of another century droop in senile decay, knee deep in the dust and debris that immigrant, alien races scatter, and note it and them no more than they do the rats in the wainscoting. The thoughts of the old houses are busy still with ships in the China Sea, battling round the Cape of Good Hope with the Flying Dutchman, or running down the trades from Senegambia, Surinam or Ceylon,
