Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/135

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THE PAOLI LOCAL
119

dark-eyed and almost insolent beauty of its girls, who gaze at one with the serene candor of unquestioned divinity. But that is a topic that belongs to Baltimore chroniclers, and we may not trespass on their privileges.

At any rate, we got our fishing rod, which is what we went for.


THE PAOLI LOCAL

It is always puzzling to the wayfarer, when he has traveled to some sacred spot, to find the local denizens going about their concerns as though unaware that they are on enchanted ground. It used to seem a hideous profanation to the Baedeker-stained tourist from Marsupial City, Ind., to step off the train at Stratford and find the butcher's cart jogging about with flanks and rumps. And even so does it seem odd to me that people are getting aboard the Paoli local every day, just as though it were the normal thing to do instead of (what it really is) an excursion into Arcadia.

Some day a poet will lutanize the Paoli local as it ought to be done, in a tender strain—


Along that green embowered track
My heart throws off its pedlar's pack
In memory commuting back
Now swiftly and now slowly—
Ah! lucky people, you, in sooth
Who ride that caravan of youth
The Local to Paoli!