Read "A Little Town and a Little Girl" by Emily Carr online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
On almost every street corner in Victoria there was one saloon or more. There were saloons in the middle of every block as well.
I used to think that every saloon belonged to the Navy because sailors, wearing little boys' collars and wide trouser legs that flapped round their feet, rolled in and out of saloon doors at all times. These doors swung to noiselessly. They were only pinafore doors, made of slats and flapped to so quickly when a sailor went in or out that you never got a chance to see what it was they hid, not even if you were right in front when one was pushed open and nearly knocked you over. We were strictly forbidden to look at a saloon in passing. Grown-ups dragged you quickly past and told you to look up the street though there was nothing whatever to see there.