The Autobiography of an Idea by Louis H. Sullivan

One day, in Boston, a boy of nine was walking northward on the east side of Washington Street. Just then "Yankee Doodle" came along whistling his tune to a brisk step, a pair of boots slung over one shoulder of his faded blue jeans; and, under a stovepipe hat, much battered in the strife of years, this agile elderly man wore a grey chin beard after the manner of Uncle Sam. And thus went Yankee Doodle tirelessly up and down Washington Street, always on the east side of it, day after day, year after year. In a legendary sense he was a cobbler. The boy watched his kindly face approaching, and for the hundredth time admired in despair the clear sharp whistle which he had tried in vain to emulate; and, as Yankee passed on southward the boy turned east into South Bennett Street following the south sidewalk. About midway to Harrison Avenue a paper bag struck the sidewalk in front of him, burst, and hard candies scattered over the pavement. The boy, startled, looked around, and then up. In a second story window, straight across the way, appeared two fat bare arms, an immense bosom, a heavy, broad, red face, topped with straight black hair. A fat finger beckoned to him; a fat mouth said something to him; and at the doorway of the house was the number 22 -- the house he had been born in; but the silver nameplate marked P. Sullivan in black script was no longer there.

He had been led to the spot, which he had not seen for years, by a revived memory of a sweet child named Alice Look, who lived next door when the two of them were three together. He had wished to see once more the sacred dwelling wherein she had lived and the walled yard in which she had mothered him and called him Papa in their play.