Courage by Ruth Ogden — Read

It was "high noon" in New York, as our English cousins say, but in a wider sense than our English cousins use it. Not only was it twelve by the clock, with the sun high in the heavens, flooding the streets with brilliant sunshine, but the whole city apparently was in the highest spirits. The sidewalks were alive with gayly dressed people, gayly liveried carriages rolled up and down the avenue, violets and lilacs were for sale at the flower-stands, and the children were out in crowds for an airing.

Here a little group of them, with unspeakable longing in their hearts, surrounded a grimy man who had snow-white puppies for sale; there another and larger group watched a wonderful ship in a glass case, riding angular green waves which rose and fell with the regularity of a pendulum, and some of them furtively glanced up now and then, with eyes full of astonished admiration, to the gray-bearded man who claims the honor of the invention.