Cy Whittaker's Place by Joseph C. Lincoln — Read

In the old days, the great days of sailing ships and land merchant fleets, Bayport was a community of travelers. Every ambitious man went to sea, and eventually, if he lived, became a captain. Then he took his wife, and in most cases his children, with him on long voyages. To the stay-at-homes came letters with odd, foreign stamps and postmarks. Our what-nots and parlor mantels were filled with carved bits of ivory, gorgeous shells, alabaster candlesticks, and plaster miniatures of the Leaning Tower at Pisa or the Coliseum at Rome. We usually began a conversation with "When my husband and I were at Hong Kong the last time -- " or "I remember at Mauritius they always -- " New Orleans or 'Frisco were the nearest domestic ports the mention of which was considered worth while.

But this is so no longer. A trip to Boston is, of course, no novelty to the most of us; but when we visit New York we take care to advertise it beforehand. And the few who avail themselves of the spring "cut rates" and go on excursions to Washington, plan definite programmes for each day at the Capital, and discuss them with envious friends for weeks in advance. And if the prearranged programme is not scrupulously carried out, we feel that we have been defrauded. It was the regret of Aunt Sophronia Hallett's life that, on her Washington excursion, she had not seen the "Diplomatic Corpse. " She saw the President and the Monument and Congress and "the relics in the Smithsonian Institute," but the "Corpse" was not on view; Aunt Sophronia never quite got over the disappointment.