The Book of Boston by Robert Shackleton

Author:Robert Shackleton [Shackleton, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Geschichte
Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
Published: 2017-05-25T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter XV - Down Wapping Street And Up Bunker Hill

OVER in that old part of Boston still known as Charlestown, there is a little quaint and wavering street, shabby and irregular; it is a street that arouses an odd sense of interest, and the interest is added to by the signs which you read in the windows of the shabby little shops. " Everything from a needle to an anchor"; ''Why get wet when a raincoat is only $1,251"; " Lockers to let"; and you see, also, that such simple joys are provided as white shoes, gum, tobacco, and candy, and that there are to be had not only "Yokahoma Eats" but also " Honolulu Lunch." I noticed, also, a sign ''Don't risk your money; buy a leg-belt" — a leg-belt; so that's the way, is it, that sailors keep their money!

This wavering, savory little street is Wapping Street, and not only in its name is it delightfully reminiscent of waterside London, but in its aspect; and it is curiously fitting that this street should be reminiscent of something that is English, for it leads to the gate of the Charlestown Navy Yard, and where the Navy Yard is now the English landed for their attack on Bunker Hill.

There are spaciousness and quiet inside of the grounds of the Navy Yard, and flowers and gardens and a pergola; and a bugle sounds through the air, and in a little while a band is playing, and capable-looking officers and men walk spiritedly about, and there are long machine shops and quarters, and here and there is some old cannon or figurehead from some ship of the past, and there is the fine old-fashioned home of the commandant, with its cream-colored brick; in fact, all the brick hereabouts is cream-colored, and Uncle Sam is very generous with paint.

At the piers, or out on the open water, warships, little or big, lie moored, and near the very heart of it all is the famous frigate Constitution, lovingly known as Old Ironsides.

She is black and white, in her glory of masts and spars and myriad ropes. From her curving prow to the quaint-shaped cabin at the stern, her lines are of the handsomest. She is graceful and strong, she is trim and capable and proud, and her guns, in their long double lines, are close together, giving a realizing sense of the meaning of the old word " broadside." One is apt to forget that such a warship carried hundreds of fighters and scores of cannon.

The ship is freely open to visitors, and one cannot but be a better American for going aboard and actually treading its decks; one cannot but feel a surge of patriotism when going about on this old ship that made such glorious history.

It was well on toward a century ago, in 1830, that some Government official gave orders to have the ship broken up and sold for junk; and the entire nation was shocked when the news was learned, for Old Ironsides had won a place very close to all hearts.

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