McTeague | Page 5

taking down their shutters.
Between seven and eight the street breakfasted. Now and then a waiter
from one of the cheap restaurants crossed from one sidewalk to the
other, balancing on one palm a tray covered with a napkin. Everywhere
was the smell of coffee and of frying steaks. A little later, following in
the path of the day laborers, came the clerks and shop girls, dressed
with a certain cheap smartness, always in a hurry, glancing
apprehensively at the power-house clock. Their employers followed an
hour or so later--on the cable cars for the most part whiskered
gentlemen with huge stomachs, reading the morning papers with great
gravity; bank cashiers and insurance clerks with flowers in their
buttonholes.
At the same time the school children invaded the street, filling the air
with a clamor of shrill voices, stopping at the stationers' shops, or idling
a moment in the doorways of the candy stores. For over half an hour
they held possession of the sidewalks, then suddenly disappeared,
leaving behind one or two stragglers who hurried along with great
strides of their little thin legs, very anxious and preoccupied.
Towards eleven o'clock the ladies from the great avenue a block above
Polk Street made their appearance, promenading the sidewalks leisurely,
deliberately. They were at their morning's marketing. They were
handsome women, beautifully dressed. They knew by name their
butchers and grocers and vegetable men. From his window McTeague

saw them in front of the stalls, gloved and veiled and daintily shod, the
subservient provision men at their elbows, scribbling hastily in the
order books. They all seemed to know one another, these grand ladies
from the fashionable avenue. Meetings took place here and there; a
conversation was begun; others arrived; groups were formed; little
impromptu receptions were held before the chopping blocks of
butchers' stalls, or on the sidewalk, around boxes of berries and fruit.
From noon to evening the population of the street was of a mixed
character. The street was busiest at that time; a vast and prolonged
murmur arose--the mingled shuffling of feet, the rattle of wheels, the
heavy trundling of cable cars. At four o'clock the school children once
more swarmed the sidewalks, again disappearing with surprising
suddenness. At six the great homeward march commenced; the cars
were crowded, the laborers thronged the sidewalks, the newsboys
chanted the evening papers. Then all at once the street fell quiet; hardly
a soul was in sight; the sidewalks were deserted. It was supper hour.
Evening began; and one by one a multitude of lights, from the
demoniac glare of the druggists' windows to the dazzling blue
whiteness of the electric globes, grew thick from street corner to street
corner. Once more the street was crowded. Now there was no thought
but for amusement. The cable cars were loaded with theatre-goers--men
in high hats and young girls in furred opera cloaks. On the sidewalks
were groups and couples--the plumbers' apprentices, the girls of the
ribbon counters, the little families that lived on the second stories over
their shops, the dressmakers, the small doctors, the harness- makers--all
the various inhabitants of the street were abroad, strolling idly from
shop window to shop window, taking the air after the day's work.
Groups of girls collected on the corners, talking and laughing very loud,
making remarks upon the young men that passed them. The tamale men
appeared. A band of Salvationists began to sing before a saloon.
Then, little by little, Polk Street dropped back to solitude. Eleven
o'clock struck from the power-house clock. Lights were extinguished.
At one o'clock the cable stopped, leaving an abrupt silence in the air.
All at once it seemed very still. The ugly noises were the occasional
footfalls of a policeman and the persistent calling of ducks and geese in

the closed market. The street was asleep.
Day after day, McTeague saw the same panorama unroll itself. The bay
window of his "Dental Parlors" was for him a point of vantage from
which he watched the world go past.
On Sundays, however, all was changed. As he stood in the bay window,
after finishing his beer, wiping his lips, and looking out into the street,
McTeague was conscious of the difference. Nearly all the stores were
closed. No wagons passed. A few people hurried up and down the
sidewalks, dressed in cheap Sunday finery. A cable car went by; on the
outside seats were a party of returning picnickers. The mother, the
father, a young man, and a young girl, and three children. The two
older people held empty lunch baskets in their laps, while the bands of
the children's hats were stuck full of oak leaves. The girl carried a huge
bunch of wilting poppies and wild flowers.
As the car approached McTeague's window the young man