To the country boy familiar scenes of old Boston seem dull and uninteresting, but to me they never lose their charm. The old South Cove was a good locality in days gone by, and the monotony was varied by the intoxicated rustics who never strayed beyond Tom Early's or Billy Mahoney's on Lagrange Street, where they gazed in awe at the old-time sporting pictures on the wall, and looked at the mixed ale fighters spar a "bit." The old home of William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and General William Francis Bartlett still stands before us; so does the six-story and Tinker's Alley.

"Long shall the Crystal Palace hold

my memory rife, And Quiet Alley, too, has ceased this earthly life.

I am going back to Cove Street, and forget the pangs of fate, And I know I'll find a welcome at Mag Carney's broken gate.”

Alas, business has long since destroyed these classic sites.

In Those Days.

The Crystal Palace in its own. way was of unique architecture, but the most impressive sight to my mind was the old pump (a wooden one) such as you see in every country town in Maine and New Hampshire, situated in the centre of the

area of old Albany Place. There were twelve large wooden houses in the place, and it was inhabited by people with large families. The competition to get at the pump in the morning was as fierce as business strife; there were no faucets in the houses, but the tenants used the pump with great regularity, as an unclean face was unknown in the Quincy School. Boston in those days was at heart a provincial town, and here in the centre of the city the localities resembled parts of Worcester. Albany Place was owned during war time by a patriotic stair builder named Moulton; he showed his patriotism by allow ing rents to run during war time, and the families of our soldiers were unmolested.

the

Backward, Turn Backward. How old Master Bunker's brown eyes used to rove, alike on smart and the fool. We worshipped a bust of Lafayette in the old Quincy School hall, and found our afterwards that it was a likeness of Voltaire. Voltaire was at once consigned to the oblivion of the cellar, and the patriotic Lafayette took his proper place in our affections. The Whistling Cobbler (Yankee Doodle) (old man Sawtelle) still disturbed our recitations, and when the street hand-organ played "The Wearing of the Green," and "Do you love me, Mollie Darling?" every

The lower end of the South Cove (the water front, Federal Street, etc.), would engage in deadly combat with the upper end of the Cove (Seneca, Oneida Streets, and Harrison Avenue), and the snowball fights went on in earnest outside the Quincy School on Hudson Street. At times the rally was interrupted by the approach of our master, but at considerable personal sacrifice and inconvenience to himself. The old school was always famous for its fighting spirit, as the hundreds of boys who enlisted in the war of the rebellion of 1861 by their great valor can testify. The old South Cove Yankee was famous for his patriotism; the only difference between him and an Irishman was that he forgot to be born in Ireland.

"The same bell still rings, but the old boys have gone

To Life's school room to seek out their fate.

When our troubles are o'er, and our

last race is run, Who'll pack our old books, or strap our cracked slate?"

In School Days. The boys at the Quincy School were exceptionally good at geography, thanks to Masters Bunker and George W. Neal, but the humor of the situation showed itself when some near-sighted scholars would get the bays, gulfs, and continents

confused to the great merriment of the class.

I can see Puget Sound still placed in old Maine,

When the pointers came down with a rap.

1 can see Guinea's Gulf changing places with Spain

And Mike Monahan still at the map.

Those days, I'll ne'er forget them, I'll banish care and strife,

And I'll leave behind the troubles and the woes I've known in life, I'll wander back to Kingston Court, and see the old Six-story, And throw my line off Griffin's Wharf, and muse o'er ancient glory. Griffin's Wharf was the scene of the Old Boston Tea Party.

The Old School Hall.

The picture of the Duke of Wellington was in the old school hall; the Iron Duke simply glared at the unruly boys who for misbehavior were penalized to stand before him for hours at a time. The Fort Hill boys came to the school shortly after the razing of old Fort Hill, and the old Duke was there to welcome them if they looked carefully about the hall. But the Fort Hill boys were so good in deportment that they never made the acquaintance of the old gentleman. (At least they claim that they were unaware of his existence.)

Cove Street brings back to me tender recollections of by-gone days; Hagerty's Alley and Burke's Alley between Beach and Kneeland Streets on Cove Street; I can see as if but yesterday the good-natured wheelwright at Judkin's (corner Beach and Cove Streets) making wheels for our trucks, and scorning to take any pay. He took his reward in the delight which it gave him to help the boys in their innocent amusement. Dave Fos

ter, the old policeman, I can see at the Old Colony Depot wearing a hole in the brick wall; he leaned against that wall from morning till night save when a noisy "drunk" disturbed his nap, and a furniture wagon conveyed the bibulous rustic to Station 4 on Lagrange Street: There were no police patrol wagons in those days, and the town was lively and full of good-natured amusement.

"I'm going through Burke's Alley

with my slate, a rambler bold, To the Good Old-fashioned schoolhouse, and the wealth of her enfold."

Covers versus Fort Hillers

True, the Quincy School had no green mall and beautiful surroundings, such as the Fort Hillers boast, but we had no cholera hospital next door, such as menaced the Fort Hill pupils. Harrison Avenue with its "Table Boarders" signs still stared us in the face; Hudson Street with its beautiful elm trees was there to welcome us; Tyler Street with its quiet lodgers and good neighbors; Oak Street was as quiet as a farm hand, and just as harmless. We had a quiet neighborhood until the destruction of old Fort Hill compelled the removal of the noisy boarding houses, and they took up their quarters in our midst. On a Sunday morning the outpouring from these boarding houses resembled the close of a play at the theatre and the dispersing of the audience. But the Quincy School with its great civil war record, has the old Boylston left hopelessly in the rear. The Fort Hillers seem to think that the whole world revolved around that sacred hill, but Boston had other places of interest to attract the old

settler and antiquary. We in the Cove had Oliver Place, with its pretty gardens, a marked contrast to the smell of tar, fish and pitch, which was always present along Atlantic Avenue. Belcher's Lane is an old alleyway of no particular importance, for did we not have the Liberty Tree site at the corner of Washington and Essex Streets? I remember the boys swimming off Batchelder's Wharf, Tirrell's Wharf, and the other docks along the railroad front of the old Fort Point channel. They used the old floating bathhouse on Mt. Washington Avenue, but to my knowledge the muddy pools on the old flats were used by the younger boys to paddle in, catch small fish, and sail their small boats just as the Kerry Village boys sailed theirs on the Frog Pond. You would not be allowed to take your seat in the Quincy School if you were not scrupulously clean in your habits, hands, face, etc. The old Boston Wharf (Sugar Wharf) was still there, with its cane sugar and molasses barrels to tempt the youngster with its fragrant smell of good things in store; French's distillery on Tufts Street alongside the Crystal Palace gave the bibulous rustics a chance to get a second-hand debauch from its fragrant smell of rum and molasses; Hathaway's dining room on the corner of East and Federal Streets where Irish stews par excellence were served; the auction mart where horses were sold on East Street with all its quaint characters, and last, but not least, the Bowditch School on South Street, where William T. Adams, our own beloved Oliver Optic presided as principal; here in the Cove noble characters and others less famous first saw the light of day.