"Well," she began, "those high steps that they all have, unless they're
English-basement houses, really give them another story, for people used
to dine in the front room of their basements. You've noticed the little
front yard, about as big as a handkerchief, generally, and the steps
leading down to the iron gate, which is kept locked, and the basement
door inside the gate? Well, that's what you might call the back elevator
of a house, for it serves the same purpose: the supplies are brought in
there, and market-men go in and out, and the ashes, and the swill, and
the servants--that you object to so much. We have no alleys in New York,
the blocks are so narrow, north and south; and, of course, we have no
back doors; so we have to put the garbage out on the sidewalk--and it's
nasty enough, goodness knows. Underneath the sidewalk there are bins
where people keep their coal and kindling. You've noticed the gratings in
the pavements?"
I said yes, and I was ashamed to own that at first I had thought them
some sort of registers for tempering the cold in winter; this would have
appeared ridiculous in the last degree to my hostess, for the Americans
have as yet no conception of publicly modifying the climate, as we do.
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