The footsteps keep up the tramp, tramp, on the board flooring, while
train after train pulls out jammed within and without. The influx from
the street allows no vacuum to be formed upon the platform. The patience
of the modern man shows wonderfully. The tired workers face the hour's
ride that lies between them and home with beautiful self-restraint and
courage. And in their weariness and their patience lies the full
solemnity of the scene. The morning crowd, even on the same wooden
platform at City Hall, is different. The morning crowd is not so firmly
knit together. You catch individual and local peculiarities. You feel
that there are men and women here from Harlem, and others from Long
Island, and others from Westchester and the Bronx. They are still fresh
from their separate homes, with their separate atmospheres about them.
Some are brisk from the morning's exercise and the cold bath; some are
still a bit sleepy from last night's pleasures; some go to the day's
task with eager anticipation; some move forward indifferent and
resigned. But when these same men and women surge homeward in the
evening, they are one in spirit; they are all equally tired.
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