SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF OLD BROOKLYN

H. C. Brown

^^^ 11 h^ Brooklyn of which I write is a different city
V/J from the one we know to-day, entirely different.
The buildings have changed, the streets have
changed, and the people have changed, and there are a
great many more families in the village than when I was
a boy playing among its vacant lots and selling water
around the Union grounds at a cent a glass, and when
the water got very warm, drop])ing the price to "as much
as you could drink for a cent." The people do not seem
to me to be so ncigliborly nor so approachalile as the
people f used to know on our block. On summer nights
we all used to sit out on the front stoop and the young
folks would start some popular song like "Wait Till the
Clouds Ixoll By, Jennie," or "Juanita, Soft Over the
Mountains," or some other favorite. And all the other
stoops would presently join in the singing, which made
it a very enjoyable and neighborly affair.

Opposite my home on Marcy Avenue, I looked out
upon the smiling acres of the old Wyckoff farm in the
70's, and I consider myself among the few men who
were fortunate enough to witness the harvesting of a

[ 157]