I suppose you know that Venice is built mostly on water--like American railroads Pop says, though I never saw one of them and I guess that's what Aunt Sarah calls one of Pops suttle political whimsies. The houses are held up by spiles that have been driven down into the mud, and when people want to go anywhere they hire a gondola and get paddled off to where they want to go. Of course they haven't any horses and Pop says the only driving they can do is spile driving. He told Jules to get a team of quiet gentle spiles that a lady could drive and let me try 'em, but Jules was so stupid he didn't understand--though he pretended he did and promised to have 'em at the door at three o'clock, and when three o'clock came he told Pop he was very sorry but every one in town had been hired for the season. Jules is smart even if he can't understand American jokes.
Venice is a great many years old and used to be managed by men they called Dodges. They didn't have mares the way we do in our cities because horses couldn't get along there, but they whacksed very rich and built magnificent houses and churches and palaces. They have a great big public square called St. Marks where the bandolins play every night and it's full of pigeons.
Pigeons are so sacred here that when they have 'em on the bills of fare at the hotels they call them squab for fear the populace would rise and tear them limb from limb for eating pigeons. They make glass in Venice too, smelling bottles and tumblers and chandeliers, but the best part of the whole thing is the canals. The water isn't very clean but it's clean enough and I tell you what a boy has a great advantage over a nurse in a place like Venice. One morning when Pop and I were getting gondoliered along the Grand Canal we heard a fearful shrieking in one of the palaces and in a minute we saw a boy being chased by his nurse. He was only about a foot ahead and she almost had him when he jumped off the front stoop into the canal and swam up and down just out of her reach and my, wasn't she mad! I don't know what she said because she spoke Italian, but I could guess generally what she meant. Just think of it for a minute. If you want to go swimming or fishing or boating you can do it all right in front of your own house. We'd be pretty rich in America if we could stand on our front door steps and catch all the dinner we needed.