The following text is adapted from Paul Laurence Dunbar’s 1902 novel The Sport of the Gods. Joe and some of his family members have recently moved to New York City.

[Joe] was wild with enthusiasm and with a desire to be a part of all that the metropolis meant. In the evening he saw the young fellows passing by dressed in their spruce clothes, and he wondered with a sort of envy where they could be going. Back home there had been no place much worth going to, except church and one or two people’s houses.