A Little Girl in Old Boston, Amanda Minnie Douglas [black authors fiction .TXT] 📗

in a bed of sweet catnip."

"One is about as wise as the other," declared Aunt Priscilla, nodding her head. She was rather glad there was something in her house to be a rival to Cousin Winthrop and the Leveretts, since Doris Adams was to be held up on a high plane and spoiled with indulgence. She had not yet made up her mind whether she would like the child or not.

"Yes, she had started at Mrs. Webb's school. Uncle Win was going to make some arrangement about her French and her writing when he came over. They'd had a letter from 'Lecty, and as the legislature was to meet in Hartford there would be quite gay times, and she did so hope she could go. Mary wasn't very well, and wanted mother to come on for a week or two presently," and Betty made big eyes at Aunt Priscilla, while that lady nodded as well as her bundled up head would admit, to signify that she understood.

"I'm sure you ought to know enough to keep house for your father and Warren," was the comment.

Then Betty said they must go, and Aunt Priscilla tartly rejoined that they might look in and see whether she was dead or alive.

"Can I come and see Solomon again?" asked Doris.

"Of course, since Solomon is head of the house."

"Thank you," returned Doris simply, not understanding the sarcasm.

"Wonderful how Solomon liked little missy," said Polly, straightening the chairs and restoring order.

"My head aches with all the talking," said Aunt Priscilla. "I want to be alone."

But she felt a little conscience-smitten as Polly stepped about in the kitchen getting supper and sang in a thick, soft, but rather quivering voice, her favorite hymn:


"'Hark, from the tombs a doleful sound,
Mine ears, attend the cry.'"


Yes, Polly was a faithful old creature, only she had grown forgetful, and she was losing her strength, and black people gave out suddenly. But there, what was the use of borrowing trouble, and the idea of having a child around to train and stew over, and no doubt she would be getting married just the time when she, Mrs. Perkins, would need her the most. The Lord hadn't seen fit to give her any children to comfort her old age; after all, would she want a delicate little thing like this child with a heathenish name!

It was quite chilly now, and Doris, holding Betty's hand tight, skipped along merrily, her heart strangely warm and gay.

"She's very queer, and her voice sounds as if she couldn't get the scold out of it, doesn't it? And I felt afraid of the black woman first. I never saw any until we were on the ship. But the beautiful cat!" with a lingering emphasis on the adjective.

"Well--cats are cats," replied Betty sagely. "I don't care much about them myself, though we should be overrun with rats and mice if it wasn't for them. I like a fine, big dog."

"Oh, Betty!" and a girl caught her by the shoulder, turning her round and laughing heartily at her surprise.

"Why, Jane! How you startled me."

"And is this your little foreign girl--French or something?"

"English, if you please, and her father was born here in Boston. And isn't it queer that she should have lived in another Boston? And her name is Doris Adams."

"I'm sure the Adams are sown thickly enough about, but Doris sounds like verses. And, oh, Betty, I've been crazy to see you for two days. I am to have a real party next week. I shall be seventeen, and there will be just that number invited. The girls are to come in the afternoon and bring their sewing. There will be nine. And eight young men," laughing--"boys that we know and have gone sledding with. They are to come to tea at seven sharp. Cousin Morris is to bring his black fiddler Joe, and we are going to dance, and play forfeits, and have just a grand time."

"But I don't know how to dance--much."

Betty's highest accomplishments were in the three R's. Her manuscript arithmetic was the pride of the family, but of grammar she candidly confessed she couldn't make beginning nor end.

"I'm going to coax hard to go to dancing school this winter. Sam is going, and he says all the girls are learning to dance. Mother's coming round to-morrow. We want to be sure about the nine girls. Good-by, it's getting late."

"Now, let's hurry home," exclaimed Betty.

The table was laid, and Mrs. Leverett said:

"Why didn't you stay all night?"

"Aunt Priscilla has her autumn cold. She was quite cross at first. She was sick last week, and went to church yesterday, and is worse to-day. But she was glad about the eggs."

"There comes your father. Be spry now."

After supper Warren went out to look after Jack. Mr. Leverett took his chair in the corner of the wide chimney and pushed out the stool for the little girl. She smiled as she sat down and laid her hands on his knee.

"So you didn't like the school," he began, after a long silence.

"Yes--I liked--most of it," rather reluctantly.

"What was it you didn't like--sitting still?"

"No--not that."

"The lessons? Were they too hard?"

"She said I needn't mind this morning."

"But the figuring bothered you."

"Of course I didn't know," she said candidly.

"You will get into it pretty soon. Betty'll train you. She's a master hand at figures, smarter than Warren."

Doris made no comment, but there was an unconfessed puzzle in her large eyes.

"Well, what is it?" The interest he took in her surprised himself.

"She whipped a boy on his hands with a ruler very hard because he couldn't remember his lesson."

"That's a good aid to memory. I've seen it tried when I was a boy."

"But if I had tried and tried and studied I should have thought it very cruel."

"I guess he didn't try or study. What did Miss Arabella do to you when you were careless and forgot things? Or were you never bad?"

Doris hung her head, while a faint color mounted to her brow.

"When I was naughty I couldn't go out on the pony nor take him a lump of sugar. And he loved sugar so. And sometimes I had to study a psalm."

"And weren't children ever whipped in your country?"

"The common people beat their children and their wives and their horses and dogs. But Miss Arabella was a lady. She couldn't have beaten a cat."

There was a switch on the top of the closet in the kitchen that beat Tom out of doors when he ventured in. Doris' tender heart rather resented this.

Foster Leverett smiled at this distinction.

"I do suppose people might get along, but boys are often very trying."

"Don't grown-up people ever do anything wrong? And when they scold dreadfully aren't they out of temper? Miss Arabella thought it very unladylike to get out of temper. And what is done to grown people?"

Uncle Leverett laughed and squeezed the soft little hands on his knee. Yes, men and women flew into a rage every day. Their strict training had not given them control of their tempers. It had not made them all honest and truthful. Yet it might have been the best training for the times, for the heroic duties laid upon them.

"She was very cross once, and her forehead all wrinkled up, and her eyes were so--so hard; and when she is pleasant she has beautiful brown eyes. I like beautiful people."

"We can't all be beautiful or good-tempered."

"But Miss Arabella said we could, and that beauty meant sweetness and grace and truth and kindliness, and that"--she lowered her voice mysteriously--"where one really tried to be good God gave them grace to help. I don't quite know about the grace, I'm so little. But I want to be good."

Was there a beautiful side to goodness? Foster Leverett had been for some time weakening in the old faith.

"Now I'm ready," exclaimed Betty briskly. "We can say tables without any book."

Uncle Leverett laughed and squeezed the soft little stranger at his hearth. But affection was not demonstrative in those days, and it looked rather weak in a man.

They had grand fun saying addition and multiplication tables. They went up to the fives, and Doris found that here was a wonderful bridge.

"You could add clear up to a hundred without any trouble," the child declared gleefully. "But you couldn't multiply."

"Why, yes," said Betty. "I had not exactly thought of it before. Five times thirteen would be sixty-five, and so on. Five times twenty would be a hundred. Why, we do it in a great many things, but I suppose they--whoever invented tables thought that was far enough to go."

"Who did invent them?"

"I really don't know. Doris, we will ask Uncle Win when he comes over. He knows about everything."

"It would take a great many years to learn everything," said the child with a sigh.

"But the knowledge goes round," said Betty with arch gayety. "One has a little and the other a little and they exchange, and then women don't have to know as much as men."

"I'd like to see the man that knew enough to keep house," declared Mrs. Leverett. "And didn't Mrs. Abigail Adams farm and bring up her children and pay off debts while her husband was at congress and war and abroad? It isn't so much book learning as good common sense. Just think what the old Revolutionary women did! And now it is high time Doris went to bed. Come, child, you're so sleepy in the morning."

Doris had her dress unbuttoned and untied her shoes to make sure there were no knots to pick out. Knots in shoe-strings were very perplexing at this period when no one had dreamed of button boots. I doubt, indeed, if anyone would have worn them. The shoes were made straight and changed every morning, so as to wear evenly and not get walked over at the side. And people had pretty feet then, with arched insteps, and walked with an air of dignity. Some of the gouty old men had to be measured for a tender place here or a protuberance there, or allowance made for bad corn.

Doris said good-night and went upstairs. Miss Arabella had always kissed her. Betty did sometimes, and said "What a sweet little thing you are!" or "What a queer little thing you are!" She said her prayers, hung her clothes over a chair, put her little shoes just right for morning, and stepping on the chair round vaulted over to her side of the bed.

What a long, long day it had been! The most beautiful thing in it was the big cat Solomon, and if she could nurse him she shouldn't be very much afraid of Aunt Priscilla. Oh, how soft his fur was, and how he purred, just as if he was glad she had come! Perhaps he sometimes tired of Aunt Priscilla and black Polly, and longed for a little girl who didn't mind sitting on the floor, and who knew how to play.

Then there was the spelling, and she tried to think over the hard words, and the tables, and her small brain kept up such a riot that she