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

was not a bit sleepy.

Betty brought out her work after lighting another candle. Mr. Leverett sat and dozed and thought. When Warren had finished up the chores he went around to the other side of Betty's table, and was soon lost in a history of the French War. When the tall old clock struck nine it was time to prepare for bed.

Betty was putting up some wisps of hair in tea leads, when Doris sat up.

"Oh, you midget! Are you not asleep yet?" she exclaimed.

"No. I've been thinking of everything. And, Betty, can you go to the party? I went to the May party when I was home, but that was out of doors, and we danced round the May pole."

"The party----"

"Yes, did you ask Aunt Elizabeth?" eagerly.

"Oh, no. I wasn't going to be caught that way. She would have had time to think up ever so many excellent reasons why I shouldn't go. And now Mrs. Morse will take her by surprise, and she will not have any good excuse ready and so she will give in."

"But wouldn't she want you to go?" Doris was rather confused by the reasoning.

"I suppose she thinks I am young to begin with parties. But it isn't a regular grown-up affair. And I am just crazy to go. I'm so glad you did not blurt it out, Doris. I'll give you a dozen kisses for being so sensible. Now lie down and go to sleep this minute."

The child gave a soft little laugh, and a moment later Betty was "cuddling" her in her arms.

The result of Foster Leverett's cogitation over the fire led him to say the next morning to his son:

"Warren, you run on. I have a little errand to do."

He turned in another direction and went down two squares. There was Mrs. Webb sweeping off her front porch and plank path.

"Good-morning," stopping and leaning on her broom as he halted.

"I'm glad to see you, Mrs. Webb. I suppose the little girl wasn't much trouble yesterday. She's never been to school before."

"Trouble! Bless you, no. If they were all as good as that I should feel frightened, I really should, thinking they wouldn't live long. She's a bit timid----"

"She's backward in some things--figures, for instance. And a little strange, I suppose. So if you would be kind of easy-going with her until she gets settled to the work----"

"Oh, you needn't be a mite afraid, Mr. Leverett. She's smart in some things, but, you see, she's been run on different lines, and we'll get straight presently. She's a nice obedient little thing, and I do like to see children mind at the first bidding."

"Your school is so near we thought we would try it this winter. Yes, I think all will go right. Good-morning," and his heart lightened at the thought of smoothing the way for Doris.


CHAPTER VI

A BIRTHDAY PARTY

Doris sat in the corner studying. Betty had gone over to Mme. Sheafe's to make sure she had her lace stitch just right. They had been ironing and baking all the morning, and now Mrs. Leverett had attacked her pile of shirts, when Mrs. Morse came in. She had her work as well. Everybody took work, for neighborly calls were an hour or two long.

Doris had been presented first, a kind of attention paid to her because she was from across the ocean. Everybody's health had been inquired about.

"I came over on a real errand," began Mrs. Morse presently. "And you mustn't make excuses. My Jane is going to have a little company week from Thursday night. She will be seventeen, and we are going to have seventeen young people. The girls will come in the afternoon, and the young men at seven to tea. Then they will have a little merrymaking. And we want Warren and Betty. We are going to ask those we want the most first, and if so happen anything serious stands in the way, we'll take the next row."

"You're very kind, I'm sure. Warren does go out among young people, but I don't know about Betty. She's so young."

"Well, she will have to start sometime. My mother was married at sixteen, but that is too young to begin life, though she never regretted it, and she had a baker's dozen of children."

"I'm not in any hurry about Betty. She is the last girl home. And the others were past nineteen when they were married."

"We feel there is no hurry about Jane. But I've had a happy life, and all six of us girls were married. Not an old maid among us."

"Old maids do come in handy oftentimes," subjoined Mrs. Leverett.

Yet in those days every mother secretly, often openly, counted on her girls being married. The single woman had no such meed of respect paid her as the "bachelor maids" of to-day. She often went out as housekeeper in a widower's family, and took him and his children for the sake of having a home of her own. Still, there were some fine unmarried women.

"Yes, they're handy in sickness and times when work presses, but they do get queer and opinionated from having their own way, I suppose."

Alas! what would the single woman, snubbed on every side, have said to that!

Then they branched into a chatty discussion about some neighbors, and as neither was an ill-natured woman, it was simply gossip and not scandal. Mrs. Morse had a new recipe for making soap that rendered it clearer and lighter than the old one and made better soap, she thought. And to-morrow she was going at her best candles, so as to be sure they would be hard and nice for the company.

"But you haven't said about Betty?"

"I'll have to think it over," was the rather cautious reply.

"Elizabeth Leverett! I feel real hurt that you should hesitate, when our children have grown up together!" exclaimed Mrs. Morse rather aggrieved.

"It's only about putting Betty forward so much. Why, you know I don't mind her running in and out. She's at your house twice as often as Jane is here. And when girls begin to go to parties there's no telling just where to draw the line. It's very good of you to ask her. Yes, I do suppose she ought to go. The girls have been such friends."

"Jane would feel dreadfully disappointed. She said: 'Now, mother, you run over to the Leveretts' first of all, because I want to be sure of Betty.'"

"Well--I'll have to say yes. Next Thursday. There's nothing to prevent that I know of. I suppose it isn't to be a grand dress affair, for I hadn't counted on making Betty any real party gown this winter? I don't believe she's done growing. Who else did you have in your mind, if it isn't a secret?"

"I'd trust it to you, anyhow. The two Stephens girls and Letty Rowe, Sally Prentiss and Agnes Green. That makes six, with Betty. We haven't quite decided on the others. I dare say some of the girls will be mad as hornets at being left out, but there can be only nine. Of course we do not count Jane."

These were all very nice girls of well-to-do families. Mrs. Leverett did feel a little proud that Betty should head the list.

"They are all to bring their sewing. I had half a mind to put on a quilt, but I knew there'd be a talk right away about Jane marrying, and she has no steady company. I tell her she can't have until she is eighteen."

"That's plenty young enough. I don't suppose there will be any dancing?"

"They've decided on proverbs and forfeits. Cousin Morris is coming round to help the boys plan it out. Are you real set against dancing, Elizabeth?"

"Well--I'm afraid we are going on rather fast, and will get to be too trifling. I can't seem to make up my mind just what is right. Foster thinks we have been too strait-laced."

"I danced when I was young, and I don't see as it hurt me any. And some of the best young people here-about are going to a dancing class this winter. Joseph has promised to join it, and his father said he was old enough to decide for himself."

Mrs. Morse had finished her sewing and folded it, quilting her needle back and forth, putting her thimble and spool of cotton inside and slipping it in her work bag. Then she rose and wrapped her shawl about her and tied on her hood.

"Then we may count on Warren and Betty? Give them my love and Jane's, and say we shall be happy to see them a week from Thursday, Betty at three and Warren at seven. Come over soon, do."

When she had closed the door on her friend Mrs. Leverett glanced over to the corner where Doris sat with her book. She had half a mind to ask her not to mention the call to Betty, then she shrank from anything so small.

Doris studied and she sewed. Then Betty came in flushed and pretty.

"I didn't have the stitch quite right," she said to her mother. "And I have been telling her about Doris. She wants me to bring her over some afternoon. She is a little curious to see what kind of lace Doris makes. She has a pillow--I should call it a cushion."

"Doris ought to learn plain sewing----"

"Poor little mite! How your cares will increase. Can I take her over to Mme. Sheafe's some day?"

"If there is ever any time," with a sigh.

"Do you know your spelling?" She flew over to Doris and asked a question with her eyes, and Doris answered in the same fashion, though she had a fancy that she ought not. Betty took her book and found that Doris knew all but two words.

"If I could only do sums as easily," she said, with a plaintive sound in her voice.

"Oh, you will learn. You can't do everything in a moment, or your education would soon be finished."

"What is Mme. Sheafe like?" she asked with some curiosity, thinking of Aunt Priscilla.

"She is a very splendid, tall old lady. She ought to be a queen. And she was quite rich at one time, but she isn't now, and she lives in a little one-story cottage that is just like--well, full of curious and costly things. And now she gives lessons in embroidery and lace work, and hemstitching and fine sewing, and she wears the most beautiful gowns and laces and rings."

"Your tongue runs like a mill race, Betty."

"I think everybody in Boston is tall," said Doris with quaint consideration that made both mother and daughter laugh.

"You see, there is plenty of room in the country to grow," explained Betty.

"Can I do some sums?"

"Oh, yes."

Plainly, figures were a delusion and a snare to little Doris Adams. They went astray so easily, they would not add up in the right amounts. Mrs. Webb did not like the children to count their fingers, though some of them were very expert about it. When the child got in among the sevens, eights, and nines she was wild with helplessness.

Supper time came. This was Warren's evening for the debating society, which even then was a great entertainment for the young men. There would