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

the landing. As they met the captain took her in his arms and kissed her, and was punished for breaking the Sabbath day by being put in the stocks.

"But did they think it so very wrong?" Her face grew suddenly grave.

"I suppose they did. They had some queer ideas in those days. They thought all exhibitions of affection out of place."

Doris looked thoughtfully out to the harbor. Perhaps that was the reason no one but Betty kissed her.

Then they drove around to the Green Dragon. This had been a famous inn, where, in the early days, the patriots came to plan and confer and lay their far-reaching schemes. It was said they went from here to the famous Tea Party. Uncle Winthrop repeated an amusing rhyme:


"'Rally, Mohocks, bring out your axes,
And tell King George we'll pay no taxes
On his foreign tea.
His threats are vain, he need not think
To force our wives and girls to drink,
His vile Bohea.'"


"I shouldn't like to be forced to drink it," said Doris, with a touch of repugnance in her small face.

"It does better when people get old and queer," said Uncle Winthrop. "Then they want some comfort. They smoke--at least, the men do--and drink tea. Now you can see the veritable Green Dragon."

The house was low, with small, old-time dormer windows. The dragon hung out over the doorway. He was made of copper painted green, his two hind feet resting on a bar that swung out of the house, his wings spread out as well as his front feet, and he looked as if he really could fly. Out of his mouth darted a red tongue.

"He is dreadful!" exclaimed Doris.

"Oh, he doesn't look as fierce now as I have seen him. A coat of paint inspires him with new courage."

"Then I am glad they have not painted him up lately. Uncle Win, is there any such thing as a real dragon? Of course I've read about St. George and the dragon," and she raised her eyes with a perplexed light in them.

"I think we shall have to relegate dragons to the mythical period, or the early ages. I have never seen one any nearer than that old fellow, or with any more life in him. There are many queer signs about, and queer corners, but I think now we will go over to Salem Street and look at some of the pretty old houses, and then along the Mill Pond. Warren took you up Copp's Hill?"

"Oh, yes."

"You see, you must know all about Boston. It will take a long while. Next summer we will have drives around here and there."

"Oh, that will be delightful!" and she smiled with such a sweet grace that he began to count on it himself.

The sun was going over westward in a soft haze that wrapped every leafless tree and seemed to caress the swaying vines into new life. The honeysuckles had not dropped all their leaves, and the evergreens were taking on their winter tint. On some of the wide lawns groups of children were playing, and their voices rang out full of mirth and merriment. Doris half wished she were with them. If Betty was only twelve instead of sixteen!

The Mill Pond seemed like a great bay. The placid water (there was no wind to ruffle it) threw up marvelous reflections and glints of colors from the sky above, and the sun beyond that was now a globe of softened flame, raying out lance-like shapes of greater distinctness and then melting away to assume some new form or color.

Doris glanced up at Uncle Winthrop. It was as if she felt it all too deeply for any words. He liked the silence and the wordless enjoyment in her face.

"We won't go home just yet," he said. They were crossing Cold Lane and could have gone down Sudbury Street. "It is early and we will go along Green Lane and then down to Cambridge Street. You are not tired?"

"Oh, no. I think I never should be tired with you, Uncle Winthrop," she returned with grave sweetness, quite unconscious of the delicate compliment implied.

What was there about this little girl that went so to his heart?

"Uncle Winthrop," she began presently, while a soft pink flush crept up to the edge of her hair, "I heard you and Uncle Leverett talking about some money the first night you were over--wasn't it _my_ money?"

"Yes, I think so," with a little dryness in his tone. What made her think about money just now, and with that almost ethereal face!

"Is it any that I could have--just a little of it?" hesitatingly.

"Why? Haven't you all the things you want?"

"I? Oh, yes. I shouldn't know what to wish for unless it was someone to talk French with," and there was a sweet sort of wistfulness in her tone.

"I think I can supply that want. Why we might have been talking French half the afternoon. Do you want some French books? Is that it?"

"No, sir." There was a lingering inflection in her tone that missed satisfaction.

"Are you not happy at Cousin Leverett's?"

"Happy? Oh, yes." She glanced up in a little surprise. "But the money would be to make someone else happy."

"Ah!" He nodded encouragingly.

"Betty is going to a party."

"And she has been teasing her mother for some finery?"

"She hasn't any pretty gown. I thought this all up myself, Uncle Win. Miss Arabella has such quantities of pretty clothes, and they are being saved up for me. If she was here I should ask her, but I couldn't get it, you know, by Thursday."

She gave a soft laugh at the impossibility, as if it was quite ridiculous.

"And you want it for her?"

"She's so good to me, Uncle Win. For although I know some things quite well, there are others in which I am very stupid. A little girl in school said yesterday that I was 'dreadful dumb, dumber than a goose.' Aunt Elizabeth said a goose was so dumb that if it came in the garden through a hole in the fence it never could find it again to get out."

"That is about the truth," laughed Uncle Win.

"I couldn't get along in arithmetic if it wasn't for Betty. She's so kind and tells me over and over again. And I can't do anything for Aunt Elizabeth, because I don't know how, and it takes most of my time to study. But if I could give Betty a gown--Miss Arabella went to so many parties when she was young. If I was there I know she would consent to give Betty _one_ gown."

Uncle Winthrop thought of a trunk full of pretty gowns that had been lying away many a long year. He couldn't offer any of those to Betty. And that wouldn't be a gift from Doris.

"I wonder what would be nice? An old fellow like me would not know about a party gown."

"Warren would. He and Betty talked a little about it last night. And that made me think--but it didn't come into my mind until a few moments ago that maybe there would be enough of my own money to buy one."

Doris glanced at him with such wistful entreaty that he felt he could not have denied her a much greater thing. He remembered, too, that Elizabeth Leverett had refused to take any compensation for Doris, this winter at least, and he had been thinking how to make some return.

"Yes, I will see Warren. And we will surprise Betty. But perhaps her mother would be a better judge."

"I think Aunt Elizabeth doesn't quite want Betty to go, although she told Mrs. Morse she should."

"Oh, it's at the Morses'? Well, they are very nice people. And young folks do go to parties. Yes, we will see about the gown."

"Uncle Winthrop, you are like the uncles in fairy stories. I had such a beautiful fairy book at home, but it must have been mislaid."

She put her white-mittened hand over his driving glove, but he felt the soft pressure with a curious thrill.

They went through Cambridge Street and Hilier's Lane and there they were at home.

"It has been lovely," she said with a happy sigh as he lifted her out. Then she reached up from the stepping-stone and kissed him.

"It isn't Sunday," she said naively, "and it is because you are so good to me. And this isn't North Square."

He laughed and gave her a squeeze. Cousin Elizabeth came out and wished him a pleasant good-night as he drove away.

What a charming little child she was, so quaintly sensible, and with a simplicity and innocence that went to one's heart. How would Recompense Gardiner regard a little girl like that? He would have her over sometime for a day and they would chatter in French. Perhaps he had better brush up his French a little. Then he smiled, remembering she had called herself stupid, and he was indignant that anyone should pronounce her dumb.


CHAPTER VII

ABOUT A GOWN

Saturday evening was already quiet at the Leveretts'. Elizabeth had been brought up to regard it as the beginning of the Sabbath instead of the end of the week. People were rather shocked then when you said Sunday, and quite forgot the beautiful significance of the Lord's Day. Aunt Priscilla still believed in the words of the Creation: that the evening and the morning were the first day. In Elizabeth's early married life she had kept it rigorously. All secular employments had been put by, and the children had studied and recited the catechism. But as they changed into men and women other things came between. Then Mr. Leverett grew "lax" and strayed off--after other gods, she thought at first.

He softened noticeably. He had a pitiful side for the poor and all those in trouble. Elizabeth declared he used no judgment or discrimination.

He opened the old Bible and put his finger on a verse: "While we have time let us do good unto all men; and especially unto them that are of the household of faith."

"You see," he said gravely, "the household of faith isn't put first, it is 'all men.'"

She was reading the Bible, not as a duty but a delight, skipping about for the sweetness of it. And she found many things that her duty reading had overlooked.

The children did not repeat the catechism any more. She had been considering whether it was best to set Doris at it; but Doris knew her own catechism, and Cousin Winthrop was a Churchman, so perhaps it wasn't wise to meddle. She took Doris to church with her.

Now, on Saturday evening work was put away. Warren was trying to read "Paradise Lost." He had parsed out of it at school. Now and then he dropped into the very heart of things, but he had not a poetical temperament. His father enjoyed it very much, and was quite a reader of Milton's prose works. Betty had strayed off into history. Doris sat beside Uncle Leverett with her arms on his knee, and looked into the fire. What were they doing back in Old Boston? Aunt Elizabeth had already condemned the fairy stories as untrue, and therefore