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

she will want it for a best dress all next summer," said Mrs. Leverett.

"Oh, I should have long sleeves, as well, and just baste them in. And there's so much silk I should make a fichu to tie round in the back with two long ends. You can make that any time. And a scant ruffle not more than an inch wide when it is finished. A ruffle round the skirt about two inches when that is done. Letty Rowe has three ruffles around her changeable taffeta. 'Twas made for her cousin's wedding, and it is just elegant."

"It is a shame to waste stuff that way," declared Mrs. Leverett.

"But the frills are scant, and skirts are never more than two and a half yards round. Why, last summer mother said I might have that fine sprigged muslin of hers to make over, and I'm sure I have enough for another gown. Mrs. Leverett, it doesn't take half as much to make a gown for us as it did for our mothers," said Jane with arch humor.

"She had better save the piece for a new waist and sleeves," declared the careful mother.

"Well, maybe fichus and capes will go out before another summer. I would save the piece now, at any rate," agreed Jane.

Jane was extremely clever. The girls had many amusing asides, for Mrs. Leverett was ironing in the kitchen. There was nothing harmful about them, but they were full of gay promise. Jane cut and basted and fitted. There were the bodice and the sleeves. "You can easily slip out the long ones," she whispered, "and there was the skirt with the lining all basted, and the ruffles cut and sewed together."

"You'll have a nice job hemming them. I should do it over a cord. It makes them set out so much better. And if you get in the drag I'll come over to-morrow. I'm to help mother with the nut cake this afternoon. It cuts better to be a day or two old. We made the fruit cake a fortnight ago."

"How good you are! I don't know what I should have done without you!"

"And I don't know how Betty will ever repay you," said Mrs. Leverett.

"I know," returned Jane laughingly. "I have planned to get every stitch out of her. I am going to quilt my 'Young Man's Ramble' this winter, and mother's said I might ask in two or three of the best quilters I know--Betty quilts so beautifully!"

The "Young Man's Ramble" was patchwork of a most intricate design, in which it seemed that one might ramble about fruitlessly.

"I am glad there is some way of your getting even," said the mother with a little pride.

Jane took dinner with them and then ran off home. Warren went a short distance with her, as their way lay together.

"I hope you didn't say anything about the dancing," he remarked. "Mother is rather set against it. But Sister Electa gives dancing parties, and Betty's going to Hartford this winter. She ought to know how to dance."

"Trust me for not letting the cat out of the bag!"

Betty sewed and sewed. She could hardly attend to Doris' lessons and sums. She hemmed the ruffle in the evening, and hurried with her work the next morning. Everything went smoothly, and Mrs. Leverett was more interested than she would have believed. And she was quite ready to take up the cudgel for her daughter's silken gown when Aunt Priscilla made her appearance. Of course she would find fault.

But it is the unexpected that happens. Aunt Priscilla was in an extraordinary mood. Some money had been paid to her that morning that she had considered lost beyond a peradventure. And she said, "It was a great piece of foolishness, and Winthrop Adams at his time of life ought to have had more sense, but what could you expect of a man always browsing over books! And if she had thought Betty was dying for a silk frock, she had two laid away that would come in handy some time. She hadn't ever quite decided who should fall heir to them, but so many of the girls had grown up and had husbands to buy fine things for them, she supposed it would be Betty."

"What is going round the neck and sleeves?" she asked presently.

"Mother has promised to lend me some lace," answered Betty. "The other girls had a borrowed wear out of it."

"I'll look round a bit. I never had much real finery, but husband always wanted me to dress well when we were first married. We went out a good deal for a while, before he was hurt. I'll see what I have."

And the next morning old Polly brought over a box with "Missus' best compliments." There was some beautiful English thread lace about four inches wide, just as it had lain away for years, wrapped in soft white paper, with a cake of white wax to keep it from turning unduly yellow.

"Betty, you are in wonderful luck," said her mother. "Something has stirred up Aunt Priscilla."

Just at noon that eventful Thursday Mr. Manning came in from Salem for his mother-in-law. Mrs. Manning's little daughter had been born at eight that morning, and Mary wanted her mother at once. She had promised to go, but hardly expected the call so soon.

There were so many charges to give Betty, who was to keep house for the next week. Nothing was quite ready. Mother fashion, she had counted on doing this and that before she went; and if Betty couldn't get along she must ask Aunt Priscilla to come, just as if Betty had not kept house a whole week last summer. There was advice to father and to Warren, and he was to try to bring Betty home by nine o'clock that evening. What Doris would do in the afternoon, she couldn't see.

"Go off with an easy heart, mother," said Mr. Leverett; "I will come home early this afternoon."


CHAPTER VIII

SINFUL OR NOT?

"You should have seen me when Jane tied a white sash about my waist. Then I was just complete."

"But you looked beautiful before--like a--well, a queen couldn't have looked prettier. Or the Empress Josephine."

Betty laughed and kissed the little girl whose eyes were still full of admiration. She had not come home until ten, and found her father waiting at the fireside, but Doris was snuggled up in bed and soundly asleep. She had risen at her father's call, made the breakfast, and sent the men off in time; then heard the lesson Doris wasn't quite sure of, and sent her to school; and now the dinner was cleared away and they were sitting by the fire.

The Empress Josephine was in her glory then, one of the notables of Europe.

"And Mrs. Morse said such lace as that would be ten dollars a yard now. Think of that! Thirty dollars! But didn't you get lonesome waiting for father?"

"He came just half an hour afterward. And, oh, we had such a grand, funny time getting supper. It was as good as a party. I poured the tea. And he called me Miss Adams, like a grown lady. And, then, what do you think? We played fox and geese! And do you know I thought the geese were dumb to let the fox get them all. And then he took the geese and soon penned my fox in a corner. Then he told me about the fox and the goose and the measure of corn and the man crossing the stream. It was just delightful. I wanted to stay up until you came home, but I did get so sleepy. And was the party splendid? I don't think anyone could have been prettier than you!"

"Sally Prentiss had a pink silk frock, and the ruffles were fringed out, which made them fluffy. It was beautiful! Oh, I should have felt just awful in my gray cloth or my blue winter frock. And I owe most of the delight to you, little Doris. I've been thinking--sometime I will work you a beautiful white frock, fine India muslin."

"And what did they do?"

"We didn't sew much," Betty laughed. "We talked and talked. I knew all but one girl, and we were soon acquainted. Jane didn't have a thing to do, of course. Then the gentlemen came and we went out to supper. The table was like a picture. There was cold turkey and cold ham and cold baked pork. They were all delicious. And bread and biscuits and puffy little cakes quite new. Mrs. Morse's cousin brought the recipe, and she has promised it to mother. And there were jams and jellies and ever so many things, and then all the plates and meats were sent away, and the birthday cake with seventeen tiny candles was lighted up. And cake of every kind, and whipped cream and nuts and candies. Then we went back to the parlor and played "proverbs" and "What is my thought like?" and then black Joe came with his fiddle. First they danced the minuet. It was beautiful. And then they had what is called cotillions. I believe that is the new fashionable dance. It takes eight people, but you can have two or three at the same time. They dance in figures. And, oh, it is just delightful! I _do_ wonder if it is wrong?"

"What would make it wrong?" asked Doris gravely.

"That's what puzzles me. A great many people think it right and send their children to dancing-school. On all great occasions there seems to be dancing. It is stepping and floating around gracefully. You think of swallows flying and flowers swinging and grass waving in the summer sun."

"But if there is so much of it in the world, and if God made the world gay and glad and rejoicing and full of butterflies and birds and ever so many things that don't do any real work but just have a lovely time----"

Doris' wide-open eyes questioned her companion.

"They haven't any souls. I don't know." Betty shook her head. "Let's ask father about it to-night. When you are little you play tag and puss-in-the-corner and other things, and run about full of fun. Dancing is more orderly and refined. And there's the delicious music! All the young men were so nice and polite,--so kind of elegant,--and it makes you feel of greater consequence. I don't mean vain, only as if it was worth while to behave prettily. It's like the parlor and the kitchen. You don't take your washing and scrubbing and scouring in the parlor, though that work is all necessary. So there are two sides to life. And my side just now is getting supper, while your side is studying tables. Oh, I do wonder if you will ever get to know them!"

Doris sighed. She would so much rather talk about the party.

"And your frock was--pretty?" she ventured timidly.

"All the girls thought it lovely. And I told them it was a gift from my little cousin, who came from old Boston--and they were so interested in you. They thought Doris a beautiful name, but Sally said the family name ought to be grander to go with it. But Adams is a fine old name, too--the first name that was ever given. There was only one man then, and when there came to be such hosts of them they tacked the 's' on to make it a noun of multitude."

"Did they really? Some of the children