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

are learning about nouns. Oh, dear, how much there is to learn!" said the little girl with a sigh.

Betty went at her supper. People ate three good stout meals in those days. It made a deal of cooking. It made a stout race of people as well, and one heard very little about nerves and indigestion. Betty was getting to be quite a practiced cook.

Mr. Leverett took a good deal of interest hearing about the party. Warren had enjoyed it mightily. And then they besieged him for an opinion on the question of dancing. Warren presented his petition that he might be allowed to join a class of young men that was being formed. There were only a few vacancies.

"I do not think I have a very decided opinion about it," he returned slowly. "Times have changed a good deal since I was young, and amusements have changed with them. A hundred or so years ago life was very strenuous, and prejudices of people very strong. Yet the young people skated and had out-of-door games, and indoor plays that we consider very rough now. And you remember that our ancestors were opposed to nearly everything their oppressors did. Their own lives were too serious to indulge in much pleasuring. The pioneers of a nation rarely do. But we have come to an era of more leisure as to social life. Whether it will make us as strong as a nation remains to be seen."

"That doesn't answer my question," said Warren respectfully.

"I am going to ask you to wait until you are of age, mostly for your mother's sake. I think she dreads leaving the old ways. And then Betty will have no excuse," with a shrewd little smile.

Warren looked disappointed.

"But I danced last night," said Betty. "And we used to dance last winter at school. Two or three of the girls were good enough to show us the new steps. And one of the amusing things was a draw cotillion. The girls drew out a slip of paper that had a young man's name on it, and then she had to pass it over to him, and he danced with her. And who do you think I had?" triumphantly.

"I do not know the young men who were there," said her father.

"I hope it was the very nicest and best," exclaimed Doris.

"It just was! Jane's cousin, Morris Winslow. And he was quite the leader in everything, almost as if it was his party. And he is one of the real quality, you know. I was almost afraid to dance with him, but he was so nice and told me what to do every time, so I did not make any serious blunders. But it is a pleasure to feel that you know just how."

"There will be years for you to learn," said her father. "Meanwhile the ghost of old Miles Standish may come back."

"What would he do?" asked Doris, big-eyed.

Warren laughed. "What he did in the flesh was this: The Royalists--you see, they were not all Puritans that came over--were going to keep an old-time festival at a place called Merry Mount. They erected a May pole and were going to dance around it."

"That is what they do at home. And they have a merry time. Miss Arabella took me. And didn't Miles Standish like it?"

"I guess not. He sent a force of men to tear it down, and marched Morton and his party into Plymouth, where they were severely reprimanded--fined as well, some people say."

"We do not rule our neighbors quite as strictly now. But one must admire those stanch old fellows, after all."

"I am glad the world has grown wider," said Warren. But he wished its wideness had taken in his mother, who had a great fear of the evils lying in wait for unwary youth. Still he would not go against her wishes while he was yet under age. Young people were considered children in their subjection to their parents until this period. And girls who stayed at home were often in subjection all their lives. There were men who ruled their families with a sort of iron sway, but Mr. Leverett had always been considered rather easy.

Doris begged to come out and dry the dishes, but they said tables instead of talking of the seductive party. Mr. Leverett had to go out for an hour. Betty sat down and took up her knitting. She felt rather tired and sleepy, for she had gone on with the party the night before, after she was in bed. A modern girl would be just getting ready to go to her party at ten. But then she would not have to get up at half-past five the next morning, make a fire, and cook breakfast. Suddenly Betty found herself nodding.

"Put up your book, Doris. I'll mix the cakes and we will go to bed. You can dream on the lessons."

The party had demoralized Doris as well.

Among the real quality young men came to inquire after the welfare of the ladies the next morning, or evening at the latest. But people in the middle classes were occupied with their employments, which were the main things of their lives.

And though the lines were strongly drawn and the "quality" were aristocratic, there were pleasant gradations, marked by a fine breeding on the one side and a sense of fitness on the other, that met when there was occasion, and mingled and fused agreeably, then returned each to his proper sphere. The Morses were well connected and had some quite high-up relatives. For that matter, so were the Leveretts, but Foster Leverett was not ambitions for wealth or social distinction, and Mrs. Leverett clung to the safety of the good old ways.

Jane ran over in the morning with a basket of some of the choicer kinds of cake, and some nuts, raisins, and mottoes for the little girl. There were so many nice things she was dying to tell Betty,--compliments,--and some from Cousin Morris. And didn't she think everything went off nicely?

"It was splendid, all through," cried Betty enthusiastically. "I would like to go to a party--well, I suppose every week would be too often, but at least twice a month."

"The Chauncey Winslows are going to have a party Thanksgiving night. They are Morris' cousins and not mine, but I've been there; and Morris said last night I should have an invitation. It will be just splendid, I know."

"But you are seventeen. And mother thinks I am only a little girl," returned Betty.

"Oh, yes; I didn't go scarcely anywhere last winter. Being grown up is ever so much nicer. But it will come for you."

"Electa wants me to visit her this winter. The assembly is to meet, you know, and she has plenty of good times, although she has three children. I _do_ hope I can go! And I have that lovely frock."

"That would be delightful. I wish I had a sister married and living away somewhere--New York, for instance. They have such fine times. Oh, dear! how do you get along alone?"

"It keeps me pretty busy."

Jane had come out in the kitchen, so Betty could go on with her dinner preparations.

"Mother thinks of keeping Cousin Nabby all winter. She likes Boston so, and it's lonely up in New Hampshire on the farm. That will ease me up wonderfully."

"If I go away mother will have to get someone."

"Although they do not think we young people are of much account," laughed Jane. "Give your little girl a good big chunk of party cake and run over when you can."

"But I can't now."

"Then I will have to do the visiting."

Dinner was ready on the mark, and Mr. Leverett praised it. Doris came home in high feather. She had not missed a word, and she had done all her sums.

"I think I am growing smarter," she announced with a kind of grave exultation. "Don't you think Aunt Elizabeth will teach me how to knit when she comes back?"

Not to have knit a pair of stockings was considered rather disgraceful for a little girl.

Aunt Priscilla came over early Saturday afternoon. She found the house in very good order, and she glanced sharply about, too. They had not heard from Mary yet, but the elder lady said no news was good news. Then she insisted on looking over the clothes for the Monday's wash and mending up the rents. Tuesday she would come in and darn the stockings. When she was nine years old it was her business to do all the family darning, looking askance at Doris.

"Now, if you had been an only child, Aunt Priscilla, and had no parents, what a small amount of darning would have fallen to your share!" said Betty.

"Well, I suppose I would have been put out somewhere and trained to make myself useful. And if I'd had any money that would have been on interest, so that I could have some security against want in my old age. Anyway, it isn't likely I should have been allowed to fritter away my time."

Betty wondered how Aunt Priscilla could content herself with doing such a very little now! Not but what she had earned a rest. And Foster Leverett, who managed some of her business, said _sub rosa_ that she was not spending all her income.

"You can't come up to your mother making tea," she said at the supper table. "Your mother makes the best cup of tea I ever tasted."

Taking it altogether they did get on passably well without Mrs. Leverett during the ten days. She brought little James, six years of age, who couldn't go the long distance to school in cold weather with the two older children, and so was treated to a visit at grandmother's.

Mary was doing well and had a sweet little girl, as good as a kitten. Mr. Manning's Aunt Comfort had come to stay a spell through the winter. And now there was getting ready for Thanksgiving. There was no time to make mince pies, but then Mrs. Leverett didn't care so much for them early in the season. Hollis' family would come up, they would ask Aunt Priscilla, and maybe Cousin Winthrop would join them. So they were busy as possible.

Little James took a great liking to his shy cousin Doris, and helped her say tables and spell. He had been at school all summer and was very bright and quick.

"But, Uncle Foster," she declared, "the children in America are much smarter than English children. They understand everything so easily."

Then came the first big snowstorm of the season. There had been two or three little dashes and squalls. It began at noon and snowed all night. The sky was so white in the early morning you could hardly tell where the snow line ended and where it began; but by and by there came a bluish, silvery streak that parted it like a band, and presently a pale sun ventured forth, hanging on the edge of yellowish clouds and growing stronger, until about noon it flooded everything with gold, and the heavens were one broad sheet of blue magnificence.

Doris did not go to school in the morning. There were no broken paths, and boys and men were busy shoveling out or tracking down.

"It is a heavy snow for so early in the season," declared Uncle Leverett. "We are not likely to see bare ground in