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

her niceness all come out in looks," said Betty's mother.

There was no reply to this.

"I really do not think she ought to go. There will be other winters."

"Well--we will sleep on the matter. We can't tell about next winter."

Warren thought she ought to go. Aunt Priscilla came over a day or two after in Jonas Field's sleigh. He was out collecting, and would call for her at half-past five, though she still insisted she was pretty sure-footed in walking.

Mr. Perkins in a moment of annoyance had once said to his wife: "Priscilla, you have one virtue, at least. One can always tell just where to find you. You are sure to be on the opposition side."

She had a faculty of always seeing how the other side looked. She had a curious sympathy with it as well. And though she was not an irresolute woman, she did sometimes have a longing to go over to the enemy when it was very attractive.

She listened now--and nodded at Mrs. Leverett's reasoning, adding the pungency of her sniff. Betty's heart dropped like lead. True, she had not really counted on Aunt Priscilla's influence.

"I just do suppose if 'Lecty was ill and alone, and wanted Betty, there'd be no difficulty. It's the question between work and play. There wan't much time to play when I was young, and now I wish I had some of the work, since I'm too old to play. I do believe the thing ought to be evened up."

This was rather non-committal, but the girl's heart rose a little.

"Oh, if 'Lecty was ill--but you know, Aunt Priscilla, they keep a man beside the girl, and it seems to me she is always having a nurse when the children are ailing, or a woman in to sew, or some extra help. She doesn't _need_ Betty, and it seems as if I did."

"Now, if that little young one was good for anything!"

"She's at her lessons all the time, and she must learn to sew. I should have been ashamed of my girls if they had not known how to make one single garment by the time they were ten year old."

"But Doris isn't ten," interposed Betty. "And here is Electa's letter, Aunt Priscilla."

"No, I don't see how I can spare Betty," said Mrs. Leverett decisively.

Aunt Priscilla took out her glasses and polished them and then adjusted them to her rather high nose.

"Well, 'Lecty's got to be quite quality, hasn't she? And Matthias, too. I suppose it's proper to give folks their whole name when they're getting up in the world and going to legislatures. But land! I remember Mat King when he was a patched-up, barefooted little boy. He was always hanging after 'Lecty, and your uncle thought she might have done better. 'Lecty was real good-looking. And now they're top of the heap with menservants and maidservants, and goodness knows what all."

"Yes, they have prospered remarkably."

"The Kings were a nice family. My, how Mis' King did keep them children, five of them, when their father died, and not a black sheep among them! Theron's a big sea captain, and Zenas in Washington building up the Capitol, and I dare say Mat is thinking of being sent to Congress. Joe is in the Army, and the young one keeps his mother a lady in New York, I've heard say. Mis' King deserves some reward."

Betty glanced up in surprise. It was seldom Aunt Priscilla praised in this wholesale fashion.

"And this about the hat is just queer, Betty. You should have seen old Madam Clarissa Bowdoin, who came to call yesterday, with a fine sleigh and driver and footman. She just holds on to this world's good things, I tell you, and she's past seventy. My, how she was trigged out in a black satin pelisse lined with fur! And she had a black beaver bonnet or hat, whatever you call it, with a big bow on top, and two black feathers flying. I should hate to have my feathers whip all out in such a windy day."

"Oh, yes, that is the first style," said Betty. "Hartford can't keep it all."

"Hartford can't hold a candle to Boston, even if Mat King is there. Stands to reason we can get fashions just as soon here, if theirs do come from New York. Madam was mighty fine. You see, I do have some grand friends, Betty. Your uncle was a man well thought of."

"Madam Bowdoin holds her age wonderfully," said Mrs. Leverett.

"Yes. But she's never done a day's work in her life, and I don't remember when I didn't work. Let me see--I've most forgot the thread of my discourse. Oh, you never would believe, Betty, that twenty year ago there was just such a fashion. I had a white beaver--what possessed me to get it I don't know. Everything was awful high. I had an idea that white would be rather plain, but when it had that great bow on top, and strings a full finger wide--well, I didn't even dare show it to your uncle! So I packed it away with white wax and in a linen towel, and when she'd gone yesterday I went and looked at it. 'Taint white now, but it's just the color of rich cream when it's stood twenty-four hours or so. Fursisee, they were just as much alike as two peas except as to color and the feathers. I declare I _was_ beat! Now, if you were going to be married, Betty, it might do for a wedding hat."

"But I'm not going to be married," with a sigh.

"I should hope not," said her mother--"at sixteen."

"My sister Patty was married when she was sixteen, and Submit when she was seventeen. The oldest girls went off in a hurry, so the others had to fill their places. Well--it just amazes me reading about this bonnet. And whatever I'll do with mine except to give it away, I don't know. I did think once of having it dyed. But the bow on top was so handsome, and I've kept paper wadded up inside, and it hasn't flatted down a mite. Now, Elizabeth, she has that silk we all thought so foolish, and her brown frock and pelisse will be just the thing to travel in. And maybe I could find something else. The things will be scattered when I am dead and gone, and I might as well have the good of giving them away. Most of the girls are married off and have husbands to provide for them. I used to think I'd take some orphan body to train and sort of fill Polly's place, for she grows more unreliable every day. Yet I do suppose it's Christian charity to keep her. And young folks are so trifling."

"Go make a cup of tea, Betty," said Mrs. Leverett.

"Now, Elizabeth," when Betty had shut the door, "I don't see why you mightn't as well let Betty go as not. 'Tisn't as if it was among strangers. And there's really no telling what may happen next year. We haven't any promise of that."

Mrs. Leverett looked up in surprise.

"Tisn't every day such a chance comes to hand. She couldn't go alone on a journey like that. And 'Lecty seems quite lotting on it."

"But Betty's just started in at housekeeping, and she would forget so much."

"Betty started in full six months ago. And the world swings round so fast I dare say what she learns will be as old-fashioned as the hills in a few years. I didn't do the way my mother taught me--husband used to laugh me out of it. She'll have time enough to learn."

The tea, a biscuit, and a piece of pie came in in tempting array. Aunt Priscilla was at her second cup when Jonas Field arrived, good ten minutes before the time.

"You come over to-morrow, Betty," said Aunt Priscilla. "You and Dorothy just take a run; it'll do you good. That child will turn into a book next. She's got some of the Adams streaks in her. And girls don't need so much book learning. Solomon's wise, and he don't even know his letters."

That made Doris laugh. She was getting quite used to Aunt Priscilla. She rose and made a pretty courtesy, and said she would like to come.

Polly had forgotten to light the lamp. She had been nursing Solomon, and the fire had burned low. Aunt Priscilla scolded, to be sure. Polly was getting rather deaf as well.

"It's warm out in the kitchen," said Polly.

"I want it warm here. I aint going to begin to save on firing at my time of life! I have enough to last me out, and I don't suppose anybody will thank me for the rest. Bring in some logs."

Aunt Priscilla sat with a shawl around her until the cheerful warmth began to diffuse itself and the blaze lightened up the room. Polly out in the kitchen was rehearsing her woes to Solomon.

"It's my 'pinion if missus lives much longer she'll be queerer'n Dick's hatband. That just wouldn't lay anyhow, I've heerd tell, though I don't know who Dick was and what he'd been doing, but he was mighty queer. 'Pears to me he must a-lived before the war when General Washington licked the English. And there's no suitin' missus. First it's too hot and you're 'stravagant, then it's too cold and she wants to burn up all the wood in creation!"

Aunt Priscilla watched the flame of the dancing scarlet, blue, and leaping white-capped arrows that shot up, and out of the side of one eye she saw a picture on the end of the braided rug--a little girl with a cloud of light curls sitting there with a great gray cat in her lap. The room was so much less lonely then. Perhaps she was getting old, real old, with a weakness for human kind. Was that a sign? She did enjoy the runs over to the Leveretts'. What would happen if she should not be able to go out!

She gave a little shudder over that. Of all the large family of sisters and brothers there was no one living very near or dear to her. She was next to the youngest. They had all married, some had died, one brother had gone to the Carolinas and found the climate so agreeable he had settled there. One sister had gone back to England. There were some nieces and nephews, but in the early part of her married life Mr. Perkins _had_ objected to any of them making a home at his house. "We have no children of our own," he said, "and I take it as a sign that if the Lord had meant us to care for any, he would have sent them direct to us, and not had us taking them in at second-hand."

They had both grown selfish and only considered their own wants and comforts. But the years of solitude looked less and less inviting to the woman, who had been born with a large social side that had met with a pinch here, been lopped off there, and crowded in another person's measure. If the person had not been upright, scrupulously just in his dealings, and a good provider, that would have altered her respect for him. And wives were to obey their husbands, just as children were trained to obey their parents.

But children were having ideas of their own now. Well, when she was sixteen she went to