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

Marblehead and spent a summer with her sister Esther, who was having hard times then with her flock of little children, and who a few years after had given up the struggle. Mr. Green had married again and gone out to the lake countries and started a sawmill, where there were forests to his hand.

But this long-ago summer had been an epoch in her life. She had baked and brewed, swept and scrubbed, cooked and put in her spare time spinning, while poor Esther sewed and took care of a very cross pair of twins and crawled about a little. There had been some merrymaking that would hardly have been allowed at home, and a young man who had sat on the doorstep and talked, who had taken her driving, and with whom she had wickedly and frivolously danced one afternoon when a party of young people had a merrymaking after the hay was in. It was the only time in her life she had ever danced, and it was a glimpse of fairy delight to her. But she was frightened half to death when she came home, and began to have two sides to her life, and she had never gotten rid of the other side.

She had a vague idea that next summer she would go again. Meanwhile Mr. Perkins began to come. There was an older sister, and no one surmised it was Priscilla, until in March, when he spoke to Priscilla's father.

"I declare I was clear beat," said the worthy parent. "Seems to me Martha would be more suitable, but his heart's set on Priscilla. He's a good, steady man, forehanded and all that, and will make her a good husband, and she'll keep growing older. There is nothing to say against it."

The idea that Priscilla would say anything was not entertained for a moment. Mr. Perkins began to walk home from church with her and come to tea on Sunday evening, and it was soon noised about that they were keeping steady company. Martha went to Marblehead that summer and one of the twins died. In the fall Priscilla was married and went to housekeeping in King Street, over her husband's place of business. She was engrossed with her life, but she dreamed sometimes of the other side and the young man who had remarked upon the gowns she wore and put roses in her hair, and she had ideas of lace and ribbons and the vanities of the world in that early married period. Her attire was rich but severely plain; she was not stinted in anything. She was even allowed to "lay by" on her own account, which meant saving up a little money. She made a good, careful wife. And some months before he died, touched by her attentive care, her husband said:

"Silla, I don't see but you might as well have all I'm worth, as to divide it round in the family. They will be disappointed, I suppose, but they haven't earned nor saved. You have been a good wife, and you just take your comfort on it when I'm gone. Then if you should feel minded to give back some of it--why, that's your affair."

The Perkins family had _not_ liked it very well. They knew Aunt Priscilla would marry again, and all that money go to a second husband. But she had not married, though there had been opportunities. Later on she almost wished she had. She had entertained plans of taking a girl to bring up, and had considered this little orphaned Adams girl,--who she had imagined in a vague way would be glad of a good home with a prospect of some money,--if she behaved herself rightly. She had pictured a stout, red-cheeked girl who needed training, and not a fine little lady like Doris Adams.

But she was glad Doris had sat there on the rug with the cat in her lap. And she was glad there had been the summer at Marblehead, and the young man who had said more with his eyes than with his lips. He had never married, and had been among the earliest to lay down his life for his country. She always felt that in a way he belonged to her. And if in youth she had had one good time, why shouldn't Betty? Perhaps Betty might marry in some sensible way that would be for the best, and this visit at Hartford would illume all her life.

There were things about it she had never confessed. When her conscience upbraided her mightily she called them sins and prayed over them. There were other matters--the white bonnet had been one. She had purchased it of a friend who was going in mourning, who had made her try it on, and said:

"Just look at yourself in the glass, Priscilla Perkins. You never had anything half so becoming. You look five years younger!"

She did look in the glass. She could have pirouetted around the room in delight. She was in love with her pretty youthful face.

So she bought the hat--at a bargain, of course. She put it away when it came home, and visited it surreptitiously, but somehow never had the courage to confess, or to propose wearing it, though other women of her age indulged in as much and more gayety. In the spring she bought a new silk gown, a gray with a kind of lilac tint, and cut off the breadths to make sure of it.

Mr. Perkins viewed it critically.

"I'm not quite certain, Priscilla, that it is appropriate. And a brown would give you so much more good wear. It looks too--too youthful."

He never remembered there were fifteen years between himself and Priscilla.

"I--I think I would change it."

"Oh," with the best accent of regret she could assume, "I have cut off the breadths and begun to sew them up. It's the spring color. And summer is coming."

"Uu--um----" with a reluctant nod.

She wore it to a christening and a wedding, but the real delight in it had to be smothered. And when her husband proposed she should have it dyed she laid it away.

There were other foolish indulgences. Bows and artificial flowers that she had put on bonnets and worn in her own room with locked doors, then pulled them off and laid them away. She was so fond of pretty things, gay things, the pleasures of life--and she was always relegated to the prose! Other people wore finery with a serene calmness, and went about their daily duties, to church, on missions of mercy, and were well thought of. Where was the sin? Her clothes cost quite as much. Mr. Perkins was a close manager but not stingy with his wife.

She used to think she would confess to her mother about the dancing, but she never had. She ought to bring out these "sins of the eye" and lay them before her husband, but she never found the right moment and the courage. She had meant to deal them out to the Leverett girls, especially Electa--but Electa seemed to prosper so amazingly! She _must_ do something with them, and clear up her life, sweep, and garnish before the summons came. She was getting to be old now, and if she went off suddenly someone would come in and take possession and scatter her treasures. Likely as not it would be the Perkinses, for she hadn't made any will.

Why shouldn't Betty have some of them and go off on her good time. It wouldn't be housekeeping and spinning and looking after fractious children. But those evenings out on the stoop, and the timid invitations to take a walk, the pressure of the hand, the smile out of the eyes--oh, why----

All her life she had been asking "Why?"--taking the hard and distasteful because she thought there was a virtue in it, not because she had been trained to believe goodness must have a severe side and that really pleasant things were wicked. The "Whys" had never been answered, much as she had prayed about them.

She would never take the girl to bring up now. As for Doris Adams--Cousin Winthrop would be thinking presently that the ground wasn't good enough for her to walk on. So there was only Betty, unless she took up some of the Perkins girls. Abby was rather nice. But, after all, her father was only a half-brother to Aunt Priscilla's husband. And she must make that will.

"Missus, aint you goin' to come to supper? I told you 'twas ready full five minutes ago," said an aggrieved voice.

Aunt Priscilla sprang up and gave herself a kind of mental shaking. She stepped around to avoid the little girl on the rug with the cat in her lap. Polly went on grumbling. The toast was cold, the tea had drawn too long, and for once the mistress never said a word in dispraise.

"She's goin' off," thought Polly. "That's a bad sign, though she does sit over the fire a good deal, and you can't tell by that. Land alive! I hope she'll live my time out, or I'll sure have to go to the poorhouse!"

Aunt Priscilla went back to her fire and the vision of the little girl who had made a curious impression on her by a kind of sweetness quite new in her experience. It had disturbed her greatly. Nothing about the child had been as she supposed.

Everybody went down to her, which meant that she had some subtle, indescribable charm, but Aunt Priscilla would have said she had no dictionary words to explain it, though there had been a speller and definer in her day.

The little girl had come to "seven times" in the tables. She had studied an hour, when Betty said they had better go and get back by dark. Jamie boy gave a little "snicker" as she shut her book. The disdain of her young compeer was quite hard to bear, but she meekly accepted the fact that she "wasn't smart." If she had known how he longed to go with them, she would have felt quite even, but he kept that to himself.

All Boston was still hooded in snow, for every few days there came a new fall. Oh, how beautiful it was! Everybody walked in the middle of the street,--it was so hard and smooth,--though you had to keep turning out for vehicles, but one didn't meet them very often.

Boots were not made high for girls and women then, but everybody had a pair of thick woolen stockings, some of them with a leather sole on the outside, which was more durable. The children pulled them well up over their knees and kept good and warm. Some people had leather leggings, but rubber boots had not been invented.

Boys were out snowballing--girls, too, for that matter. Someone sent a ball that flew all over Doris, but she only laughed. She snowballed with little James now and then.

So they were bright and merry when they reached the sign of "Jonas Field," and Doris gave her pretty, rather formal greeting. She was never quite sure of Aunt Priscilla.

"I suppose _you_ came to see Solomon!" exclaimed that lady.

"Not altogether," replied Doris.

"Well, he is out in the kitchen. And, Betty, what is the prospect to-day?"

"Oh, Aunt Priscilla, I almost think I'll get off. Father is on my side, and mother did really promise 'Lecty last summer. Mother couldn't get along alone, you know, and Jimmie boy is doing so well at school that she would like to keep him all winter. Father knows of a girl who