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

would be very glad to come in and work for three dollars a month, though he says everybody gives four or more. But Mr. Eastman will be here so soon. Father said I might get some things in Hartford."

"We'll see what Boston has first," returned Aunt Priscilla with a little snort. "I've been hunting over _my_ things."

People in those days thought it a great favor to have clothes left to them, as you will see by old wills. And occasionally the grandmothers brought out garments beforehand, and did not wait until they were dead and gone.

"I have a silk gown that I never wore above half a dozen times. I could have it dyed, I suppose, but they're so apt to get stringy afterward. Maybe you wouldn't like it because it's a kind of gray. You're free to leave it alone. I shan't be a mite put out."

The old spirit of holding on reasserted itself. Of course, if Betty didn't like it, _her_ duty would be done.

"Oh, Aunt Priscilla! It looks like moonlight over the harbor. It's beautiful."

The elder woman had shaken it out and made ripples with it, and Betty stood in admiring wonderment. It looked to her like a wedding gown, but she knew Aunt Priscilla's had been Canton crape, dyed brown first and then black and then worn out. There was an old adage to the effect that one never could get rich until one's wedding clothes were worn out.

"It's spotted some, I find--just a faint kind of yellow, but that may cut out. I never had any good of it," and she sighed. "It isn't what you might call gay; but, land alive! I might as well have bought bright red! There's plenty of it to make over. They weren't wearing such skimping skirts then, and I had an extra breadth put in so that it would all fade alike. Well----" And she gave a half-reluctant sigh.

"Why, I feel as if it ought to be saved for a wedding gown," declared Betty, her eyes alight with pleasure. "It's the most beautiful thing. Oh, Aunt Priscilla!"

A modern girl would have thrown her arms around Aunt Priscilla's neck and kissed her, if one could imagine a modern girl being grateful for a gown a quarter of a century old, except for masquerading purposes. People who could remember the great Jonathan Edwards awakening still classed all outward demonstrations of regard as carnal affections to be subdued. The poor old life hungered now for a little human love without understanding what its want really was, just as it had hungered for more than half a century.

"Well, child, maybe 'Lecty can plan to make something out of it. You better just take it to her. And here's a box of ribbons, things I've had no use for this many a year. You see I had a way of saving up--I didn't have much call for wearing such."

Aunt Priscilla felt that she was renouncing idols. How many times she had fingered these things with exquisite love and longing and a desire to wear them! Madam Bowdoin, almost ten years older, wore her fine ribbons and laces and her own snowy white hair in little rings about her forehead. No one accused her of aping youth. Aunt Priscilla had worn a false front under her cap for many a year that was now a rusty, faded brown. Her own white hair was cut off close.

"Oh, Aunt Priscilla, I think my ship has come in from the Indies. I never can thank you enough. I'm so glad you saved them. You see, times _are_ hard, and if father had to pay a girl for taking my place at home, he wouldn't feel that he could afford me much finery. And the journey, too. But I have only to pay from Springfield to Boston, for Mr. Eastman has his own conveyance--a nice big covered sleigh. And now all these beautiful things! I feel as rich as a queen."

Doris had been standing there big-eyed and never once asked for Solomon.

Aunt Priscilla began to fold the gown. It still had a crackle and rustle delightful to hear. And there was a roll of new pieces.

"Why, next summer I could have a lovely drawn bonnet--only it _does_ cost so much to have one made. I wish I knew how," said Betty.

"I suppose--you don't want to see my old thing?" rather contemptuously.

"The hat, do you mean? Oh, I just should! I've thought so much about it, and how queer it is that old-fashioned articles should come round."

"Every seven years, people say; but I don't believe it's quite as often as that."

From the careful way it was pinned up, one would never imagine it had been out that very morning. The bows were filled with paper to keep them up, and bits of paper crumpled up around, so they could not be crushed. Its days of whiteness were over, but it was the loveliest, softest cream tint, and looked as if it had just come over from France. The beaver was almost like plush, and the puffed satin lining inside was as fresh as if its reverse plaits had just been laid in place.

"Oh, do put it on!" cried Doris eagerly.

Betty held the strings together under her fair round chin.

"You look like a queen!" said the child admiringly.

"Why it _is_ just as they are wearing them now, the tip-top style. 'Lecty couldn't have described this hat any better if she had seen it. And if I can have it, Aunt Priscilla, I shall not care a bit about feathers. It's beautiful enough without."

"Yes, yes, take them all and have a good time with them. Now you see if you can pack it up--you'll have to learn."

Aunt Priscilla dropped into her chair. She had cast out her life's temptations, and it had been a great struggle.

"Not that way--make the bow stand up. The bandbox is large enough. And give the strings a loose fold, so. Now put that white paper over. It's like making a gambrel roof. Then bring up the ends of the towel and pin them. Polly shall go along and carry it home for you."

"I'm a thousand times obliged. I wish I knew what to do in return."

"Have a good time, but don't forget that a good time is not all to life. Child--why do you look at me so?" for Doris had come close to Aunt Priscilla and seemed studying her.

"Were you ever a little girl, and what was your good time like?"

Doris' wondering eyes were soft and seemed more pitying than curious.

"No, I never was a little girl. There were no little girls in my time." She jerked the words out in a spasmodic way, and put her hand to her heart as if there was a pain or pressure. "When I was three year old I had to take care of my little brother. I stood up on a bench to wash dishes when I was four, and scoured milk-pans and the pewter plates we used then. And at six I was spinning on the little wheel and knitting stockings. I went to school part of every year, and at thirteen I was doing a woman's work. No, I never was a little girl."

Doris put her soft hand over the one that had been strained and made coarse and large in the joints, and roughened as to skin while yet it was in its tender youth. And all the pay there had been from her father's estate had been three hundred dollars to each girl, the remainder being divided evenly among the boys. She felt suddenly grateful to Hatfield Perkins for the easier times of her married life.

"Now, both of you go out in the kitchen and get a piece of Polly's fresh gingerbread. She hasn't lost her art in that yet. Then you must run off home, for it will soon be dark, and Betty will be needed about the supper."

The gingerbread was splendid. Doris broke off little crumbs and fed them to Solomon, and told him sometime she would come and spend the afternoon with him. She should be so lonesome when Betty went away.

Polly carried the bandbox and bundle for them, and Betty took the box of ribbons. Aunt Priscilla brought out the light-stand and set her candle on it and turned over the leaves of her old Bible to read about the daughters of Zion with their tinkling feet and their cauls and their round tires like the moon, the chains and the bracelets and the bonnets, the earrings, the mantles, the wimples and the crisping pins, the fine linen and the hoods and the veils--and all these were to be done away with! To be sure she did not really know what they all were, but her few had been snares and a source of secret idolatry for years and years. She had nothing to do now but to consider the end of all things and prepare for it. But there was the dreaded will yet to make. If only there was someone who really cared about her!


CHAPTER X

CONCERNING MANY THINGS

When Providence overruled, in the early part of the century, people generally gave in. The stronger tide was called Providence. Perhaps there was a small degree of fatalism in it. So Mrs. Leverett acquiesced, and recalled the fact that she had promised Electa that Betty should come.

Aunt Priscilla's generosity was astonishing. The silken gown would not be made over until Betty reached Hartford. She worked industriously on her white one, but her mother found so many things for her to do. Then Martha Grant came--a stout, hearty, pink-cheeked country girl who knew how to "take hold," and was glad of an opportunity to earn something toward a wedding gown. Doris was so interested that she hardly remembered how much she should miss Betty, though Warren promised to help her with her lessons.

So the trunk was packed. Luckily the bandbox could go in it, for it was quite small. Most of the bandboxes were immense affairs in which you could stow a good many things besides the bonnet. Then they had a calico cover with a stout cord run through the hem.

Mr. Eastman looked rather askance at the trunk--he had so many budgets of his own, and for his wife. However, they strapped it on the back securely, and the good-bys were uttered for a whole month.

Doris had said hers in the morning. She could not divest herself of a vague presentiment that something would happen to keep Betty until to-morrow. But Martha was to sit in her place at the table.

Now that the reign of slavery was over, the farmers' girls from the country often came in for a while. They were generally taken in as one of the family--indeed, few of them would have come to be put down to the level of a common servant. Many had their old slaves still living with them, and numbers of the quality preferred colored servants.

Jamie boy went out to snowball after dinner. Doris worked a line across her sampler. She was going to begin the alphabet next. There were three kinds of letters. Ordinary capitals like printing, small letters, and writing capitals. These were very difficult, little girls thought.

She put up her work presently, studied her spelling, and went over "nine times." She could say the ten and eleven perfectly, but that very day she had missed on "nine times,"