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

and Mrs. Webb told her she had better study it a little more.

"I do wonder if you will ever get through with the multiplication tables!" said Aunt Elizabeth.

Doris sighed. It was hard to be so slow at learning.

"'Nine times' floored me pretty well, I remember," confessed Martha Grant. "There's great difference in children. Some have heads for figures and some don't. My sister Catharine could go all round me. But she's that dumb about sewing--I don't believe you ever saw the beat! She just hates it. She'd like to teach school!"

Doris was very glad to hear that someone else had been slow.

Betty had been out to tea occasionally, and Doris tried to make believe it was so now. They would have missed her more but Martha was a great talker. There were seven children at the Grants', and one son married. They had a big farm and a good deal of stock. Martha's lover had bought a farm also, with a small old house of two rooms. _He_ had to build a new barn, so they would wait for their house. She had a nice cow she had raised, a flock of twelve geese, and her father had promised her the old mare and another cow. She wanted to be married by planting time. She had a nice feather bed and two pairs of pillows and five quilts, beside two wool blankets.

Mrs. Leverett was a good deal interested in all this. It took her back to her own early life. City girls _did_ come to have different ideas. There was something refreshing in this very homeliness.

Martha knit and sewed as fast as she talked. Mrs. Leverett said "she didn't let the grass grow under her feet," and Doris wondered if she would tread it out in the summer. Of course, it couldn't grow in the winter.

"Aunt Elizabeth," she said presently, in a sad little voice, "am I to sleep all alone?"

"Oh dear, no. You would freeze to an icicle. Martha will take Betty's place."

They wrapped up a piece of brick heated pretty well when Doris went to bed. For it was desperately cold. But the soft feathers came up all around one, and in a little while she was as warm as toast. She did not even wake when Martha came to bed. Sometimes Betty cuddled the dear little human ball, and only half awake Doris would return the hug and find a place to kiss, whether it was cheek or chin.

"Aunt Elizabeth," when she came in from school one day, "do you know that Christmas will be here soon--next Tuesday?"

"Well, yes," deliberately, "it is supposed to be Christmas."

"But it really is," with child-like eagerness. "The day on which Christ was born."

"The day that is kept in commemoration of the birth of Christ. But some people try to remember every day that Christ cams to redeem the world. So that one day is not any better than another."

Doris looked puzzled. "At home we always kept it," she said slowly. "Miss Arabella made a Christmas cake and ever so many little ones. The boys came around to sing Noel, and they were given a cake and a penny, and we went to church."

"Yes; it is quite an English fashion. When you are a larger girl and more used to our ways you will understand why we do not keep it."

"Don't you really keep it?" in surprise.

"No, my dear."

The tone was kind, but not encouraging to further enlightenment. Doris experienced a great sense of disappointment. For a little while she was very homesick for Betty. To have her away a whole month! And a curious thing was that no one seemed really to miss her and wish her back. Mrs. Leverett scanned the weather and the almanac and hoped they would get safely to Springfield without a storm. Mr. Leverett counted up the time. It had not stormed yet.

No Christmas and no Betty. Not even a wise old cat like Solomon, or a playful, amusing little kitten. The school children stared when she talked about Christmas.

Two big tears fell on her book. She was frightened, for she had not meant to cry. And now a sense of desolation rushed over her. Oh, what could she do without Betty!

Then a sleigh stopped at the door. She ran to the window, and when she saw that it was Uncle Winthrop she was out of the door like a flash.

"Well, little one?" he said in pleasant inquiry, which seemed to comprehend a great deal. "How do you get along without Betty? Come in out of the cold. I've just been wondering if you would like to come over and keep Christmas with me. I believe they do not have any Christmas here."

"No, they do not. Oh, Uncle Win, I should be so glad to come, if I wouldn't trouble you!"

The eyes were full of entreating light.

"I have been thinking about it a day or two. And Recompense is quite willing. The trouble really would be hers, you know."

"I would try and not make any trouble."

"Oh, it was where we should put you to sleep this cold weather. You would be lost in the great guest chamber. But Recompense arranged it all. She has put up a little cot in the corner of her room. I insisted last winter that she should keep a fire; she is a little troubled with rheumatism. And now she enjoys the warmth very much."

"Oh, how good you are!"

She was smiling now and dancing around on one foot. He smiled too.

"Where's Aunt Elizabeth?" said Uncle Winthrop.

Doris ran to the kitchen and, not seeing her, made the same inquiry.

"She's gone up to the storeroom to find a lot of woolen patches for me, and I'm going to start another quilt. She said she'd never use them in the days of creation, and they wan't but six. She'll be down in a minute," said Martha.

"Uncle Winthrop," going back to him beside the fire, and wrinkling up her brow a little, "is not Christmas truly Christmas? Has anyone made a mistake about it?"

"My child, everybody does not keep it in the same manner. Sometime you will learn about the brave heroes who came over and settled in a strange land, fought Indians and wild beasts, and then fought again for liberty, and why they differed from their brethren. But I always keep it; and I thought now that Betty was gone you might like to come and go to church with me."

"Oh, I shall be glad to!" with a joyful smile.

Aunt Elizabeth entered. Cousin Winthrop presented his petition that he should take Doris over this afternoon and bring her back on Wednesday, unless there was to be no school all the week.

"I'm afraid she will bother Recompense. You're so little used to children. I keep my hand in with grandchildren," smilingly.

"No word from Betty yet? About Doris now--oh, you need not be afraid; I think Recompense is quite in the notion."

"Well, if you think best. Doris isn't a mite of trouble, I will say that. No, we can't hear from Betty before to-morrow. Mr. Eastman thought likely he'd find someone coming right back from Springfield, and I charged Betty to send if she could. I'm glad there has been no snow so far."

"Very fair winter weather. How is Foster and business?"

"Desperately dull, both of them," and Mrs. Leverett gave a piquant nod that would have done Betty credit.

"Go get your other clothes, Doris, and Martha will see to you. And two white aprons. Recompense keeps her house as clean as a pink, and you couldn't get soiled if you rolled round the floor. But dirt doesn't stick to Doris. There, run along, child."

Martha scrubbed her rigorously, and then helped her dress. She came back bright as a new pin, with her two high-necked aprons in her hand, and her nightgown, which Aunt Elizabeth put in her big black camlet bag.

"I wish you'd see that she studies a little, Winthrop. She is so behind in some things."

He nodded. Then Doris put on her hood and cloak and said good-by to Martha, while she kissed Aunt Elizabeth and left a message for the rest.

"It's early, so we will take a little ride around," he said, wrapping her up snug and warm.

The plan had been in his mind for several days. The evening before he had broached it to Recompense. Not but what he was master in his own house, but he hardly knew how to plan for a child.

"If Doris was a boy I could put him on the big sofa in my room. Still, Cato can look after a fire in the guest chamber. It would be too cruel to put a child alone in that great cold barn."

There was a very obstinate impression that it was healthy to sleep in cold rooms, so people shut themselves up pretty close, and sometimes drew the bedclothes over their heads. But Winthrop Adams had a rather luxurious side to his nature; he called it a premonition of old age. He kept a fire in his dressing room, where he often sat and read a while at night. His sleeping room adjoined it.

"Why, we might bring a cot in my room," she said. "I remember how the child delights in a fire. She's such a delicate-looking little thing."

"She is standing our winter very well and goes to school every day. I'm afraid she might disturb you?"

"Not if she has a bed by herself. And there is the corner jog; the cot will just fit into it."

When they put it there in the morning it looked as if it must have taken root long ago. Then Recompense arranged a nice dressing table with a white cover and a pretty bowl and ewer, and a low chair beside it covered with chintz cushions. Her own high-post bedstead had curtains all around it of English damask, and the curiously carved high-back chairs had cushions tied in of the same material. There was no carpet on the painted floor, but a rug beside the bed and one at the stand, and a great braided square before the fire. It was a well-furnished room for the times, though that of Mr. Adams was rather more luxurious.

He was very glad that Recompense had assented so readily, for he was beginning to feel that he ought to take a deeper interest in his little ward.

There were numberless sleighs out on some of the favorite thoroughfares. For even now, in spite of the complaints of hard times, there was a good deal of real wealth in Boston, fine equipages with colored coachmen and footmen. There were handsome houses with lawns and gardens, some of them having orchards besides. There were rich furnishings as well, from France and England and from the East. There were china and plate and glass proud of their age, having come through several generations.

And though there were shades and degrees of social position, there was a fine breeding among the richer people and a kind of pride among the poorer ones. There were occasions when they mingled with an agreeable courtesy, yet each side kept its proper and distinctive relations; real worth was respected and dignified living held in esteem. From a printer's boy, Benjamin Franklin had stood before kings and added luster to his country. From a