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

in golden magnificence and almost dazzled your eyes out. Uncle Win had on his smoked glasses, and he looked very queer, but she saw other people with this protection. Some of the glasses were green.

The streets were really merry. Children were out with sleds, and snowballing parties were in the field. They went over to State Street for the mail. Cato sprang out and returned with quite a budget. There was one English letter with a big black seal, but Mr. Adams covered it quickly with the papers and drew the package under the buffalo robe.

There was a quaint old bookstore in Cornhill with the sign of Heart and Crown, that was quite a meeting place for students and bookish people, and they drove thither. A young lad came running out, making a bow and greeting his father politely. To have said "Hillo!" in those days would have been horrifying. And to have called one's father the "governor" or the "old gentleman" would have been little short of a crime.

"This is the little English cousin, Doris Adams," said Uncle Win, "and this is my son Cary."

Cary made a bow to her and said he was glad to meet her, then inquired after his father's health and stepped into the sleigh, picking up the reins and motioning Cato to the other side.

Oh, how they spun along! Cary said one or two things, but the words were carried away by the wind. There were sleighs full of ladies and children, great family affairs with three seats; there were cutters with some portly man and a black driver; there were well-known people and unknown people who were to come to the fore in a few years and be famous.

For Boston was throbbing even then with the mighty changes transforming her into a great city. Although she had suffered severely at the first of the war and held many priceless memories of it, the early evacuation of the town had left her free for domestic matters, which had prospered despite poverty and hard times and the great loss of population. Many of the old Tory families had returned to England, and the remnants of the provincial aristocracy were being lessened by death and absorbed by marriage. The squires and gentry of the small towns, most of them intense patriots, had filled their places and given tone to social life, that was still formal, if some of the old stateliness had slipped away.

The French Revolution had brought about some other changes. The State possessed fine advantages for maritime commerce, and all the seaports were veritable hives of industry in the early part of the century. This laid a foundation of respect for fortunes acquired by energy rather than inheritance. The United States, being the only neutral nation in the fierce conflicts raging round the world, had been reaping a rich harvest for several years. Sea captains and merchants had been thriving splendidly until the last year or two, when seizures began to be made by the British Government that roused a ferment of warlike spirit again.

But while men talked politics the women and those who thought it wiser to take neither side, still amused themselves with card parties, tea parties and dances, with now and then an evening at the theater, and driving. There were so many fine long roads not yet cut up into blocks that were great favorites on a day like this. Doris felt the exhilaration and her eyes shone like stars.

Presently Cary turned, and here they were at Common Street.

"That has been fine!" he began as he drew up to the door. "It sets your blood all a-sparkle. Have I taken your breath away, little cousin?"

He came around and offered his hand to his father. Then he lifted Doris as if she had been a feather, and stood her on the broad porch. That recalled Warren Leverett to her mind.

"It was splendid," answered Doris.

They all walked in together, and Cary shook hands cordially with Miss Recompense.

He was almost as tall as his father, with a fair, boyish face and thick light hair that did not curl, but tumbled about and was always falling over his forehead.

Warren was stouter and had more color, and there was a kind of laughing expression to his face. Cary's had a certain resolution and that loftiness we are given to calling aristocratic.

When Doris had carried the foot-stove to Dinah, and her own wraps upstairs, she stood for a moment uncertain. Cary and his father were talking eagerly in the study, so she sat down by the hall fire and began to think about the Vicar and Mrs. Primrose, and wanted to know what Moses did at the Fair. She had been at one town fair, but she could not recall much besides the rather quaintly and gayly dressed crowd. Then there was a summons to supper.

"Oh," cried Cary, "sit still a moment. You look like a page of Mother Goose. You can't be Miss Muffet, for you have no curds and whey, and you are not Jack Horner----"

She sprang up then and caught Uncle Winthrop's hand. "Nor Mother Goose," she rejoined laughingly.

The plates were moved just a little. Cary sat between her and his father.

"I have heard quite a good deal about you," he began. "Are you French or English?"

She caught a tiny gleam in Uncle Win's eye, and gravely answered in French.

"How do you get along there in Sudbury Street? Who does the talking?" he asked in surprise.

"We all talk," she answered.

He flushed a little and then gave an amused nod.

"Upon my word, you are not slow, if the weather is cold. And you _parlez-vous_ like a native. Now, if you and father want to say anything bad about me, you may hope to keep it a secret, but I warn you that I can understand French to some extent."

"I shall not say anything bad," she returned naively. Adding, "Why, I don't know anything bad."

"Oh, Miss Recompense, isn't it nice to be perfect in someone's eyes?" he laughed.

"Wait until she has known you several years."

"But you have known me several years," appealingly.

"It is best to begin with an unbiased opinion."

"I shall get Betty to speak a good word for me. You have confidence in Betty?"

"I love Betty," Doris said simply.

"And Boston. That begins with a B too. You must love Boston, and the State of Massachusetts, and the whole United States. And if there comes another war you must be true to the flag and the country. No skipping off to England, mind."

"I couldn't skip across the whole Atlantic."

"Then you would have to stay. Which is the nicest, Sudbury Street or this?"

"Cary, you have teased enough," said his father.

"I think the out-of-doors of this will be the prettiest in the summer," replied Doris gravely, "and when I came off the ship I thought the indoors in Sudbury Street just delightful. There was such a splendid fire, and everybody was so kind."

Cary glanced up at his father, who gave his soft half-smile.

"You were a brave little girl not to be homesick."

"I did want to see Miss Arabella, and the pony. I had such a darling pony."

"Why, you can have a pony next summer," said Uncle Win. "I am very fond of riding."

Doris' face was filled with speechless delight.

After supper they sat round the fire and Cary asked her about the Old Boston. She had very good descriptive powers. Her life had been so circumscribed there that it had deepened impressions, and the young fellow listened quite surprised. Like his father he had known very little about girls in their childhood. She was so quaintly pretty, too, with the bow of dark ribbon high up on her head, amid the waving light hair.

Some time after Uncle Winthrop said:

"Doris, I have a letter from Miss Arabella. Would you not like to come in the study and read it?"

"Oh, yes," and she sprang up with the lightness of a bird.

He had cut around the great black seal. Sometime Doris might be glad to have the letter intact. There were no envelopes then besides those used for state purposes.

"Dear and Respected Sir," it began in the formal, old-fashioned manner. She had been rejoiced to hear of Doris' safe arrival and continued good health, and every day she saw the wisdom of the change, though she had missed the child sorely. Her sister had passed peacefully away soon after the departure of Doris, a loss to be accepted with resignation, since her life on earth had long ceased to have any satisfaction to herself. Her own health was very much broken, and she knew it would not be long before she should join those who had preceded her in a better land. When this occurred there would be some articles forwarded to him for Doris, and again she commended the little girl to his affectionate interest and care, and hoped she would grow into a sweet and useful womanhood and be all her parents could wish if they had lived.

"Dear Miss Arabella!" Doris wiped the tears from her eyes. How strange the little room must look without Miss Henrietta sitting at the window babbling of childish things! "And she is all alone with Barby. How sad it must be. I should not like to live alone."

Unconsciously she drew nearer Uncle Winthrop. He put his arm over her shoulder in a caressing manner, and his heart was moved with sympathy for the solitary lady across the ocean.

Doris thought of Aunt Priscilla and wondered whether she ever was lonesome.

Sunday was still bright, and somehow felt warm when contrasted with the biting weather of the last ten days. The three went to old Trinity Church, that stood then on a corner of Summer Street--a plain wooden building with a gambrel roof, quite as old-fashioned inside as out, and even now three-quarters of a century old. Up to the Revolution the king and the queen, when there was one, had been prayed for most fervently. The Church conceded this point reluctantly, since there were many who doubted the success of the struggle. But the clergy had resigned from King's Chapel and Christ Church. For a long while afterward Dr. Mather Byles had kept himself before the people by his wit and readiness for controversy, and the two old ladies, his sisters, were well known for their adherence to Royalist costumes and the unction with which they prayed for the king in their own house--with open windows, in summer.

In fact, even now Episcopalianism was considered rather foreign than of a home growth. But there had been such a divergence from the old-time faiths that people's prejudices were much softened.

It seemed quite natural again to Doris, and she had no difficulty in finding her places, though Cary offered her his prayer book every time. And it sounded so hearty to say "Amen" to the prayers, to respond to the commandments, and sing some of the old chants.

There was a short service in the afternoon, and in the evening she and Cary sang hymns. They were getting to be very good friends. Then on Christmas morning they all went again. There was a little "box and fir," and a branch of hemlock in the corner, but the people of that day would have been horrified at the greenery and the flowers met to hail the birth of Christ