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

how beautiful they are!" cried Doris, her eyes alight with enthusiasm.

And then all the great Common began to put on spring attire. The marsh grass over beyond sent up stiff green spikes and tussocks that looked like little islands, and there were water plants with large leaves that seemed continually nodding to their neighbors. The frog concerts at the pond were simply bewildering with the variety of voices, each one proclaiming that the reign of ice and snow was at an end and they were giving thanks.

"They are so glad," declared Doris. "I shouldn't like to be frozen up all winter in a little hole."

Miss Recompense smiled. Perhaps they _were_ grateful. She had never thought of it before.

Doris did not go back to Mrs. Webb's school, though that lady said she was sorry to give her up. Uncle Win gave her some lessons, and she went to writing school for an hour every day. Miss Recompense instructed her how to keep her room tidy, but Uncle Win said there would be time enough for her to learn housekeeping.

Then there were hunts for flowers. Betty came over; she knew some nooks where the trailing arbutus grew and bloomed. The swamp pinks and the violets of every shade and almost every size--from the wee little fellow who sheltered his head under his mother's leaf-green umbrella to the tall, sentinel-like fellow who seemed to fling out defiance. Doris used to come home with her hands full of blooms.

The rides too were delightful. They went over the bridges to West Boston and South Boston and to Cambridge, going through the college buildings--small, indeed, compared with the magnificent pile of to-day. But Boston did seem almost like a collection of islands. The bays and rivers, the winding creeks that crept through the green marsh grass, the long low shores held no presentiment of the great city that was to be.

Although people groaned over hard times and talked of war, still the town kept a thriving aspect. Men were at work leveling Beacon Hill. Boylston Street was being made something better than a lane, and Common Street was improved. Uncle Winthrop said next thing he supposed they would begin to improve him and order him to take up his house and walk. For houses were moved even then, when they stood in the way of a street.

The earth from the hill, or rather hills, went to fill in the Mill Pond. Lord Lyndhurst had once owned a large part, but he had gone to England to live. Charles Street was partly laid out--as far as the flats were filled in. It was quite entertaining to watch the great patient oxen, which, when they were standing still, chewed their cud in solemn content and gazed around as though they could predict unutterable things.

From the house down to Common Street was a kind of garden where Cato raised vegetables and Miss Recompense had her beds of sweet and medicinal herbs. For then the housekeeper concocted various household remedies, and made extracts by the use of a little still for flavoring and perfumery. She gathered all the rose leaves and lavender blossoms and sewed them up in thin muslin bags and laid them in the drawers and closets.

And, oh, what roses she had then! Great sweet damask roses, pink and the loveliest deep red, twice as large as the Jack roses of to-day. And trailing pink and white roses climbing over everything. Aunt Elizabeth said Miss Recompense could make a dry stick grow and bloom.

Uncle Winthrop found a new and charming interest in the little girl. She was so fond of taking walks and hearing the legends about the old places. She could see where the old beacon had stood when the place was called Sentry Hill, and she knew it had been blown down in a gale, and that on the spot had been erected a beautiful Doric column surmounted by an eagle, to commemorate "the train of events that led to the American Revolution and finally secured liberty and Independence."

But the State House had made one great excavation, and the Mill Pond Corporation was making others, and they were planning to remove the monument.

"We ought to have more regard for these old places," Uncle Win used to say with a sigh.

Cary had not been a companionable child. He was a regular boy, and the great point of interest in Sentry Hill for him was batting a ball up the hill. It was a proud day for him when he carried it farther than any other boy. He was fond of games of all kinds, and was one of the fleetest runners and a fine oarsman, and could sail a boat equal to any old salt, he thought. He was a boy, of course, and Uncle Win did not want him to be a "Molly coddle," so he gave in, for he did not quite know what to do with a lad who could tumble more books around in five minutes than he could put in order in half an hour, and knew more about every corner in Old Boston than anyone else, and was much more confident of his knowledge.

But this little girl, who soon learned the peculiarity of every tree, the song of the different birds, and the season of bloom for wild flowers, and could listen for hours to the incidents of the past, that seem of more vital importance to middle-aged people than the matters of every day, was a veritable treasure to Mr. Winthrop Adams. He did not mind if she could not knit a stocking, and he sometimes excused her deficiencies in arithmetic because she was so fond of hearing him read poetry. For Doris thought, of all the things in the world, being able to write verses was the most delightful, and that was her aim when she was a grown-up young lady. She did pick up a good deal of general knowledge that she would not have acquired at school, but Uncle Win wasn't quite sure how much a girl ought to be educated.

She began to see considerable of the Chapman girls, and Madam Royall grew very fond of her. But she did not forget her dear friends in Sudbury Street. Sometimes when Uncle Win was going out to a supper or to stay away all the evening she would go up and spend the night with Betty, and sit in the old corner, for it was Uncle Leverett's favorite place whether there was fire or not. He was as fond as ever of listening to her chatter.

She always brought a message to Aunt Priscilla about Solomon. Uncle Winthrop thought him the handsomest cat he had ever seen, and now Solomon was not even afraid of Cato, but would walk about the garden with him, and Miss Recompense said he was so much company when she, Doris, was out of the house.

Indeed, he would look at her with inquiring eyes and a soft, questioning sound in his voice that was not quite a mew.

"Yes," Miss Recompense would say, "Doris has gone up to Sudbury Street. We miss her, don't we, Solomon? It's a different house without her."

Solomon would assent in a wise fashion.

"I never did think to take comfort in talking to a cat," Miss Recompense would say to herself with a touch of sarcasm.

About the middle of June, when roses and spice pinks and ten-weeks' stocks, and sweet-williams were at their best, Mr. Adams always gave a family gathering at which cousins to the third and fourth generation were invited. Everything was at its loveliest, and the Mall just across the street was resplendent in beauty. Even then it had magnificent trees and great stretches of grass, green and velvety. Already it was a favorite strolling place.

Miss Recompense had sent a special request for Betty on that particular afternoon and evening. There was to be a high tea at five o'clock.

"I shall have my new white frock all done," said Betty delightedly. "There is just a little needlework around the neck and the skirt to sew on."

"But I wouldn't wear it," rejoined her mother. "You may get a fruit stain on it, or meet with some accident. Miss Recompense will expect you to work a little."

"Have you anything new, Doris?"

"Oh, yes," replied Doris. "A white India muslin, and a cambric with a tiny rosebud in it. Madam Royall chose them and ordered them made. And Betty, I have almost outgrown the silk already. Madam Royall is going to see about getting it altered. And in the autumn Helen Chapman will have a birthday company, and I am invited already, or my frock is," and Doris laughed. "She has made me promise to wear it then."

"You go to the Royalls' a good deal," exclaimed Aunt Priscilla jealously. She was sitting in a high-backed chair, very straight and prim. She was not quite at home yet, and kept wondering if she wouldn't rather have her own house if she could get a reasonable sort of servant. Still, she did enjoy the sociable side of life, and it was pleasant here at Cousin Leverett's. They all tried to make her feel at home, and though Betty tormented her sometimes by a certain argumentativeness, she was very ready to wait on her. Aunt Priscilla did like to hear of the delightful entertainments her silk gown had gone to after being hidden away so many years. As for the hat, a young Englishman had said "She looked like a princess in it."

"You are just eaten up with vanity, Betty Leverett," Aunt Priscilla tried to rejoin in her severest tone.

Doris glanced over to her now.

"Yes," she answered. "Uncle Winthrop thinks I ought to know something about little girls. Eudora is six months older than I am. They have such a magnificent swing, four girls can sit in it. Helen is studying French and the young ladies can talk a little. They do not see how I can talk so fast."

Doris laughed gleefully. Aunt Priscilla sniffed. Winthrop Adams would make a flighty, useless girl out of her. And companying so much with rich people would fill her mind with vanity. Yes, the child would be ruined!

"And we tell each other stories about _our_ Boston. This Boston," making a pretty gesture with her hand, "has the most splendid ones about the war and all, and the ships coming over here almost two hundred years ago. It is a long while to live one hundred years, even. But I knew about Mr. Cotton and the lady Arabella Johnston. They had not heard about the saint and how his body was carried around to make it rain."

"To make it rain! Whose body was it, pray?" asked Aunt Priscilla sharply, scenting heresy. She was not quite sure but so much French would shut one out from final salvation. "Did you have saints in Old Boston?"

"Oh, it was the old Saint of the Church--St. Botolph." Doris hesitated and glanced up at Uncle Leverett, who nodded. "He was a very, very good man," she resumed seriously. "And one summer there was a very long drought. The grass all dried up, the fruit began to fall off, and they were afraid there would be nothing for the cattle to feed upon. So they took up St. Botolph in his coffin and carried him all around the town, praying as they went. And it began to rain."

"Stuff and nonsense! The idea of reasonable human beings believing that!"

"But you know the prophet prayed for rain in the Bible."

"But to