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

her little girl of six. She was to make a visit in Salem, and doctor somewhat, to see if she could not get over her cough before cold weather.

The children were turned out of doors on the grassy roadside, where they couldn't hurt anything. Mrs. Gates and Betty helped in the kitchen, and after the dinner was cleared away Elizabeth was allowed to put on her second-best gingham and go out with the children. They ran and played and screamed and laughed.

"I'd a hundred times rather sit still and hear you talk," she said to Doris. "And I'm awful sorry to have you go to-morrow. Even when I am busy it is so nice just to look at you, with your beautiful hair and your dark eyes, and your skin that is like velvet and doesn't seem to tan or freckle. Foster hates freckles so."

Doris flushed at the compliment.

"I wonder how it would seem to be as pretty as you are? And you're not a bit set up about your fine clothes and all. I s'pose when you're born that way you're so used to it, and there aint anything to wish for. I'm so glad you could come. And I do hope you will come again."

They parted very good friends. Mrs. King had been quite generous to the small people, and Mrs. Manning really loved her sister, although she considered her very lax and extravagant. No one could tell what was before him, and thrift and prudence were the great virtues of those days. True, they often degenerated into penuriousness and labor that was early and late--so severe, indeed, it cost many a life; and the people who came after reaped the benefit.


CHAPTER XVIII

WINTER AND SORROW

"Oh, Uncle Win," exclaimed Doris, "I can't be sorry that I went to Salem, and I've had a queer, delightful time seeing so many strange things and hearing stories about them! But I am very, very glad to get back to Boston, and gladdest of all to be your little girl. There isn't anybody in the whole wide world I'd change you for!"

Her arms were about him. He was so tall that she could not quite reach up to his neck when he stood straight, but he had a way of bending over, and she was growing, and the clasp gave him a thrill of exquisite pleasure.

"I've missed my little girl a great deal," he said. "I am afraid I shall never want you to go away again."

"The next time you must go with me. Though Betty was delightful and Mrs. King is just splendid."

They had famous talks about Salem afterward, and the little towns around. Miss Recompense said now she shouldn't know how to live without a child in the house. Mrs. King went home to her husband and little ones, and Doris imagined the joy in greeting such a fond mother. Uncle Win half promised he would visit New York sometime. Even Aunt Priscilla was pleased when Doris came up to Sudbury Street, and wanted her full share of every visit. And they were all amazed when she went over to Uncle Win's to spend a day and was very cordial with Miss Recompense. They had a nice chat about the old times and the Salem witches and the dead and gone Governors--even Governor and Lady Gage, who had been very gay in her day; and both women had seen her riding about in her elegant carriage, often with a handsome young girl at her side.

She had some business, too, with Uncle Win. They were in the study a long while together.

"Living with the Leveretts has certainly changed Aunt Priscilla very much," he said later in the evening to Miss Recompense. "I begin to think it is not good for people to live so much alone when they are going down the shady side of life. Or perhaps it would not be so shady if they would allow a little sun to shine in it."

Solomon was full of purring content and growing lazier every day. Latterly he had courted Uncle Win's society. There was a wide ledge in one of the southern windows, and Doris made a cushion to fit one end. He loved to lie here and bask in the sunshine. When there was a fire on the hearth he had another cushion in the corner. Sometimes he sauntered around and interviewed the books quite as if he was aware of their contents. He considered that he had a supreme right to Doris' lap, and he sometimes had half a mind to spring up on Uncle Win's knee, but the invitation did not seem sufficiently pressing.

Cary was at home regularly now, except that he spent one night every week with a friend at Charlestown, and went frequently to the Cragies' to meet some of his old chums. He had not appeared to care much for Doris at first, and she was rather shy. Latterly they had become quite friends.

But it seemed to Doris that he was so much gayer and brighter at Madam Royall's, where he certainly was a great favorite. Miss Alice was very brilliant and charming. They were always having hosts of company. Mr. and Mrs. Winslow were at the head of one circle in society. And this autumn Miss Jane Morse was married and went to live in Sheaffe Street in handsome style. She had done very well indeed. Betty was one of the bridesmaids and wore a white India silk in which she looked quite a beauty.

Miss Helen Chapman was transferred to Mrs. Rowson's school to be finished. Doris and Eudora still attended Miss Parker's. But Madam Royall had treated the girls to the new instrument coming into vogue, the pianoforte. It's tone was so much richer and deeper than the old spinet. She liked it very much herself. Doris was quite wild over it. Madam Royal begged that she might be allowed to take lessons on it with the girls. Uncle Winthrop said in a year or two she might have one if she liked it and could learn to play.

She and Betty used to talk about Elizabeth Manning. There was a new baby now, another little boy. Mrs. Leverett made a visit and brought home Hester, to ease up things for the winter. Elizabeth couldn't go to school any more, there was so much to do. She wrote Doris quite a long letter and sent it by grandmother. Postage was high then, and people did not write much for pure pleasure.

And just before the new year, when Betty was planning to go to New York for her visit to Mrs. King, a great sorrow came to all of them. Uncle Leverett had not seemed well all the fall, though he was for the most part his usual happy self, but business anxieties pressed deeply upon him and Warren. He used to drop in now and then and take tea with Cousin Winthrop, and as they sat round the cheerful fire Doris would bring her stool to his side and slip her hand in his as she had that first winter. She was growing tall quite rapidly now, and pretty by the minute, Uncle Leverett said.

There was no end of disquieting rumors. American shipping was greatly interfered with and American seamen impressed aboard British ships by the hundreds, often to desert at the first opportunity. Merchantmen were deprived of the best of their crews for the British navy, as that country was carrying on several wars; and now Wellington had gone to the assistance of the Spanish, and all Europe was trying to break the power of Napoleon, who had set out since the birth of his son, now crowned King of Rome, to subdue all the nations.

The _Leopard-Chesapeake_ affair had nearly plunged us into war, but it was promptly disavowed by the British Government and some indemnity paid. There was a powerful sentiment opposed to war in New York and New England, but the people were becoming much inflamed under repeated outrages. Young men were training in companies and studying up naval matters. The country had so few ships then that to rush into a struggle was considered madness.

Mr. Winthrop Adams was among those bitterly opposed to war. Cary was strongly imbued with a young man's patriotic enthusiasm. There was a good deal of talk at Madam Royall's, and a young lieutenant had been quite a frequent visitor and was an admirer also of the fair Miss Alice. Then Alfred Barron, his friend at Charlestown, had entered the naval service. Studying law seemed dry and tiresome to the young fellow when such stirring events were happening on every side.

Uncle Leverett took a hard cold early in the new year. He was indoors several days, then some business difficulties seemed to demand his attention and he went out again. A fever set in, and though at first it did not appear serious, after a week the doctor began to look very grave. Betty stopped her preparations and wrote a rather apprehensive letter to Mrs. King.

One day Uncle Win was sent for, and remained all the afternoon and evening. The next morning he went down to the store.

"I'm afraid father's worse," said Warren. "His fever was very high through the night, and he was flighty, and now he seems to be in a sort of stupor, with a very feeble pulse. Oh, Uncle Win, I haven't once thought of his dying, and now I am awfully afraid. Business is in such a dreadful way. That has worried him."

Mr. Adams went up to Sudbury Street at once. The doctor was there.

"There has been a great change since yesterday," he said gravely. "We must prepare for the worst. It has taken me by surprise, for he bid fair to pull through."

Alas, the fears were only too true! By night they had all given up hope and watched tearfully for the next twenty-four hours, when the kindly, upright life that had blessed so many went to its own reward.

To Doris is seemed incredible. That poor Miss Henrietta Maria should slip out of life was only a release, and that Miss Arabella in the ripeness of age should follow had awakened in her heart no real sorrow, but a gentle sense of their having gained something in another world. But Uncle Leverett had so much here, so many to love him and to need him.

Death, the mystery to all of us, is doubly so to the young. When Doris looked on Uncle Leverett's placid face she was very sure he could not be really gone, but mysteriously asleep.

Yes, little Doris--the active, loving, thinking man had "fallen on sleep," and the soul had gone to its reward.

Foster Leverett had been very much respected, and there were many friends to follow him to his grave in the old Granary burying ground, where the Fosters and Leveretts rested from their labors. There on the walk stood the noble row of elms that Captain Adino Paddock had imported from England a dozen years before the Revolutionary War broke out, in their very pride of strength and grandeur now, even if they were leafless.

It seemed very hard and cruel to leave him here in the bleakness of midwinter, Doris thought. And he was not really dead to her until the bearers turned away with empty hands, and the friends with sorrowful greeting passed out of the inclosure and left him alone to the coming evening and the requiem of the wind soughing through the trees.

Doris sat by Miss Recompense that evening with Solomon on her