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

laying out new streets and filling up ponds and wasting the money of the town."

It seemed to Doris as if she could not swallow a mouthful. She tried heroically. Then she went out and gathered a bunch of roses for Uncle Win's study. She generally read French and Latin a while with him in the morning. Then she made her bed, dusted her room, put her books in her satchel and went to school in an unwilling sort of fashion. How long the morning seemed! Then there was a half-hour in deportment--we should call it physical culture at present. All the girls were gay and chatty. Eudora told her about a new lace stitch. Grandmamma had been out yesterday where there was such an elegant Spanish woman with coal-black eyes and hair. Her family had fled to this country to escape the horrors of war. They had been rich, but were now quite poor, and she was thinking of having a needlework class.

Did Eudora know Cary had gone away?

Uncle Win came out to dinner. She was a little late. He glanced up and gave a faint half-smile, but, oh, how deadly pale he was!

"Dear Uncle Winthrop--is your headache better?" she asked with gentle solicitude.

"A little," he said gravely.

It was a very quiet meal. Although Mr. Winthrop Adams had a delicate appearance, he was rarely ill. Now there were deep rings under his eyes, and the utter depression was sad indeed to behold.

Doris nearly always ran in the study and gossiped girlishly about the morning's employments. Now she sauntered out on the porch. There was neither music nor writing class. She wondered if she had better sew. She was learning to do that quite nicely, but the stocking still remained a puzzle.

"Doris," said a gentle voice through the open window; and the sadness pierced her heart.

She rose and went in. Solomon lay on his cushion in the corner, and even he, she thought, had a troubled look in his eyes. Uncle Win sat by the table, and there lay Cary's letter.

She put her arms about his neck and pressed her soft warm cheek against his, so cool that it startled her.

"My clear little Doris," he began. "I am childless. I have no son. Cary has gone away, against my wishes, in the face of my prohibition. I do not suppose he will ever return alive. And so I have given him up, Doris"--his voice failed him. He had meant to say, "You are all I have."

"Uncle Win--may I tell you--I saw him yesterday in the afternoon. And he told me he had enlisted----"

"Oh, then, you know!" The tone somehow grew harder.

"Dear Uncle Win, I think he could not help going. He was very brave. And he was sorry, too. His eyes were full of tears while he was talking. And he asked me----"

"To intercede for him?"

"No--to stay here with you always. He said I was like a little sister. And I promised. Uncle Win, if you will keep me I will be your little girl all my life long. I will never leave you. I love you very dearly. For since Uncle Leverett went away I have given you both loves."

She stood there in silence many minutes. Oh, how comforting was the clasp of the soft arms about his neck, how consoling the dear, assuring voice!

"Will you tell me about it?" he said at length.

She was a wise little thing, though I think her chief wisdom lay in her desire not to give anyone pain. Some few sentences she left out, others she softened.

"Oh," she said beseechingly, "you will not be angry with him, Uncle Winthrop? I think it is very brave and heroic in him. It is like some of the old soldiers in the Latin stories. I shall study hard now, so I can read about them all. And I shall pray all the time that the war will come to an end. We shall be so proud and glad when he returns. And then you will have two children again."

"Yes--we will hope for the war to end speedily. It ought never to have begun. What can we do against an enemy that has a hundred arms ready to destroy us? Little Doris, I am glad to have you."

Winthrop Adams was not a man to talk over his sorrows. He had been wounded to the quick. He had not dreamed that his son would disregard his wishes. His fatherly pride was up in arms. But he did not turn his wounded side to the world. He quietly admitted that his son had gone to Annapolis, and received the congratulations of friends who sincerely believed it was time to strike.

Salem was busy at her wharves, where peaceable merchantmen were being transformed into war vessels. Charlestown was all astir, and sailors donned the uniform proudly. New York and Baltimore joined in the general activity. The _Constellation_ was fitting out at Norfolk. The _Chesapeake_, the _United States_, and the _President_ were to be made famous on history's page. Privateers without number were hurried to the fore.

The _Constitution_ had quite a reception in New York, and she started out with high endeavors. She had not gone far, however, before she found herself followed by three British frigates, and among them the _Guerriere_, whose captain Commodore Hull had met in New York. To be captured in this manner--for fighting against such odds would be of no avail--was not to be thought of, so there was nothing but a race before him. If he could reach Boston he would save his ship and his men, and somewhere perhaps gain a victory.

Ah, what a race it was! The men put forth all their strength, all their ingenuity. At times it seemed as if capture was imminent. By night and by day, trying every experiment, working until they dropped from sheer fatigue, and after an hour or two of rest going at it again--Captain Hull kept her well to the windward, and with various maneuverings puzzled the pursuers. Then Providence favored them with a fine, driving rain, and she flew along in the darkness of the night, hardly daring to hope, but at dawn, after a three days' race, Boston was in sight, and her enemies were left behind.

But that was not in any sense a complete victory, and she started out again to face her enemy and conquer if she could, for her captain knew the British ship _Guerriere_ was lying somewhere in wait for her. Everybody prayed and hoped. Firing was heard, but at such a distance from the harbor nothing could be decided.

The frontier losses had been depressing in the extreme. Boston had hung her flags at half-mast for the brave dead. But suddenly a report came that the _Constitution_ had been victorious, and that the _Guerriere_ after having been disabled beyond any power of restoration, had been sent to a watery grave.

In a moment it seemed as if the whole town was in a transport of joy. Flags were waving everywhere, and a gayly decorated flotilla went out in the harbor to greet the brave battle-scarred veteran. And when the tale of the great victory ran from lip to lip the rejoicing was unbounded. A national salute was fired, which was returned from the ship. The streets were in festive array and crowded with people who could not restrain their wild rejoicing. The _Guerriere_, which was to drive the insolent striped bunting from the face of the seas, had been swept away in a brief hour and a half, and the bunting waved above her grave. That night the story was told over in many a home. The loss of the _Constitution_ had been very small compared to that of the _Guerriere_, which had twenty-three dead and fifty-six wounded; and Captain Dacres headed the list of prisoners.

There was a grand banquet at the Exchange Coffee House. The freedom of the city was presented to Captain Hull, and New York sent him a handsome sword. Congress voted him a gold medal, and Philadelphia a service of plate.

At one blow the prestige of invincibility claimed for the British navy was shattered. And now the _Constitution's_ earlier escape from the hot chase of the three British frigates was understood to be a great race for the nation's honor and welfare, as well as for their own lives, and at last the baffled pursuers, out-sailed, out-maneuvered, dropped behind with no story of success to tell, and were to gnaw their hearts in bitterness when they heard of this glorious achievement.

Uncle Winthrop took Doris and Betty out in the carriage that they might see the great rejoicing from all points. Everywhere one heard bits of the splendid action and the intrepidity of Captain Hull and his men.

"I only wish Cary had been in it," said Betty with sparkling eyes.

Warren told them that when Lieutenant Read came on deck with Captain Hull's "compliments, and wished to know if they had struck their flag," Captain Dacres replied:

"Well--I don't know. Our mizzenmast is gone, our mainmast is gone, and I think you may say on the whole that we have struck our flag."

One of the points that pleased Mr. Adams very much was the official report of Captain Dacres, who "wished to acknowledge, as a matter of courtesy, that the conduct of Captain Hull and his officers to our men had been that of a brave enemy; the greatest care being taken to prevent our losing the smallest trifle, and the kindest attention being paid to the wounded."

More than one officer was to admit the same fact before the war ended, even if we did not receive the like consideration from our enemies.

"I only wish Cary had been on the _Constitution_," said Betty eagerly. "I should be proud of the fact to my dying day, and tell it over to my grandchildren."

A tint of color wavered over Uncle Winthrop's pale face. No one mentioned Cary, out of a sincere regard for his father, except people outside who did not know the truth of his sudden departure; though many of his young personal friends were aware of his interest and his study on the subject.

Old Boston had a gala time surely. The flags floated for days, and everyone wore a kind of triumphant aspect. That her own ship, built with so much native work and equipments, should be the first to which a British frigate should strike her colors was indeed a triumph. Though there were not wanting voices across the sea to say the _Guerriere_ should have gone down with flying colors, but even that would have been impossible.

Miss Recompense and Uncle Winthrop began to discuss Revolutionary times, and Doris listened with a great deal of interest. She delighted to identify herself strongly with her adopted country, and in her secret heart she was proud of Cary, though she could not be quite sure he was right in the step he had taken. They missed him so much. She tried in many ways to make up the loss, and her devotion went to her uncle's heart.

If they could only hear! Not to know where he was seemed so hard to bear.


CHAPTER XX

A VISITOR FOR DORIS

Doris was in the little still-room, as it was called--a large sort of pantry shelved on one side, and with numerous drawers and a kind of dresser with glass doors on another. By the window there were a table and the dainty little still where Miss Recompense made