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

/> The dancing was quite delightful to most of the young people. Even those who just walked about, looked happy, and little knots chatted and smiled, adding a certain interest to the scene. The supper was very fine, and after that many of the quality retired, leaving the floor to those who had come to dance.

Doris looked bright the next morning as she came to breakfast in her blue flannel frock and lace tucker, and her hair tied up high with a red ribbon, which with her white skin "made the American colors," Helen Chapman said.

"I am glad to get back my little girl," Uncle Winthrop exclaimed, as he placed his hands lightly on her shoulders. "You looked strange to me last night. Doris, how tall you are growing!" in half-surprise.

"That is an Adams trait, Aunt Priscilla would say. And do you remember that I am fifteen?"

"Isn't there some way that girls can be set back?" he asked with feigned anxiety.

"I've heard of their being set back after they reached thirty or forty," said Miss Recompense.

"I don't want to wait so long," returned Uncle Winthrop with a smile.

"There were some beautiful old ladies there last night," said Doris. "The one with black velvet and diamonds--Madam Bowdoin. Is that Aunt Priscilla's friend?"

"I suppose so. Mr. Perkins was held in high esteem, and Aunt Priscilla used to go about in her carriage then."

"And Madam Scott! Uncle Win, to think she was John Hancock's wife, and he signed the Declaration of Independence!"

"And after that I wouldn't have married anybody," declared Miss Recompense with haughty stiffness.

The enthusiasm did not die out at once. When men or women met they had to talk over the good news. Warren Leverett declared that business was reviving. Mercy told Uncle Winthrop that she had never expected to see so many famous people under such grand conditions as a Peace Ball, and that it would be something to talk about when she was an old lady. Aunt Priscilla listened to the accounts with deep interest.

"And I looked like a real young lady," said Doris. "I was frightened when I came to think about it. I would like to stay a little girl for years and years. But I would not have missed the ball for anything. I do not believe there will ever be such a grand occasion again."


CHAPTER XXII

CARY ADAMS

It took a good while in those days for the news of peace to go around the world. But there was a general reign of peace. The European countries had mostly settled their difficulties; there was royalty proper again on the throne of France. Napoleon swept through his hundred brilliant days, and was banished for life to the rocky isle of St. Helena; the young King of Rome was a virtual prisoner to Austria, and Russia and Prussia began to breathe freely once more.

The United States had won a standing among the nations. Her indomitable courage, her successes against tremendous odds, had impressed Europe with her vitality and determination.

One by one the ships came back to home ports. Mr. Adams and Doris watched and listened to every bit of news eagerly.

The old apothecary's shop on Washington Street, to begin a famous history a decade later as "The Old Corner Bookstore," was even then a rendezvous for the news of the day. People paused going up and down, and each one added his bit to the general fund, or took with him the knowledge he was eagerly seeking.

And when someone said, "Heard from your son yet, Mr. Adams?" he could only make a negative gesture.

"If there isn't some word of Cary Adams soon, his father will never live to welcome him home," said Madam Royall to her daughter. "He grows thinner every day. What a perfect Godsend Doris has been!"

Madam Royall was hale and hearty though she had lived through many sorrows.

The coveted news came first from Betty. She had written a letter to send by a private messenger, and opened it to add this postscript:

"Mr. Bowen is waiting for this letter. Mr. King has just come in with the news that two ships have arrived at Portsmouth. Among the officers is 'Lieutenant Cary Adams.' That is all we know."

"Oh, Uncle Win!" Doris' eyes swam in tears of joy. "Read Betty's postscript." Then she ran out of the room and had a good cry by herself, though why anyone should want to cry over such joyful news she could not quite understand.

Afterward she tied on her hat and ran over to Madam Royall's and then up to Sudbury Street. For in those days people were wont to say to their neighbors, "Come, rejoice with me!"

When she returned home the house was very quiet. Solomon came and rubbed against her in mute inquiry. No one was in the study. She went out to the kitchen.

"Don't disturb your uncle, Doris," said Miss Recompense. "The news quite overcame him. He has gone to lie down."

After dinner she went out again for some lessons. Oh, how bright the world looked, though it was a day in later March, but the wind had a Southern softness. Soon the wild flowers would be out. There was a very interesting new study, botany, that the previous autumn had taken groups of girls out in the lanes and fields, and some had ventured to visit the Botanic Gardens at Harvard University. Doris was much interested in it.

Uncle Winthrop came to supper, and Doris played and sang for him during the evening. For though Cary was the uppermost thought in both hearts, they could not talk about him.

It was a tedious post journey from Washington to Boston. One had to possess one's soul in patience. But the letter came at length.

Cary had to go to Washington, as there was some prize money and claims to be inquired into. He had handed in his resignation, and should hereafter be a private citizen of dear old Boston. There was much more that gladdened his father's heart and betrayed a manly spirit.

Betty returned home, though Mrs. King declared she only lent her for a visit. She was very stylish now, and was studying French, for it might be possible that Mr. King would go abroad and take his wife and Betty.

"I do wonder if you will ever settle down?" exclaimed Mrs. Leverett anxiously. That meant marriage and housekeeping.

Betty laughed. "You know I have settled to be the old maid aunt," she returned. "But I am going to have a good young time first. And, mother, you can hardly realize what a fine, generous, broad-minded man Mat King has made."

There were lovely odds and ends of attire, dainty slippers, long gloves that came to your very shoulders, vandyke capes of beautiful lace, buckles that looked like diamonds, ribbons and belts and sashes. Mercy said Betty could go down to Washington Street and open a fancy-goods store. And, oh, the delightful things she had seen and done, the skating parties in the winter, the sleigh rides when one stopped at a cozy, well-kept tavern and had a dainty supper and a dance. The drives down around the Battery and Bowling Green, and the promenades. There were still a good many military men in New York, but it had not suffered as much from the war as Boston.

But Boston was growing beautiful by the hour, with her pretty private gardens and hundreds of fruit trees blooming everywhere, and the great Common where people went for walks on sunny afternoons.

Miss Recompense had a gorgeous tulip bed and some lilies of the valley, which were quite a new thing. Cato trimmed and trained the roses and vines, and the old Adams house was quite a bower of beauty.

One April afternoon Doris sat by the study window doing some lace work, while Solomon lay curled up on the sill. She kept glancing out. People were quite given to going around this corner to get into Common Street. She liked to see them. Now and then a friend nodded. Uncle Win had been reading aloud from "Jerusalem Delivered," but Doris thought it rather prosy, and strayed off into her own thoughts.

A tall, soldierly fellow came up the street, looked, hesitated, opened the gate softly, and glanced down at the tulips. He was quite imposing as to figure, and his complexion was bronzed, the ends of his brown hair rather long and curling. He was in citizen clothes, and Doris wondered why she should think of Lieutenant Hawthorne. She had expected Cary in all the glory of a naval uniform--a slim, fair, boyish person with a light springy walk. It never could be Cary!

"Oh, Uncle Win, quick!" as the step sounded on the porch. "It is--someone----" She was so little certain she could not utter a name.

Uncle Winthrop went out, opened the door, and his son put his arms about the father's neck. If there had been need of words neither could have uttered them for many minutes.

When Miss Recompense cleaned house a week or two before the piano had been moved into the parlor. The door stood open so that it could have the warmth of the hall fire. The two entered it when they had found their voices.

"It _is_ Cary," thought Doris with a sense of disappointment, though why she could not have told.

Half an hour afterward they came out to the study.

"Oh, Doris!" Cary cried, "how you have changed and grown. I shouldn't have known you! I've been carrying about with me the remembrance of a little girl. In my mind you have been no taller, no older, and yet I might have known--why, we shall have to get acquainted all over again."

Doris blushed. "I am sure I have not changed as much as you. I did not think it could be you."

"Someone at Annapolis before we went out designated me as 'That consumptive-looking young fellow.' But I have grown strong and hearty, and no doubt I shall come to fourscore. I do not mean that it shall be all labor and sorrow, either."

Then Cary made the rounds of the house. Miss Recompense was as much amazed as Doris had been. Cato and Dinah were overjoyed. He had hardly dared dream that nothing would be changed, that more than the old love would be given back. He had gone away a boy, nurtured in the restraints of wise Puritanism that made a lasting mark on New England character; he had come home a man of experience, of deeper thought, of higher understanding and stronger affection. He was proud that he had done his duty as a citizen of the republic, but he knew now that neither naval or military life was to his taste. Henceforth he was to be a son in the old home.

Doris left them talking when she went to bed, a little hurt and jealous that she was no longer first, that she could not be all to Uncle Win. It gave her a kind of solitary feeling.

The old house took on an aspect of intense interest. There was a continual going and coming and enough congratulations for a wedding feast. All Cary's friends vied with each other in warm welcomes, and Madam Royall claimed him with the old time cordiality.

Was there any disappointment about Alice?

He had a boy's thought the first few months about winning glory for her, of coming back to her, and perhaps laying his triumphs at