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

watched Doris furtively. All the household had a smile for her. Foster Leverett patted her soft hair, and Warren pinched her cheek in play. Betty gave her half a dozen hugs between times, and Mrs. Leverett smiled when Doris glanced her way.

The quarter-moon was coming up when Priscilla Perkins opened the closet door for her things.

"I'll walk over with Aunt Priscilla," said Warren. "It's my night for practice."

"Oh, yes." His father nodded. Warren had lately joined the band, but his mother thought she couldn't stand the cornet round the house.

"I aint a mite afraid in the moonlight. I come so often I ought not put anyone out."

"Now that the evenings are cool it seems lonesomer," said Mr. Leverett, settling in his armchair by the fire, really glad his son could be attentive without any special sacrifice.

Doris brought the queer little stool and sat down beside him. She looked as if she had always lived there.

"You'll all spoil that child," Aunt Priscilla said to Warren when they had stepped off the stoop.

"I don't believe there's any spoil to her," said Warren heartily. "She's the sweetest little thing I ever saw; so wise in some ways and so honestly ignorant in others. I never saw Uncle Win so taken--he never seems to quite know what to do with children. And he's asked us all over to tea some night next week. I was clear struck."

Mrs. Perkins made no reply. About once a year he invited her over to tea with some of the old cousins, and he called on her New Year's Day, which was not specially kept in any fashionable way.

Mrs. Perkins always said King Street, though in a burst of patriotism the name had been changed after the Revolution. It had dropped down very much and was being given over to business. There was a narrow hall floor set in a little distance, with a few steps, and the shop front with the plain sign of "Jonas Field, Flour, Grain, and Feed." The stairway led to an upper hall and a very comfortable suite of rooms, where Mrs. Perkins had come as a young wife, and where she meant to end her days. It was plenty good enough inside, and she "didn't live in the street."

The best room occupied the whole front and had three windows. Priscilla had been barely nineteen when she was married, and Hatfield Perkins quite a bachelor. And, as no children had come to disturb their orderly habits, they had settled more securely in them year after year.

Next to the parlor was the sleeping chamber. Now, it was the spare room, though no one came to stay all night who was fine enough to put in it. The smaller one adjoining she had used since her husband's death. There was a little tea room, and a big kitchen at the back. Downstairs the store part had been built out, and on the roof of this the clothes were dried. Polly always sat out here in pleasant weather, to prepare vegetables and do various chores. The lot was deep, and at the back were some fruit trees, and the patch of herbs every woman thought she must have, and a square of grass for bleaching.

A lighted lamp stood at the head of the stairs. Polly was dozing in the kitchen. Mrs. Perkins sent her to bed in short order. There were two rooms and a storage closet upstairs in the gables. One was Polly's. The other was the guest chamber that was good enough "for the common run of folks."

The moon was shining in the back windows. Priscilla snuffed out the candle; there was no use wasting candle light. She sat down in a low rocker, the only one she owned; and several list seats had been worn out in it besides the original one of rushes. She had never been really lonely in the sixty-five years of her life for she had kept busy, and was replete with old-fashioned methods that made work. She was very particular. Everything was scrubbed and scoured and swept and dusted and aired. The dishes were polished until they were lustrous. The knives and forks and spoons were speckless. There were napery and bedding that had been laid by for her marriage outfit, and not all worn out yet, though in the early years she had kept replenishing for possible children. There was plenty for twenty years to come, and though her people had been strong and healthy, they never went much over seventy. She was the youngest, and all the rest were gone. Her few real nieces and nephews were scattered about; she had made up her mind long ago she shouldn't ever have anyone hanging on her.

No one wanted to. No one even leaned on her. Yet somehow the life had never seemed real solitary until now. She had comforted her years with the thought that children were a great deal of trouble and did not always turn out well. She could see the picture the little foreign girl made as she folded her arms on Foster Leverett's knee. She wouldn't have that mop of frowzly hair flying about, and she would like to fat her up a little--she was rather peaked. She had imagined her going about in this old place, sewing, learning to work properly, reading and studying, and going to church every Sabbath. She had really meant to do something for a human being day after day, not in a spasmodic fashion. And this was the end of it.

She sprang up suddenly, lighted the candle again, went out to the kitchen to see that everything was right and there was no danger of fire. She opened the outside door and glanced around. There was an autumnal chill in the air, but there were no mysterious shadows creeping about in the yard below that might presage burglars. Then she bolted the door with a snap, and stood a moment in the middle of the floor.

"You are an old fool, Priscilla Perkins! The idea of all Boston being turned upside down for the sake of one little girl! People have come over from England before, big and little, and there's been a war and there may be another, and no end of things to happen. To be sure, I'd done my duty by her if I'd had her; and if the others spoil her--I aint to blame, the Lord knows!"


CHAPTER IV

OUT TO TEA

"There! Does it look like Old Boston?"

They were winding around Copp's Hill. Warren had been given part of a day off, and the use of the chaise and Jack, to show the little cousin something of Boston before they went to Uncle Winthrop's to tea.

Doris had her new coat, which was a sort of fawn color, and the close Puritan cap to keep her neck and ears warm. For earache was quite a common complaint among children, and people were careful through the long cold winter. A strip of beaver fur edged the front, and went around the little cape at the back. Its soft grayish-brown framed in her fair face like a picture, and her eyes were almost the tint of the deep, unclouded blue sky.

They had a fine view of Old Boston, but they could hardly dream of the Boston that was to be. There were still the three elevations of Beacon Hill, lowered somewhat, to be sure, but not taken away entirely. And there was Fort Hill in the distance.

"Why, it looks like a chain of islands, and instead of a great sea the water runs round and round. At home the Witham comes down to the winding cove called The Wash. Boston is sort of set between two rivers, but it is fast of the mainland, and doesn't look so much like floating off. You can go over to the Norfolk shore, and you look out on the great North Sea. But it isn't as big as the Atlantic Ocean."

"Well, I should say not!" with disdain. "Why, you can look over to Holland!"

"You can't see Holland, but it's there, and Denmark."

"And we shall have to be something like the Dutch, if ever we mean to have a grand city. We shall have to dike and fill in and bridge. I have a great regard for those sturdy old Dutchmen and the way they fought the Spanish as well as the sea."

Doris didn't know much about Holland, even if she could make pillow lace and read French verses with a charming accent.

"That's the Mill Pond. And all that is the back part of the bay. And over there a grand battle was fought--but you were not born before the Revolutionary War."

"I guess you were not born yourself, Warren Leverett," said Betty, with unnecessary vigor.

"Well, I am rather glad I wasn't; I shall have the longer to live. But grandfather and ever so many relatives were, and father knows all about it. I am proud, too, of having been named for General Warren."

"And down there near the bay is Fort Hill. Boston wasn't built on seven hills like Rome, and though there are acres and acres of low ground, we are not likely to be overflowed, unless the Atlantic Ocean should rise and sweep us out of existence. And there is the old burying ground, full of queer names and curious epitaphs."

The long peninsula stretched out in a sort of irregular pear-shape, and then was connected to another portion by a narrow neck. The little villages about had a rural aspect, and some of them were joined to the mainland by bridges. And cows were still pastured on the commons and in several tracts of meadow land in the city. Many people had their own milk and made butter. There were large gardens at the sides of the houses, many of them standing with the gable end to the street, and built mostly of wood. But nearly all the leaves had fallen now, and though the sun shone with a mellow softness, it was quite evident the reign of summer was ended.

They drove slowly about, Warren rehearsing stories of this and that place, and wishing there was more time so they might go over to Charlestown.

"But Doris is to stay, and there will be time enough next summer. It is confusing to see so many places at once. And mother said we must be at Uncle Win's about four," declared Betty.

It _was_ rather confusing to Doris, who had heard so little of American history in her quiet home. War seemed a dreadful thing to her, and she could not take Warren's pride in battle and conquest.

So they turned and went down through the winding streets.

"Do you know why they are so crooked?" Warren asked.

"No; why?" asked Doris innocently.

"Well, William Blackstone's cows made the paths. He came here first of all and had an allotment. Then when people began to come over from Charlestown he sold out for thirty pounds English money. Grandfather used to go over to the old orchard for apples. But think of Boston being bought for thirty pounds!"

"It wasn't _this_ Boston with the houses and churches and everything. Come, do get along, or else let me drive," said Betty.

There was quite a descent as they came down. Streets seemed to stop suddenly, and you had to make a curve to get into the next one. From Main they turned into Fish Street, and here the wind from the harbor swept across to the Mill Pond.