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

/> "That's Long Wharf, and it has lots of famous stories connected with it. And just down there is father's. And now we could cut across and go over home."

"As if we meant to do any such foolish thing?" ejaculated Betty.

"I said we _could_. There are a great many things possible that are not advisable," returned the oracular young man. "And I have heard the longest way round was the surest way home. We shall reach there about nine o'clock to-night."

"Like the old woman and her pig. I should laugh if we found mother already at Uncle Win's."

"She's going to wait for father, and something always happens to him."

They crossed Market Square, and passed Faneuil Hall, that was to grow more famous as the years went on; then they took Cornhill and went over to Marlborough Street.

"That's Fort Hill. It's lovely in summer, when the wind doesn't blow you to shreds. Now we will take Marlborough, and to-night you will be surprised to see how straight it is to Sudbury Street."

They drove rapidly down, and made one turn. It was like a beautiful country road, over to Common Street, and there was the great tract of ground that would grow more beautiful with every decade. Tall, overarching trees; ways that were grassy a month ago, but now turning brown.

"Here we are," and they turned up a driveway at the side of the long porch upheld with round columns. Betty sprang out on the stepping block and half-lifted Doris, while Warren drove up to the barn.

Uncle Winthrop came out to welcome them, and smiled down into the little girl's face.

"But where is your mother?" he asked.

"Oh, she had some shopping to do and then she was to meet father. We have been driving up around Copp's Hill and giving Doris a peep at the country."

"The wind begins to blow up sharply, though it was very pleasant. I am glad to see you, little Doris, and I hope you have not grown homesick sighing for Old Boston. For if you should reach the threescore-and-ten, things will have changed so much that this will be old Boston; and, Betty, you will be telling-your grandchildren what it was like."

Betty laughed gayly.

There was the same wide hall as at home, but it wasn't the keeping-room here. It had a great fireplace, and at one side a big square sofa. The floor was inlaid with different-colored woods, following geometric designs, much like those of to-day. Before the fire was a rug of generous dimensions, and a high-backed chair stood on each of the nearest corners. There was a bookcase with some busts ranged on the top; there were some portraits of ancestors in military attire, and women with enormous head-dresses; there was one in a Puritan cap, wide collar, and a long-sleeved gown, that quite spoiled the effect of her pretty hands. Over the mantel was a pair of very large deer's antlers. Down at one corner there were two swords crossed and some other firearms. Just under them was a cabinet with glass doors that contained many curiosities.

A tall, thin woman entered from a door at the lower end of the hall and greeted Betty with a quiet dignity that would have seemed cold, if it had not been the usual manner of Recompense Gardiner, who could never have been effusive, and who took it for granted that anyone Mr. Winthrop Adams invited to the house was welcome. Her forehead was high and rather narrow, her brown hair was combed straight back and twisted in a little knot high on her head, in which in the afternoon, or on company occasions, she wore a large shell comb. Her features were rather long and spare, and she wore plain little gold hoops in her ears because her eyes had been weak in youth and it was believed this strengthened them. Anyhow, she could see well enough at five-and-forty to detect a bit of dust or dirt, or lint left on a plate from the towel, or a chair that was a trifle out of its rightful place. She was an excellent housekeeper, and suited her master exactly.

"This is the little English girl I was telling you about, Recompense--Cousin Charles' grandniece, and my ward," announced Mr. Adams.

"How do you do, child! Let me take off your hood and cloak. Why, she isn't very stout or rosy. She might have been born here in the east wind. And she is an Adams through and through."

"Do you think so?" with an expression of pleasure, as Recompense held her off and looked her over.

"Are her eyes black?" rather disapprovingly.

"No, the very darkest blue you can imagine," said Mr. Adams.

"Betty, run upstairs with these things. Your feet are younger than mine, and haven't done so much trotting round. Lay them on my bed. Why, where's your mother?" in a tone of surprise.

Betty made the proper explanation and skipped lightly upstairs.

Mr. Adams took one of the large chairs, drawing it closer to the fire. Recompense brought out a stool for the little girl. It was covered with thick crimson brocade, a good deal faded, but it had a warm, inviting aspect. Children were not expected to sit in chairs then, or to run about and ask what everything was for.

There had been children, little girls of different relatives, sitting at the fireside before. His own small boy had dozed in the fascinating warmth of the fire and hated to go to bed, and he had weakly indulged him, as there had been no mother to exercise authority. But Doris was different. She was alone in the world, and had been sent to him by a mysterious providence. He knew the responsibility of a girl must be greater. He couldn't send her to the Latin school and then to Harvard, and he really wondered how much education a girl ought to have to fit her for the position Doris would be able to take.

She was like a quaint picture sitting there. Betty had tied a cluster of curls high on her head with a blue ribbon, and just a few were left to cling about her neck over the lace tucker. Her slim hands lay in her lap. He glanced at his own--yes, they were Adams hands, and looked little like hard work. He was rather proud that Recompense should discern a family likeness.

Betty came flying down the oaken staircase, and Warren entered from the back door. For a few moments there was quite a confusion of tongues, and Recompense wondered how mothers stood it all the time.

"How queer not to have anyone know about Boston," began Warren with a teasing glance over at Doris. "We have been looking at it from Copp's Hill, and going through the odd places."

"And I wondered if people came to be fed in White Bread Alley," exclaimed Doris quickly.

"And I dare say Warren didn't know."

"Why, yes--a woman baked bread there."

"Women have baked bread in a great many places," returned Uncle Win, with a quizzical smile.

"Oh, I didn't mean just that."

"It was John Tudor's mother," appended Betty.

"Mrs. Tudor made the first penny rolls offered for sale in Boston, and little John, as he was then, took them around for sale."

"And Mr. Benjamin Franklin didn't make them famous either," laughed Warren.

"And Salutation Alley with its queer sign--its two old men with cocked hats and small clothes, bowing to each other," said Betty. "It always suggests a couplet I found in an old book:


"'O mortal man who lives by bread,
What is it makes your nose so red?
O mortal man with cheeks so pale,
'Tis drinking Levi Puncheon's ale!'"


"It is said the resolutions for the destruction of the tea were drawn up in the old tavern. It was famous for being the rendezvous of the patriots."

"It would be nice to drive all around Boston shore."

"Let it be summer time, then," rejoined Betty. "Or, like the Hollanders, we might do it on skates. Of course you do not know how to skate, Doris?"

Doris admitted with winsome frankness that she did not. But she could ride a pony, and she could row a little.

"There are some delightful summer parties when we do go out rowing. At least, the boys row mostly, because


"'Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do!'"


and Betty laughed.

"And the girls always take their knitting," appended Warren. "There's never any mischief for them to get into."

"I suppose it doesn't look much like Old Boston," inquired Miss Recompense. "And what do the little girls do there, my dear?"

Warren opened his eyes wide. The idea of Miss Recompense saying "my dear" to a child.

It had slipped out in a curiously unpremeditated fashion. There was something about the little girl--perhaps it was the fact of her having come so far, and being an orphan--that moved Recompense Gardiner.

"I didn't know any real little girls," answered Doris modestly, "except the farmer's children. They worked out of doors in the summer in the fields."

"And I was the youngest of five sisters," said Miss Recompense. "There were three boys."

"It would be so nice to have a sister of one's very own. There were Sallie and Helen Jewett on the vessel."

"I think I like the sisters to be older," said Betty archly. "There are the weddings and the nieces and nephews. And they are always begging you to visit them."

"And I had no sisters," said Uncle Win, as if he would fain console Doris for her loneliness.

She glanced up with sympathetic sweetness. He was a little puzzled at the intuitive process.

"Fix up the fire, Warren. Your mother and father will be cold when they get in."

Warren gave the burned log a poke, and it fell in two ends, neither dropping over the andirons. Then he pushed them a little nearer and a shower of sparks flew about.

"Oh, how beautiful!" and Doris leaned over intently.

Warren placed a large log back of them, then he piled on some smaller split pieces. They began to blaze shortly. He picked up the turkey's wing and brushed around the stone hearth.

"That was very well done," remarked Miss Recompense approvingly.

"Warren knows how to make a fire," said his uncle, "and it is quite an art."

"That is a sign he will make a good husband," commented Betty. "And I shall get a bad one, for my fires go out half the time."

"You are too heedless," said Miss Recompense.

"Now, we ought to tell some ghost stories," suggested Warren. "Or we could wait until it gets a little darker. The sun is going down, and the fire is coming up, and just see how they are fighting at the Spanish Armada. Uncle Win, when you break up housekeeping you can leave me that picture."

They all turned to look at the picture in the cross light, with one of the wonderful fleet ablaze from the broadside of her enemy. It was a vigorous if somewhat crude painting by a Dutch artist.

"Oh, Uncle Win," cried Betty; "do you really think there will be war when we have a new President?"

"I sincerely hope not."

"We ought to have an Armada. Well, I don't know either," continued Warren dubiously. "If it should go to