A Little Girl in Old New York by Amanda Minnie Douglas (epub ebook reader txt) 📖

Lebanon.

Then a little farther on was another Methodist church, where several notable lights had preached. Nearer the river were some queer old houses, and at almost every corner a store. Saloons were a rarity. Over yonder was Williamsburg, up a little farther Astoria, just a place of country greenery. There were a few boats going up and down, and the ferry-boats crossing.

The houses were no longer in rows. There were some vegetable gardens, and German women were weeding in them; then tracts of rather rocky land, wild and unimproved. After a while it began to grow more diversified and beautiful--country residences and well-kept grounds full of shrubbery at the front and vegetables in the rear, with barns and stables, betraying a rural aspect. The air was so sweet and fresh.

"Oh!" exclaimed Margaret, "Annette Beekman must live somewhere about here. I promised her we would come up some day."

Stephen turned into a country road. There were many grand old elms, hemlocks, pines, and fruit-trees as well. A table stood under one, and some ladies were sitting there sewing and chatting, while several children ran about. And while they were glancing at them a girl in a pretty blue muslin sprang up and ran down to the wide-open gate.

"Oh, Margaret!" cried Annette Beekman. "Why, this is lovely of you, Stephen! Can't you turn in and stop a while with us?"

"I'm showing Margaret New York," said Steve, with his pleasant laugh. "She has begun to think straight down to Rutgers Institute comprised every bit there was of it."

"Oh, Stephen!" deprecatingly.

Some one else came out; a fair, tall girl with great braids of flaxen hair and a silver comb in the top to make her look taller still. She smiled very sweetly.

"Oh, Mr. Underhill!" she exclaimed.

"This is my big sister and this is my little one," explained Stephen. "And this," to Margaret, "is Miss Dolly Beekman."

A warm color rose in Margaret's cheeks as a half-suspicion stole over her.

"You must get out and rest a while after this long ride," said Miss Dolly with winsome cordiality. "The rain last evening was delightful, but the day is warm. We are all living out-of-doors, as you see. And this, I suppose, is your little sister? Drive up and help the girls out, and then go round to the barn. You will find some one there."

Stephen wound slowly up the driveway, nodding to the group of ladies. Dolly walked along the grassy path. She wore a white dotted suisse gown with a "baby waist," and had a blue satin sash with ends that fell nearly to the bottom of the skirt. Her sleeves came to the elbow and were composed of three rather deep ruffles edged with lace. Round her pretty white neck she had an inch-wide black velvet, fastened with a tiny diamond that Stephen had brought her a week ago. She looked like a picture, Margaret thought, and later her portrait in costume was exhibited at the Academy of Design.

Stephen lifted his sisters down. Dolly took Margaret's arm and the little girl's hand and introduced them to almost as many sisters and cousins and aunts as there were in "Pinafore." The small person was not quite comfortable. She had a feeling that the back of her nice frock was dreadfully crushed. Margaret was a little confused. Stephen seemed so at home among them all. Annette had spoken so familiarly of him, yet she had not suspected. How blind she had been!

There was young Mrs. Beekman, thirty or so, already getting stout, and with the fifth Beekman boy that she would gladly have changed for a girl; Mrs. Bond, the next sister, with a boy and a girl; Aunt Gitty Beekman, some Vandewater cousins, and some Gessler cousins from Nyack.

They had rush-bottomed and splint chairs, several rockers, some rustic benches, and two or three tables standing about, with work-baskets and piles of sewing and knitting, for people had not outgrown industry in those days, and still taught their children the verses about the busy bee.

Dolly put Margaret in a rocker, untied her bonnet, and took off her soft white mull scarf--long shawls they were called, and the elder ladies wore them of black silk and handsome black lace. They were held up on the arms and sometimes tied carelessly, and the richer you were, the more handsomely you trimmed them at the ends. Then for cooler weather there were Paisley and India long shawls.

Hanny kept close to her sister and leaned against her knee. She felt strange and timid with the eyes of so many grown people upon her. But they all took up their work and talked, asking Margaret various questions in sociable fashion.

There were three Beekman boys and one little Bond running about. The girl was very shy and would sit on her mother's lap. The Beekmans were fat and chubby, with their hair cut quite close, but not in the modern extreme. They wore long trousers and roundabouts, and low shoes with light gray stockings, though their Sunday best were white. We should say now they looked very queer, and unmistakably Dutch. You sometimes see this attire among the new immigrants. But there were no little Fauntleroy boys at that period with their velvet jackets and knickerbockers, flowing curls and collars.

The boys tried to inveigle Hanny among them. Pety offered her the small wooden bench he was carrying round. Paulus asked her "to come and see Molly who had great big horns and went this way," brandishing his head so fiercely that the little girl shuddered and grasped Margaret's hand.

"Don't tease her, boys," entreated their mother. "She'll get acquainted by and by. I suppose she isn't much used to children, being the youngest?"

"No, ma'am," answered Margaret.

The boys scampered off. Annette knelt down on the short grass, and presently won a smile from the little girl, who was revolving a perplexity as to whether big boys were not a great deal nicer than little boys. Then Stephen came back and Mr. Paulus Beekman, who was stout and dark, and favored his mother's side of the family. The ladies were very jolly, teasing one another, telling bits of fun, comparing work, and exchanging cooking recipes. Miss Gitty asked Margaret about her mother's family, the Vermilyeas. A Miss Vermilye, sixty or seventy years ago, had married a Conklin and come over to Closter. She seemed to have all her family genealogy at her tongue's end, and knew all the relations to the third and fourth generation. But she had a rather sweet face with fine wrinkles and blue veins, and wore her hair in long ringlets at the sides, fastened with shell combs that had been her mother's, and were very dear to her. She wore a light changeable silk, and it still had big sleeves, such as we are wearing to-day. But they had mostly gone out. And the elder ladies were combing their hair down over their ears. There were no crimping-pins, so they had to braid it up at night in "tails" to make it wave, unless one had curly hair. Most of the young girls brushed it straight above their ears for ordinary wear, and braided or twisted it in a great coil at the back, though it was often elaborately dressed for parties.

Aunt Gitty was netting a shawl out of white zephyr. It was tied in the same manner that one makes fish-nets, and you used a little shuttle on which your thread was wound. It was very light and fleecy. Aunt Gitty had made one of silk for a cousin who was going abroad, and it had been very much admired. The little girl was greatly interested in this, and ventured on an attempt at friendliness.

Dolly took them away presently to show them the flower-beds. Mr. Beekman had ten acres of ground. There were vegetables, corn and potato fields and a pasture lot, beside the great lawn and flower-garden. Old Mr. Beekman was out there. He was past seventy now, hale and hearty to be sure, with a round, wrinkled face, and thick white hair, and he was passionately fond of his grandchildren. He had not married until he was forty and his wife was much younger.

There were long walks of dahlias of every color and kind. They were a favorite autumn flower. A great round bed of "Robin-run-away," bergamot, that scented the air and attracted the humming-birds. All manner of old-fashioned flowers that are coming around again, and you could see where there had been magnificent beds of peonies. In the early season people drove out here to see Peter Beekman's tulip-beds.

There were borders of artemisias, as they were called, that diffused a pungent fragrance. We had not shaken hands so neighborly with Japan then, nor learned how she evolved her wonderful chrysanthemums.

The little girl grew quite talkative with Mr. Beekman. You see, in those days there was a theory about children being seen and not heard, and no one expected a little six-year-old to entertain or disturb a room full of company. The repression made them rather diffident, to be sure. But Mr. Beekman gathered her a nosegay of spice pinks, carnations now, and took her to see his beautiful ducks, snowy white, in a little pond, and another pair of Muscovy ducks, then some rare Mandarin ducks from China. She told him about the ducks and chickens at Yonkers and how sorry she was to leave them.

And then came the handsome white Angora cat with its long fur and curious eyes that were almost blue, and when she said "mie-e-o-u" in a rather delighted tone, it seemed as if she meant "O master, where have you been? I'm so glad to see you!"

He stood and patted her and they held quite a conversation as she arched her neck, rubbed against his leg, and turned back and forth. Then she stretched way up on him and gave him her paw, which was very cunningly done.

"This is a nice little girl who has come to see me," he said, as she seemed to look inquiringly at Hanny. "She's fond of everything, kitties especially."

Kitty looked rather uncertain. Hanny was a little afraid of such a curious creature. But presently she came and rubbed against her with a soft little mew, and Hanny ventured to touch her.

"She likes you," declared old Mr. Beekman, much pleased. "She doesn't often take fancies. She loves Dolly, and she won't have anything to do with Annette, though I think the girl teases her. Nice Katschina," said her master, patting her. "Shall we buy this little girl?"

Perhaps you won't believe it, but Katschina really said "yes," and smiled. It was very different from the grin of the "Chessy cat" that Alice saw in Wonderland.

Some one came flying down the path.

"Father," exclaimed Dolly, "come and have a cup of tea or a glass of beer. Stephen and his sister think they can't stay to supper. But may be they'll leave the little girl--you seem to have taken such a notion to her."

Hanny didn't want to be impolite and she really _did_ like Mr. Beekman, but as for staying--her heart was up in her throat.

Dolly picked up Katschina and carried her in triumph. Two white paws lay over Dolly's shoulder.

There was a table with a shining copper tea-kettle, a pewter tankard of home-brewed ale, bread and butter, cold chicken and ham, a great dish of curd cheese, pound cake, soft and yellow, fruit cake, a heaping dish of doughnuts and various cookies and seed cakes. Scipio, a young colored lad, passed