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

the eatables. Young Mrs. Beekman poured the tea. The mother sat near her. She was short and fat and wore her hair in a high Pompadour roll, and she laughed a good deal, showing her fine white teeth of which she was very proud.

Katschina sat in her master's lap, and the little girl was beside him. The boys were given their hands full and sent away. It was a very pretty picture and the little girl felt as if she was reading an entertaining story. One of the Gessler cousins had been knitting lace, double oak-leaf with a heading of insertion. It looked marvellous to the little girl. She said she was making it to trim a visite. This was a Frenchy sort of garment lately come into vogue, though the little girl did not know what it was, and was too well trained to ask questions. But the lace might be the desire of one's heart.

They sipped their tea or raspberry shrub, or enjoyed a glass of ale. They were all very merry. The little girl wondered how Dolly dared to be so saucy with Stephen when she only knew him such a little. Mrs. Beekman could hardly accept the fact that they would not stay to supper, and said they must come soon and spend the day, and have Stephen drive up for them, and that she hoped soon to see Mrs. Underhill. "It is quite delightful and we are all well satisfied," she added, nodding rather mysteriously.

Dolly put on the little girl's hat and kissed her, giving her a breathless squeeze. Miss Gitty kissed her as well and told her she was a "very pretty behaved child." The buggy came round and Stephen put them in amid a chorus of good-bys.

"The little one looks delicate," commented the younger Mrs. Beekman when they had driven away. "I'm afraid she doesn't run and play enough. But she's beautifully behaved. And what a fancy father took to her!"

"Miss Underhill doesn't seem like a real country girl," said another.

"The Underhills are a good family all through, English descent from some Lord Underhill. They were staunch Royalists at one time."

"And the Vermilyeas are good stock," said Aunt Gitty. "There's nothing like being particular as to family. It tells in the long run."

"Well, Dolly, we think he will do," said Mrs. Beekman laughingly, as Dolly, having said her good-bys, sauntered back to the circle. "He might be richer, of course. There's a large family and they can't have much apiece."

"Stephen Underhill's got the making of a good substantial man in him," grunted father Beekman. "If he'd been a poor shoat he wouldn't have hung around here very long, would he, Katschina? We'd 'a put a flea in his ear, wouldn't we."

Katschina arched her back. Dolly laughed and blushed. Stephen was her own true-love anyway, but she was glad to have them all like him. With the insistence of youth she felt she never could have loved any other man.

Stephen clicked to Prince, who was rested and full of spirits. They drove almost straight across the city, about at the end of our first hundred numbered streets. But the road wound around to get out of a low marshy place, a pond in the rainy season, and some rocks that seemed tumbled up on end. They struck a bit of the old Boston Post Road, and that caused the little girl to stop her prattle and think of the old ladies they had never visited. She must "jog" her father's memory. That was what her mother always said when she recalled half-forgotten things.

Stephen and Margaret had only spoken in answer to the little girl. He had a young man's awkwardness concerning a subject so dear to his heart. Margaret was awed by the mystery of love, captivated by Dolly's friendliness, and puzzled to decide what her mother would think of it. Stephen married! Any of them married for that matter. How strange it would seem! And yet she had sometimes said, "When I am married."

The place was wild enough. You would hardly think so now when hollows have been filled and hills levelled, and rocks blasted away. After they turned a little stream wound in and out through the trees and bushes. Amid a tangled mass the little girl espied some wild roses.

"Oh, Steve!" she cried, "may I get out and pick some?"

"I will." He handed the reins over to Margaret and sprang down, running across a little bridge, and soon gathered a great handful.

"Oh, thank you," and her eyes shone. "What a funny little bridge."

"That's Kissing Bridge."

"Who do you have to kiss?" asked the little girl mirthfully.

"Well, a long while ago, in Van Twiller's time, I guess," with a twinkle in his eye, "there wasn't any bridge. The lovers used to carry their sweethearts over, and the charge was a kiss."

"But there wasn't any kissing _bridge_ then," she said shrewdly.

"When the bridge was built they stopped and kissed out of remembrance."

"Was it really so, Margaret?"

"It has been called that ever since I can remember."

"You unkind girl, not to believe me!" exclaimed Stephen, with an air of offended dignity. "And I am ever so much older than Margaret."

"You didn't carry _me_ over, but you carried the roses, so you shall have the kiss all the same," and as she reached up to his cheek they both smiled.

Then they came down Broadway to Bleecker Street, and over home. Father Underhill was sitting on the stoop reading his paper. Jim begged to take the horse round to the stable. Margaret went up-stairs to pull off her best dress and put on her pink gingham. She had just finished and was calling for Hanny, when Stephen caught her in his arms.

"Dear Peggy--you must have guessed."

"Oh, Stephen! It seems so strange. Is it really so? I never dreamed----"

"I fell in love with Dolly months ago. There were so many caring for her that I hardly hoped myself. But there's some mysterious sense about it, and I began to see presently that she preferred me. Though I didn't really ask her until Sunday night. And they all consented. We are regularly engaged now."

"Oh, Stephen! To lose you!"

That is the first natural thought of the household.

"You are not going to lose me. We shall be engaged a long while; a year surely."

"But, father--and our coming here."

"That is all right. It can't make any difference. Only you will have a new sister. Oh, Peggy, try to love her," persuasively, yet knowing she could not resist her.

"She is very sweet."

"Sweet! She's just cream and roses and all the sweetest things of life put together! I tell you, Peggy, I'm a lucky fellow. Of course it will seem a little strange at first. But some day you'll have your romance, only I don't believe you can ever understand how glad the other fellow will be to get you. Girls can't. And you'll try to make things smooth with mother if she feels a little put out at first? Dolly wants to love you all. She's admired Joe so much, and they are all proud of him."

The supper bell rang impatiently. Stephen kissed his sister and gave her a rapturous hug.

Hanny came up-stairs and Margaret hurried through her change of attire.

"I thought you never were coming," began their mother tartly. "'Milyer, you're the worst of the lot when you get your nose buried in a newspaper. Boys, do keep still, though I suppose you're half starved," with a reproachful look at those who had delayed the meal.

The little girl had eaten so many of the delicious cookies that she wasn't a bit hungry. So she entertained her father with the miles of dahlias and the wonderful cat, so soft and furry and different from theirs, and with truly blue eyes, and who could understand everything you said to her. And Mr. Beekman was very nice, but not as nice as father. The little boys were so short and so funny. "And I don't believe I like _little_ boys. Jim and Benny, Frank and all of you are nicer. Perhaps it _is_ the bigness."

They all laughed at that.

She sat in her father's lap afterward and went on with her quaint story, until her mother came and routed her out and said, "I do believe, 'Milyer, you'd keep that child up all night."

Afterward Mr. Underhill went out on the front stoop, where he and Stephen had a long talk, while Margaret sat at the piano making up for her afternoon's dissipation, but in the soft, vague light she could see Dolly Beekman with her laughing eyes and crown of shining hair, and was sure she would make a delightful sister. Mrs. Underhill sat and darned stockings and sighed a little. Yet she was secretly proud of Margaret, even if she did study French and music. Whether they would ever help her to keep house was a question. Where would she have found time for such things?


CHAPTER VII

MISS LOIS AND SIXTY YEARS AGO

"Yes; come get out once in a while."

"I've no time to spare," said Mrs. Underhill. "Some one has to work or you'd all be in a fine case. Here's Margaret spending her time drumming on the piano and studying French and what not. I dare say you'll be called upon some time to take your daughter to Paris to show off her accomplishments."

"I hope we'll do credit to each other," he returned with a dry, humorous laugh, as if amused.

"The world goes round so fast one can't keep up with it. If the work only rushed on that way! Why don't some of you smart men who have plenty of time to sit round, invent a machine to cook and sew and sweep the house?"

"Martha's a pretty good housekeeping machine, I think. And you might find another to sew."

She had no idea that Elias Howe was hard at work on a tireless iron and steel sewing-woman and was puzzling his brains day and night to put an eye in the needle that would be satisfactory.

"You'd need to be made of money to hire all these folks! Margaret ought to be sewing this very minute, but she's fussing over those drawings of John's. I've such a smart family I think they'll set me crazy. And what you will do when I am gone----"

"We're not going to let you get away so easy. And if you would just go out a bit now and then. Come, mother," with entreaty in his voice.

"Oh, 'Milyer," she said, touched by something in the tone, "I really can't go to-day. I've all those shirts to cut out, and Miss Weir told me of a girl who would be glad to come and sew for fifty cents a day. I think I'll have her a few days. And you look up the poor old creatures and see if they are in any want. Then if I really _can_ do them any good I'll go."

She always softened in the end. She felt a little sore and touchy about Steve's engagement, and proud, too, that Miss Beekman had accepted him. Stephen had insisted some one must come in and help sew, and that his mother must have a little time for herself. Seven men and boys to make shirts for was no light matter. The little girl was learning to darn stockings very