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

two long lines in Webster's elementary spelling-book to get by heart, for the teacher "skipped about." The children went up and down, and it was rare fun sometimes. The little girl had been out of the Baker class a long while. They call it that because the first column began with that easy word. She was very proud of having gone in the larger class. Her father gave her a silver dollar with a hole punched through it, and Steve brought her a blue ribbon for it. She wore it on state occasions. She studied Peter Parley's geography and knew the verses beginning:


"The world is round and like a ball,
Seems swinging in the air."


How it could be puzzled her. She asked her father, for she thought he knew everything. He said he believed it was, but he could never make it seem so.

Aunt Mary strenuously denied it. "Sta'ns to reason de folks would fall off w'en it went swirlin' round. De good Lord He knows His business better'n dat. Jes don't mind any sech foolin', honey! Its clear agin de Bible dat speaks ob de sun's risin' an' settin', an' de Lord nebber makes any mistake 'bout dat ar Bible."

The little girl studied her lesson over four times. Then Jim came up and they had a game of tag. Dave Andrews and Milton Scott sat out under the old apple-tree smoking their pipes and talking politics. One was a Whig and the other a Democrat who believed that we had never had a President worth mentioning since Andrew Jackson, Old Hickory as he was often called.

When her father came round the corner of the house she stopped running after Jim and held out both hands to him. Her cheeks were like wild roses and her eyes shone with pleasure. They sat down on the step, and he put his arm about her and "cuddled" her up to his side. She told him she had gone up three in saying seven times in the multiplication table, and four in spelling "tetrarch." Then when Charley Banks was reading he said "condig-en" and the class laughed. She also told him she had been studying about Rhode Island and Roger Williams, and all the bays and inlets and islands. She made believe comb his hair with her slim little fingers and once in a while he opened his lips like a trap and caught them, and they both laughed.

Presently Mrs. Underhill, who sat by the window knitting in the twilight, said: "'Milyer, that child must go to bed."

She felt she had to issue this mandate two of three times, so she began early.

They hugged each other and laughed a little. Then he said: "All the chickens right?"

"Yes, I counted them. They're so cunning and lovely."

"I hope they'll get their feather cloaks on before cold weather," said her father.

"'Milyer, that child _must_ go to bed! I don't see why you want to keep her up all hours of the night."

They hugged each other a little closer this time and did not laugh, but just kissed softly. It was beginning to grow dusky. The peeps and crickets and katydids were out in force. The katydids told you there would be frost in six weeks.

When her mother added in a dignified tone, "Come, Hannah Ann," the little girl took one last hug and came into the room. Margaret had lighted the candles in their polished brass candlesticks. One stood on the hall table, one on the stand in the middle of the room. Mrs. Underhill had knit past the seam in her stocking and pulled out a few stitches. Then she laid it down and unfastened the little girl's frock and said, "Now run to bed this minute." Margaret was reading, but she glanced up and smiled.

The candle made a vague yellowish light on the stairs. There were people who burned lamp-oil, as the oil from whales was called. The little girl held it in curious awe, associating it with the story of Jonah. Mrs. Underhill despised the "ill-smelling stuff" and would not have it in the house. She made beautiful candles. Oil-wells had hardly been thought of, except that some one occasionally brought a bottle from Pennsylvania for rheumatism.

The little girl had slept in her mother's room, which answered to the back parlor, until this spring when she had gone up to Margaret's room. There were four large chambers on the second floor and a spacious clothes-room with a closet for bedding. Up above was an immense garret with four gables. The three younger boys and the two hired men slept there.

The little girl didn't mind going to bed alone, but her mother generally found some good reason for going up-stairs. On cool nights she was afraid the little girl wasn't well covered; and to-night she looked in and said:

"I hope you're not bundled up in a blanket this hot night, Hannah Ann! Children seem to have such little sense."

"Oh no, I have only the sheet over me." But the little girl raised up and held out her arms, and her mother gave her a soft squeeze and patted the pillow and said:

"Now you must go to sleep like a good little girl;" quite as if she was in the habit of being bad and not going to sleep, but they both understood.

You may think the little girl's life was dull with lessons and sewing and going to bed at dusk. But she found no end of fun. Now and then a host of cousins came, and they climbed trees, ran races, waded in the brooks, went off to the woods and swung in the wild grape-vines. Sometimes they walked out on the end of a wide-spreading branch, holding to the one above, and when they began to "teeter" too much they gave a spring and came down on the soft ground. The little girl could go out a long way because she was so light and fearless. They never broke their necks or their limbs. They laughed and shouted and turned summersaults and ran races. No day was ever long enough.

The school was a good mile away, but on very stormy days they were taken in the covered wagon. They studied with a will, just as they played, and you heard nothing about nerves in those days.

Some of the parents came that last day at school. Jim acquitted himself creditably in his "Ode to Columbia," and the little girl recited with a rose in her hand, though Margaret had quite a trouble to find one for her. Roses didn't bloom all the year round as they do now. When the children were dismissed they went out and gave some deafening hurrahs for the two weeks' vacation. Oh, what throats and lungs they had!

When the little girl reached home she found a houseful of company. When families have lived from one to two hundred years in one section of the country, they get related to almost everybody. And though Aunt Becky Odell was a second cousin of her mother's, she was aunt to the little girl all the same. She had come up from West Farms to spend a few days and brought her two little girls. Some other relatives had come from Tarrytown.

The little girl greeted everybody, took off her Sunday white frock that had a needleworked edge that her mother had worn twenty years and more ago. Then she took the little girls out to see the chickens and hunt some eggs and have a good play on the hay in the barn.

"Oh, ain't you just crazy to go to New York to live?" cried Polly Odell. "The stores are so beautiful! When I go down I just don't want to come back!"

"You was homesick at Aunt Ph[oe]be's, you know you was," said her sister, with small regard for her tense.

"Well, I didn't like Aunt Ph[oe]be one bit. She's old and cross, and she isn't our own aunt either. She won't let you stand by the window les' you breathe on the glass, and she won't let you rock on the carpet nor run up and down stairs, nor touch a book, and makes you get up at five in the morning when you're so sleepy. She wanted me to stay 'cause she said 'I was handy to wait on her.' And it wasn't truly New York but way up by the East River. I wouldn't have stayed for a dollar. I just jumped up and down when poppy came, and she said, 'For goodness' sake! don't thrash out all my carpet with your jouncin' up an' down.' You can just go yourself, Janey Odell, and see how you like it!"

"I'm sure I don't want to go. But you just jumped at it!"

"Well, I thought it would be nice. But oh, Hanneran, it's just splendid here! And to-morrow Uncle 'Milyer's going to take us out riding. He said so. Oh, Hanneran, wasn't you awful 'fear'd to speak a piece before all the folks at school?"

Polly Odell looked at her in amazement.

"Well--just at first----"

"I wouldn't dast to for a dollar!" cried Janey.

They went on with their play, now and then stumbling against a discussion that never really reached the height of a dispute. Margaret came to hunt them up presently that they might have their tousled heads smoothed and their hands and faces washed.

The little girl was always interested when they had a high tea in the sitting-room. The best old blue china was out, the loaf sugar, and the sugar-tongs that the little girl watched breathlessly lest her mother should lose the lump of sugar before it reached the cup.

The men and boys were having supper in the other room, but the little girls waited on the porch. They were so quiet and kept so tidy that Mrs. Underhill gave them a lump of sugar in each glass of milk, and took it up with the sugar-tongs, to the little girl's great delight.

She couldn't help hearing the talk as they all sat out on the porch. Uncle Faid had really sold his farm, stock, and crops, and was to give possession in September. Then they would visit their two sons and some of Aunt Betsey's people in Michigan, and get on about Christmas.

"It's a shame to have to give up the house," declared Cousin Odell. "Can't you keep it, 'Milyer?"

"A bargain's a bargain. Faid did a fair thing when he went away, and I can't do less than a fair thing now. If he'd died, his share in the house would have been offered to me first. I dare say we could put on an addition and live together without quarrellin', but the boys want to go to New York, and they couldn't all stay here and make a living. The young folks must strike out, and I tell mother if she don't get to feeling at home I'll come back and build her a house."

"It'll never be like this one," said Mrs. Underhill sharply.

"The world is full of changes," declared the Tarrytown cousin.

The little girl sat in her father's lap and listened until she went soundly asleep. Janey Odell leaned against the porch column and almost tumbled over. Mrs. Underhill sprang up.

"Mercy on us! These children ought to be in bed. Wake up, Hannah Ann!"

"I'll carry her up-stairs," said her father, and he kissed her tenderly as he laid her on the bed. Her mother undressed her and patted