A Little Girl in Old Boston by Amanda Minnie Douglas (free novels txt) 📖

you."

Some of the children she had known would have begged for the sash. Doris' frank return touched her. Mr. Adams no doubt meant her to keep it--she would ask him.

And then the happy little girl went to bed, while even in the dark the room seemed full of exquisite visions and voices that charmed her.

Cary had to go away the next morning. Uncle Win said he couldn't spare her, and sent Cato over to tell Mrs. Leverett. A young man came in for some instruction, and Doris followed the fate of the Vicar's household a while, until she felt she ought to study, since there were so many things she did not know.

Uncle Win found her in the chimney corner with a pile of books.

"What is it now?" he asked.

"I think I know _all_ my spelling. But I can't get some of the addition tables right when I ask myself questions. I wish there had not been any nine."

"The world couldn't get along without the nine. It is very necessary."

"Most of the good things _are_ hard," she said with a philosophic sigh.

He laughed.

"Eudora does not like tables either."

"I will tell you a famous thing about nine that you can't do with any other figure. How much is ten and ten?"

"Why, twenty, and ten more are thirty, and so on. It is easy as turning over your hand."

"Ten and nine."

Doris looked nonplused and began to draw her brow in perplexed lines.

"Nine is only one less than ten. Now, if you can remember that----"

"Nineteen! Why, that is splendid."

"Now sixteen and nine?"

"Twenty-five," rather hesitatingly.

He nodded. "And nine more."

"Thirty-four. Oh, we made a rhyme. Uncle Winthrop, is it very hard to write verses? They are so beautiful."

"I think it is--rather," with his half-smile.

People had not had the leisure to be very poetical as yet. But through these years some children were being born into the world whose verses were to find a place by every fireside before the little girl said her last good-night to it. So far there had been some bright witticisms and sarcasms in rhyme, and the clergy had penned verses for wedding and funeral occasions. The Rev. John Cotton had indulged in flowing versification, and even Governor Bradford had interspersed his severer cares with visions of softer strains. Anne Dudley, the wife of Governor Bradstreet, with her eight children, had found time for study and writing, and about 1650 had a volume of verse published in London entitled "The Tenth Muse. Several poems compiled with a great variety of wit and learning. By an American Gentlewoman." And she makes this protest even then:


I am obnoxious to each carping tongue,
Who says my hand a needle better fits;
A poet's pen all scorn I thus should wrong,
For such despite they cast on female wits:
If what I do prove well it won't advance,
They'll say it's stolen, or else it was by chance.


There was also a Mrs. Murray and a Mercy Otis Warren, who evinced very fine intellectual ability; and Mrs. Adams had written letters that the world a hundred years later was to admire and esteem.

On the parlor table in some houses you found a thin volume of poems with a romantic history. A Mrs. Wheatley bought a little girl at the slave market one day, mostly out of pity. She learned to read very rapidly, and was so modest and thoughtful that as a young woman she was held in high esteem by Dr. Sewall's flock at the Old South Church. She went abroad with her master's son before the breaking out of the war, and interested Londoners so much that her poems were published and she was the recipient of a good many attentions. Afterward they were reissued in Boston and met with warm commendations for the nobility of sentiment and smooth versification. So to Phillis Wheately belongs the honor of having been one of the first female poets in Boston.

And young men even now celebrated their sweethearts' charms in rhyme. Gay gallants wrote their own valentines. Young collegians struggled with Latin verse, and sometimes scaled the heights of Thessaly from whence inspiration sprang. But, for the most part, the temperaments that inclined to the worship of the Muses sought solace in Chaucer, Shakspere, and Milton while the later ones were winning their way.

Doris sighed over the doubtfulness in her uncle's tone. But it was music rather than poetry that floated through her brain.

"You might come and read a little Latin, and then we will have a talk in French. We will leave the prosaic part. What you will do in square root and cube root----"

"I am afraid I shall not grow at all. I'll just wither up. Isn't there some round root?"

"Yes, among vegetables."

They both laughed at that.

She did quite well in the Latin. Then she spelled some rather difficult words, and being in the high tide of French when dinner was announced, they kept on talking, to the great amusement of Miss Recompense, who could hardly convince herself that it really did mean anything reasonable.

Uncle Winthrop said then they certainly deserved some indulgence, and if she was not afraid of blowing away they would go out riding again. They took the small sleigh and he drove, and they turned down toward the stem end of the pear, and if Boston had not held on good and strong in those early years it might in some high wind have been twisted off and left an island.

It does not look, to-day, much as it did when Doris first saw it. Charles River has shrunken, Back Bay has been filled up. It has stretched out everywhere and made itself a marvelous city. The Common has changed as well, and is more beautiful than one could have imagined then, but a thousand old recollections cling to it.

They left the streets behind. Sleigh riding was the great winter amusement then, but you had to take it in cold weather, for the salt air all about softened the snow the first mild day. There was no factory smoke or dust to mar it, and it lay in great unbroken sheets. There were people skating on Back Bay, and chairs on runners with ladies well wrapped up in furs, and sleds of every description.

They came up around the other side and saw the wharves and the idle shipping and the white-capped islands in the harbor. Now the wind _did_ nearly blow you away.

The next day was very lowering and chilly. Uncle Winthrop had to go to a dinner among some notables. Miss Recompense always brushed his hair and tied the queue. Young men did not wear them, but some of the older people thought leaving them off was aping youthfulness. He put on his black velvet smallclothes, his silk stockings and low shoes with silver buckles, his flowered waistcoat, his high stock and fine French broadcloth coat. His shirt front had two full ruffles beautifully crimped. Miss Recompense did it with a penknife.

"You look just like a picture, Uncle Winthrop," Doris exclaimed admiringly. "Party clothes _do_ make one handsomer. I suppose it isn't good for one to be handsome all the time."

"We should grow too vain," he answered smilingly, yet he did enjoy the honest praise.

"Perhaps if we were used to it all the time it would not seem so beautiful. It would get to be everyday-like, and you would not think about it."

True enough. He had a fancy Madam Royall did not think half so much about her apparel as some of the more strenuous people who referred continually to conscience.

"Good-by. Maybe you will be in bed when I come back."

"Oh, will you be gone that late?" She stood upon a stool and reached over to give him a parting kiss, if she could not see him until to-morrow, and she did not even touch his immaculate ruffles.

It was growing dusky, and Miss Recompense was in and out, and was in no hurry for candlelight herself. Doris sat in a kind of chaotic thinking. Someone came up the steps, stamped his feet quite too noisily for Cato,--even if he had returned so soon,--knocked at the door, and then opened it.

"Oh, Uncle Leverett!" and she sprang up.

"Well, well, little runaway! I was quite struck when mother told me you were going to stay all the week. I wanted to see my little girl. It's lonesome without you and Betty, I can tell you--lonesome as the woods in winter; and as I couldn't get to see her, I thought I would run around this way and see you. The longest way round is the surest way home, I have heard"--with a twinkle in his eye. "Where's Uncle Win? What are you doing in the dark alone?"

"Uncle Win has gone to a grand dinner at the Exchange something. And he dressed all up. He looked splendid."

"I dare say. He isn't bad-looking in his everyday gear. And you are having a good time?"

"A most beautiful time, Uncle Leverett. I went to church Christmas morning. And a lady asked us both to a party--yes, it was a party. The grown people were by themselves, and the children--there were ten little girls--they had a grand supper and played games and told riddles, and we talked--"

"Where was this fine affair?"

"At Madam Royall's. And she was so kind and sweet and handsome."

"Well, I declare! Right in amongst the quality! I don't know what mother would say to a party. What a pity you didn't have that pretty frock!"

"I did wish for it at first, but we had such a nice time it made no difference. And then some more people came and Mr. Winslow and Black Joe, who was at Betty's party, and they danced. Cary went, too. He stayed after Uncle Win and I came home."

"Great doings. I am glad you are happy. But I shall be doubly glad to get you back. And now I must run off home."

Miss Recompense came in and lighted the candles. They were going to have supper in five minutes and he must take off his coat and stay.

"I've sort of run away, and no one would know where I am. Wife would keep supper waiting. No, I must hustle back, thanking you for the asking. I wanted to see Doris. Somehow we have grown so used to her already that the house seems kind of lost without her, Betty being away. We haven't had any letter from Hartford, but I dare say she is there all safe."

"Post teams do get delayed. Doris is well and satisfied. She and her uncle have great times studying."

"That is good. Wife worried a little about school. Now I must go. Good-night. You will surely be home on Saturday."

"Good-night," returned the soft voice.

Somehow the supper was very quiet. Doris had begun to read aloud to Miss Recompense "The Story of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia." She did not like it as well as her dear Vicar, but Uncle Win said it was good. He was not quite sure of the Vicar for such a child. So she read along very well for a while, and then she yawned.

"You were up late last night and you must go to