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

bed," said the elder lady.

Doris was ready. She _was_ sleepy, but somehow she did not drop asleep all in a minute. There was a grave subject to consider. All day she was thinking how splendid it would be if Uncle Win should ask her to come here and live. She liked him. She liked the books and the curiosities and the talks and the teaching. Uncle Win was so much more interesting than Mrs. Webb, who flung questions at you in a way that made you jump if you were not paying strict attention. There were other delights that she could not explain to herself. And the books, the leisure to sit and think. For careful Aunt Elizabeth said--"Have you hung up your cloak, Doris? Are you sure you know your spelling? I do wonder if you will ever get those tables perfect! The idea of such a big girl not knowing how to knit a stocking! Don't sit there looking into the fire and dreaming, Doris; attend to your book. Jimmie boy is away ahead of you in some things."

And here she could sit and dream. Of course she was not going to school. Miss Recompense did not think of something all the time. She had learned a sort of graciousness since she had lived with Mr. Winthrop Adams. True, she had nothing to worry about--no children to advance in life, no husband whose business she must be anxiously considering. She had a snug little sum of money, and was adding to it all the time, and she was still a long way from old age. Doris could not have understood the difference in both position and demands, but she enjoyed the atmosphere of ease. And there was a certain aspect of luxury, a freedom from the grinding exactions of conscience that had been trained to keep continually on the alert lest one "fall into temptation."

"He had wanted to see his little girl. He was lonesome without her."

She could see the longing in Uncle Leverett's face and hear his wistful voice there in the dark. He had come to the ship and given her the first greeting and brought her home. Yes, she supposed she _was_ his little girl. Guardians were to take care of one's money; you did not have to live with them, of course. Uncle Leverett was something in a business way, too; and he loved her. She knew that without any explanation. She was quite sure Uncle Win loved her also, but her real place was in Sudbury Street.

Friday afternoon she was curled up by the fire reading, looking like a big kitten, if you had seen only her gray frock. Uncle Win had glanced at her every now and then. He did not mind having her around--not as much, in fact, as Cary, who tumbled books about and moved chairs noisily and kept one's nerves astir all the time, as a big healthy fellow whose body has grown so fast that he hardly knows what to do with his long arms and legs is apt to do.

Doris was like a little mouse. She never rattled the leaves when she turned them over, she never put books in the cases upside down, she did not finger papers or anything that lay on the table when she stood by it. He had a fancy that all children were meddlesome and curious and given to asking queer questions: these were the things he remembered about Cary in those first years of sorrow when he could hardly bear him out of his sight.

Instead, Doris was restful with her quaint ways. She did not run against chairs nor move a stool so that the legs emitted a "screak" of agony, and she could sit still for an hour at a time if she had a book. Of course, being a girl she ought to sew instead.

It was getting quite dusky. Uncle Winthrop came and stirred the fire and put on a pine log, then drew up his chair.

"Put away your book, Doris. You will try your eyes."

She shut it up and came and stood by him. He passed his arm around her.

"Uncle Win, there was a time when people had to read and sew by the blaze of logs and torches. There were no candles."

"They did it not so many years ago here. I dare say they are still doing it out in country places. They go to bed early."

"What seems queer to me is that people are continually finding out things. They must at one time have been very ignorant. No, they could not have been either," reflectively. "For just think how Adam named the animals. And Miss Arabella said that Job knew all about the stars and called them by their names. But perhaps it was the little things like candles and such. Yet they had lamps ever and ever so long ago."

"People seem to advance and then fall back. They emigrate and cannot take all their appliances with them, and they make simpler things to use until they have leisure and begin to accumulate wealth. You see, they could not bring a great deal from England or Holland in the vessels they had in early sixteen hundred. So they had to begin at the foundation in many things."

"It is all so wonderful when you really come to learn about it," she said with a gentle sigh.

The blaze was shining on her now, and bringing out the puzzles on the fair child's face. She was very intelligent, if she was slow at figures.

"Doris,"--after a long pause,--"how would you like to live here?"

"Oh, Uncle Win, it would be the most splendid thing----"

"I fancied you might like to change. And there are some matters connected with your education--why, what is it, Doris?"

She raised her eyes an instant, then they drooped and he saw the dark fringe beaded with tears. She took a long quivering inspiration.

"Uncle Win--I don't believe I can." The words came very slowly. "You see Betty is away, and Uncle Leverett missed me very much. He said the other night I was his little girl, and he was lonesome----"

"I shall be lonesome when you are gone."

"But you have so many books and things, and people coming, and--I should like to stay. Oh, I do like you so." She put her slim arm around his neck and laid her cheek against his. "Sometimes it seems as if you were like what I remember of papa. I only saw such a little of him, you know, after I went to England. But Aunt Elizabeth says it is the hard things that are right always. She would have Jimmie boy, you know, if I stayed, but Uncle Leverett wants me. I can just feel how it is, but I don't know how to explain it. He has always been so good to me. And that day on the ship he said, 'Is this my little girl?' and I was so glad to really belong to someone again----"

She was crying softly. He felt the tears on his cheek. Her simple heroism touched him.

"Yes, dear," he said with a comforting sound in his voice. "Perhaps it would be best to wait a little, until Betty returns, or in the summer. You can come over Friday night and spend Sunday, and brush up on Latin, and brush me up on French, and we will have a nice visit."

"Oh, thank you, thank you. Uncle Win--if I could be two little girls----"

"I want you all, complete. We will keep it to think about."

Then Miss Recompense said supper was ready, and Doris wiped the tears out of her eyes and smiled. But the pressure of her hand as they walked out confessed that she belonged to him.


CHAPTER XIII

VARIOUS OPINIONS OF LITTLE GIRLS

"You have kept up wonderfully for being absent a whole week. You haven't fallen back a bit," said Mrs. Webb.

Doris flushed with delight. The little training Uncle Winthrop had given her had borne fruit.

But she was shocked that Jimmie boy was so bad he had to be punished with the ruler. He had been punished twice in the week before.

"Don't you darst to tell grandmother," he said as they were turning into Sudbury Street. "If you do I'll--I'll"--she was a girl, and he couldn't punch her--"I won't take you on my sled."

"No. I won't tell."

"Honest and true? Hope to die?"

"I'll say honest and true."

"A little thing like that aint much, just two or three slaps. You ought to see the teacher at Salem? My brother Foster gets licked sometimes, and he makes us promise not to tell father."

James had stood a little in awe of Doris on the point of good behavior. But Sam had been up, and James had gone down to Aunt Martha's, and he felt a great deal bigger now.

Uncle Leverett was very glad to get his little girl back. They had heard from Betty, who had spent two delightful days with Mrs. Eastman, and then they had gone to Hartford together. Electa and the children were well, and she had a beautiful house with a Brussels carpet in the parlor and velvet furniture and vases and a table with a marble top. Betty sent love to everybody, and they were to tell Aunt Priscilla that the beaver bonnet was just the thing, and she was going to have the silk frock made over right away. Electa thought the India silk lovely, and she was so glad she had brought the extra piece along, for she was going to have the little cape with long tabs to tie behind, and she should use up every scrap putting a frill on it.

Aunt Priscilla had not waited until March, but taken another cold and was confined to the house, so Aunt Elizabeth went over quite often. Martha Grant proved very efficient, and she was industry itself. She, too, was amazed that Doris wasn't "put to something useful."

Doris had brought home a Latin book, but Aunt Elizabeth could not cordially indorse such a boyish study. Women were never meant to go to colleges. But she did not feel free to thwart Cousin Adams' plans for her.

He came over on Saturday and took her out, and they had a nice laughing French talk, though he admitted he and Miss Recompense had missed her very much. She told him about Betty, and what Mrs. Webb had said, and seemed quite happy.

Just at the last of the month they were all very much interested in a grand affair to which Uncle Winthrop was an invited guest. It was at the great Exchange Coffee House, and really in honor of the gallant struggle Spain had been making against the man who bid fair then to be the dictator of all Europe. On one throne after another he had placed the different members of his family. Joseph Bonaparte, who had been King of Naples, was summarily transferred to the throne of Spain, with small regard for the desires of her people. He found himself quite unable to cope with the insurgents rising on every hand. And America sent Spain her warmest sympathy.

Uncle Leverett read the account aloud from his weekly paper. Now and then there appeared a daily paper for a brief while, and a tolerably successful semi-weekly, but the real substantial paper was the weekly. How they would have found time then to read a morning and an evening paper--two or three, perhaps--is beyond comprehension. And to have