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

as nice as any one can be! And John is splendid, too. And Ben is going to learn to make books, and I can have all the books I want."

Daisy sighed. She was very fond of reading, but it soon tired her.

"I should so like to see you all. You know I've never been much with children. And I like live people. I want to hear them talk and sing and see them play. One gets tired of dolls."

"If you would like I will bring Nora and Pussy Gray. And I know Josie's mother will let them come. If you could be wheeled up on our sidewalk."

"Oh, that would be delightful!" and the soft eyes glowed.

Hanny had taken Nora the very next afternoon, and Pussy Gray had been just too good for anything. Daisy had to laugh at the conversations between him and Nora. It really did sound as if he said actual words. And they told Daisy about the time they went to the Museum and had a double share for their money. Daisy laughed heartily, and her pale cheeks took on a pretty pink tint.

"You are so good to come," said Mrs. Jasper. "My little girl has had so much suffering in her short life that I want her to have all the pleasure possible now."

Josie and Tudie Dean had been out spending the day, and really, there was so much to tell that it was nine o'clock before it was all discussed. Charles was very much interested in Daisy Jasper.

"You know I can tell just how she feels about not having any brothers and sisters," he exclaimed. "I've wished for them so many times. And I _do_ think Hanny is the luckiest of the lot; she has so many. It is like a little town to yourself."

"I'm so glad it is vacation," declared Josie. "If we were going to school we wouldn't have half time for anything."

Mr. Underhill came for his little girl. While he was exchanging a few words with Mr. Dean Hanny caught one hand in both of hers and hopped around on one foot. She was so glad she could do it. Poor Daisy, with her beautiful name, who could never know the delight of exuberant spirits.

Hanny's thoughts did not take in the long word, but that was what she felt in every fibre of her being.

Charles wondered how she dared. He was frightened when he caught his father's hand with an impulse of gratitude. But in pure fun!

There was quite a stir with the little clique in the upper end of the block. Mrs. Underhill, Mrs. Dean, and Margaret called on their neighbor, and the wheeled chair came up the street a day or two after. It had to go to the corner and cross on the flagging, as the jar would have been too great on cobble stones. They had a young colored lad now who kept the garden in order, did chores, and waited upon "Missy" as he called her.

The sidewalk was generally sunny in the afternoon, but this day it was soft and gray without being very cloudy. The chariot halted at the Underhills'. The little girls brought their dolls to show Daisy, their very best ones, and Nora dressed up Pussy Gray in the long white baby dress, and pussy was very obliging and lay in Daisy's arms just like a real baby. The child felt as if she wanted to kiss him.

What a pretty group of gossips they were! If Kate Greenaway had been making pictures then, she would have wanted them, though their attire was not quite as quaint as hers. They went up and down the steps, they told Daisy so many bright, entertaining things, and the fun they had with their plays. Josie's party was described, the closing exercises at school, and the many incidents so important in child life. Sometimes two or three talked together, or some one said, "It's my turn, now let me." They referred to Charles so much it really piqued Daisy's curiosity.

"Jim calls him a 'girl-boy,' because he plays with us," said Hanny, "and in some ways I like girl-boys best. Ben is a sort of girl-boy. I'm going to bring him over to see you. Jim's real splendid and none of the boys dare fight him any more," she added loyally.

"And first, you know," began Tudie in a mysteriously confidential manner, "we thought it so queer and funny. His mother called him John Robert Charles. And she used to look out of the window and ask him if he had his books and his handkerchief, and tell him to come straight home from school, and lots of things. Oh, we thought we wouldn't have her for our mother, not for a world!"

"How did he come by so many names?" Daisy smiled.

"Well, grandfather and all," replied Tudie rather ambiguously. "His father calls him Charles. It sounds quite grand, doesn't it? We all wanted to call him Robert. And Hanny's big sister sings such a lovely song--"Robin Adair." I'd like to call him that."

"I should so like to hear him sing. I'm so fond of singing," said Daisy plaintively.

"Now if we were in the back yard we could all sing," rejoined Josie. "But of course we couldn't in the street with everybody going by."

"Oh, no!" Yet there was a wistful longing in Daisy's face, that was beginning to look very tired.

There were not many people going through this street. Houston Street was quite a thoroughfare. But the few who did pass looked at the merry group of girls and at the pale invalid whose chair told the story, and gave them all a tender, sympathetic thought.

All except Lily Ludlow. She was rather curious about the girl in the chair and made an errand out to the Bowery. When Hanny saw who was coming she turned around and talked very eagerly to Elsie Hay, and pretended not to know it. Lily had her President, and Jim admired her, that was enough.

"You're very tired, Missy," Sam said presently.

"Yes," replied Daisy. "I think I'll go home now. And will you all come to see me to-morrow? Oh, it is so nice to know you all! And Pussy Gray is just angelic. Please bring him, too."

They said good-by. For some moments the little girls looked at each other with wordless sorrow in their eyes. I think there were tears as well.


CHAPTER XVII

SOME OF THE OLD LANDMARKS

"Yes, all of us," said Ben. "We can tuck in the Deans. I only wish Charles could go. Well, the house won't run away. And Mr. Audubon has travelled all over the world. Mr. Whitney wrote an article about him. That's the work I'd like to do--go and see famous people and write about them."

Interviewing was not such a fine art in those days. Ben had enough of it later on.

Dr. Joe had asked Mr. Audubon's permission to bring a crowd of children to see him and his birds. He was getting to be quite an attraction in the city.

When they packed up they found a crowd sure enough. But Dr. Hoffman took Margaret and the little girl with him, as Charles had been allowed a half day off for the trip. The drive was so full of interest. They went up past the old Stuyvesant place and took a look at the pear-tree that had been planted almost two hundred years ago and was still bearing fruit. Then they turned into the old Bloomingdale Road, and up by Seventy-fifth Street they all stopped to see the house where Louis Philippe taught school when he was an emigrant in America. And now he was on the throne, King of the French people, a grander and greater position, some thought, than being President of the United States.

"For of course," said Jim, "he can stay there all his life, and the President has only four years in the White House. After all, it is a big thing to be a king."

And in a little more than two years he was flying over to England for refuge and safety, and was no longer a king. Mr. Polk was still in the White House.

It was an odd, low, two-story frame house where royalty had been thankful to teach such boys as Ben and Jim and Charles. There was a steep, sloping roof with wide eaves, a rather narrow doorway in the middle of the front, carved with very elaborate work, and an old knocker with a lion's head, small but fierce. The large room on one side had been the schoolroom, and the board floor was worn in two curious rows where the boys had shuffled their feet. The fireplace was what most people came to see. It was spacious and had a row of blue and white Antwerp tiles with pictures taken from the New Testament. They were smoked and faded now, but they still told their story. The mantelpiece and the doors were a mass of the most elaborate carving.

There were still some old houses standing in New York that had been built with bricks brought from Holland. Charles was very much interested in these curiosities and had found one of the houses down in Pearl Street.

Then they drove up through McGowan's Pass, where Washington had planned to make a decisive stand at the battle of Harlem Heights. There was the ledge of rock and the pretty lake that was to be Central Park some day. It was all wildness now.

There was so much to see that Dr. Joe declared they had no more time to spend following Washington's retreat.

"But it was just grand that he should come back here to be inaugurated the first President of the United States," said Charles. "I am proud of having had that in New York."

"The city has a great many famous points," said Dr. Joe; "but we seem to have lost our enthusiasm over them. Beyond there," nodding his head over east, "is the Murray House that can tell its story. Handsome Mrs. Murray, and she was a Quaker, too, made herself so charming in her hospitality to the British generals that she detained them long enough for Silliman's brigade to retreat to Harlem. Washington was awaiting them at the Apthorpe House, and they had left that place not more than fifteen minutes when the British came flying in the hot haste of pursuit. So but for Mrs. Murray's smiles and friendliness they might have captured our Washington as well as the city."

"That was splendid," declared Charles enthusiastically.

"And maybe as a boy Lindley Murray might have thought up his grammar that he was to write later on to puzzle your brains," continued Dr. Joe.

"Well, that is odd, too. I'll forgive him his grammar," said Ben, with a twinkle in his eye.

"And if we don't go on we will have no time for Professor Audubon and the birds. But we could ramble about all day."

"I didn't know there were so many interesting things in the city. They seem somehow a good ways off when you are studying them," replied Charles.

He really wished Hanny was in the carriage. She was so eager about all these old stories.

Then they went over to Tenth Avenue. There was the old Colonial house, with its broad porch and wide flight of steps. It was country then with its garden and fields, its spreading trees and grassy slopes.

And there was Professor Audubon on