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

forty dollars.

"We will have to talk to papa. He thought he might drop in."

The children did not tire of waiting. Hanny thought she might spend a whole day looking over everything, and listening to the dainty, enchanting music. But Mrs. Dean said she _must_ go.

Just at that instant Mr. Jasper arrived, having been detained. His wife spoke in a little aside, and he showed his interest at once. Why, yes, a music-box could not fail to be a great delight to Daisy.

Mr. Gerard wound up two or three of them again. Then the ladies decided they would ride up in the stage with the children. Mr. Jasper and Sam would see to Daisy's safety.

And the result was that Mr. Jasper bought the music-box, ordering it sent home the next day. Daisy was speechless with joy. Sam carried her out and put her into her chair.

"I don't believe I shall ever be afraid to go out again," she said eagerly. Indeed she did not mind the eyes that peered at her now. Some were very pitying and sympathetic.

As Charles was putting away many of the choice articles for the night Mr. Gerard slipped a dollar into his hand.

"That's your commission," he said smilingly, "on unexpected good fortune. And I shall be so sorry to lose you. I wish it was the first of August instead of the last, or that you didn't want to go back to school."


CHAPTER XVIII

SUNDRY DISSIPATIONS

The schools were all opened again. Hanny wasn't too big to go to Mrs. Craven's, indeed her school commenced with some girls two or three years older. Ben went to work, starting off in the morning with John. Jim felt rather lonely.

His best girl had been undeniably "snifty" to him. Something _had_ happened to her at last. Through a friend her father had secured a position in the Custom House. It was not very high, but it had an exalted sound. And instead of the paltry five hundred dollars he earned at the shoe store, the salary was a thousand. They were going to move around in First Avenue. Hanny was sorry that it was a few doors above Mrs. Craven's. If Lily had only gone out of the neighborhood!

Of course she disdained the public school. She was going to Rutgers. She held her head very high as they went back and forth during the removal, and stared at Hanny as if she had never known her.

But there were so many things to interest Hanny. Sometimes she read the paper to her father, and it was filled with threats and excitements. In the year before, the independence of Texas had been consented to by Mexico on condition that her separate existence should be maintained. But on the Fourth of July, at a convention, the people had accepted some terms offered by the United States, and declared for annexation. For fear of a sudden alarm General Zachary Taylor had been sent with an army of occupation, and Commodore Connor with a squadron of naval vessels to the Gulf of Mexico. The talk of war ran high.

Then we were in a difficulty with England about some Oregon boundaries. "The whole of Oregon or none," was the cry. England was given a year's notice that steps would be taken to bring the question to a settlement. Timid people declared that wild land was not worth quarrelling about.

If you could see an atlas of those days I think you would be rather surprised, and we are all convinced now that geography is by no means an exact science. The little girl and her father studied it all out. There was big, unwieldy Oregon. There were British America and Russian America. There were Nova Zembla and Spitzbergen, and though there were dreams of an open Polar Sea, no one was disturbing it. We had a great American Desert, and some wild lands the other side of the Rocky Mountains. An intrepid young explorer, John Charles Fremont, had discovered an inland sea which he had named Salt Lake, and then gone up to Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River.

He had started again now to survey California and Oregon. We thought Kansas and Nebraska very far West in those days, and the Pacific coast was an almost unknown land. We had just ratified a treaty with China, after long obstinacy on their part, and Japan was still The Hermit Kingdom and the Mikado an unknown quantity.

And so everybody was talking war. But then it was so far away one didn't really need to be frightened unless we had war with England.

There were various other matters that quite disturbed the little girl. It had not seemed strange in the summer to have Dr. Hoffman come and take Margaret out driving, or for an evening walk. But now he began to come on Sunday afternoon and stay to tea. Mrs. Underhill was very chatty and pleasant with him. She had accepted the fact of Margaret's engagement, and to tell the truth was really proud of it. Already she was beginning to "lay by," as people phrased it, regardless of Lindley Murray, for her wedding outfit. There were a few choice things of Cousin Lois' that she meant for her. Pieces of muslin came in the house and were cut up into sheets and pillow-cases. They were all to be sewed over-seam and hemmed by hand. A year would be none too long in which to get ready.

Josie one day said something about Margaret being engaged. Hanny made no reply. She went home in a strange mood. To be sure, Steve had married Dolly, but that was different. How could Margaret leave them all and go away with some one who did not belong to them! She could not understand the mystery. It was as puzzling as Cousin Lois' death. She did not know then it was a mystery even to those who loved, and the poets who wrote about it.

Her mother sat by the front basement window sewing. Martha was finishing the ironing and singing:


"O how happy are they
Who their Saviour obey
And have laid up their treasure above."


Martha had been converted the winter before and joined the Methodist church in Norfolk Street. The little girl went with her sometimes to the early prayer-meeting Sunday evening, for she was enraptured with the singing.

But she went to her mother now, standing straight before her with large, earnest eyes.

"Mother," with a strange solemnity in her tone, "are you going to let Margaret marry Dr. Hoffman?"

"Law, child, how you startled me!" Her mother sewed faster than ever. "Why, I don't know as I had much to do with it any way. And I suppose they'd marry anyhow. When young people fall in love----"

"Fall in love." She had read that in some of the books. It must be different from just loving.

"Don't be silly," said her mother, between sharpness and merriment. "Everybody falls in love sooner or later and marries. Almost everybody. And if I had not fallen in love with your father and married him, you mightn't have had so good a one."

"Oh, mother, I'm so glad you did!" She flung her arms about her mother's neck and kissed her so rapturously that the tears came to her mother's eyes. Why, she wouldn't have missed the exquisite joy of having this little girl for all the world!

"There, child, don't strangle me," was what she said, in an unsteady voice.

"But Dr. Hoffman isn't like father----"

"No, dear. And Margaret isn't like me, now. They are young, and maybe when they have been married a good many years they will be just as happy, growing old together. And since Margaret loves him and he loves her--why, we are all delighted with Dolly. She's just another daughter."

"But we have a good many sons," said the little girl, without seeing the humor of it.

"Yes, we didn't really need him, just yet. But he's Joe's dear friend and a nice young man, and your father is satisfied. It's the way of the world. Little girls can't understand it very well, but they always do when they're grown up. There, go hang up your bonnet, and then you may set the table."

Yes, it was a great mystery. Margaret seemed suddenly set apart, made sacred in some way. Hanny's intensity of thought had no experience to shape or restrain it. All the girls had liked Charles,--perhaps if there had been several boys and spasms of jealousy between the girls, she might have been roused to a more correct idea. But though they had made him the father, a lover had been quite outside of their simple category.

Margaret came down presently. She had on her pretty brown merino trimmed with bands of scarlet velvet, and at her throat a white bow just edged with scarlet. Her front hair was curled in ringlets.

"Mother, can't we have supper quite soon, or can't I? The concert begins at half-past seven and we want to be there early and get a good seat. Dr. Hoffman is coming at half-past six."

Father came in. Mrs. Underhill jumped up and brought in the tea. Jim came whistling down the area steps. They did not need to wait for John and Benny Frank.

Hanny looked at her sister quite as if she were a new person, with some solemn distinction. How had she come to love Dr. Hoffman?

She had not settled it when she went to bed alone. There was a dreary feeling now of years and years without Margaret.

That was Friday, and the following Sunday Dr. Hoffman marched into the parlor with a vital at-home step. Margaret was up-stairs. Hanny sat in her little rocker reading her Sunday-school book. He smiled and came over to her, took away her book, and clasping both hands drew her up, seated himself, and her on his knee before she could make any resistance.

"Hanny," he began, "do you know you are going to be my little sister? I can't remember when I had a _little_ sister, mine always seemed big to me. And I am very glad to have you. You are such a sweet, dear little girl. Won't you give me a word of welcome?"

Something in his voice touched her.

"I wasn't glad on Friday," she said slowly. "I don't want Margaret to go away----"

"Then you will have to take me in here."

"There's Stephen's room," she suggested naively.

"Yes, that would do. But I'm not going to take Margaret away in a long, long time."

"Oh!" She was greatly relieved.

"But I want you to love me," and he gave her a squeeze, wondering how she could have kept so deliciously innocent. "Won't you try? You will make Margaret ever so much happier. We should be sad if you didn't love us, and now if you love one, you must love the other."

Then Margaret came down, and she said the same thing, so what could Hanny do but promise. And it seemed not to disturb any one else. When she spoke of the prospect to her father, he said with a laugh and a hug: "Well, I have my little girl yet."

Dolly and Stephen took possession of their new abode and had a "house-warming," a great, big, splendid party almost as grand as the wedding. And what a beautiful house it was! There was a bathroom and marble basins, and gas in every room,