A Little Girl of Long Ago - Amanda Minnie Douglas (top 100 novels of all time txt) 📗

It seemed then as if all babies had beautiful fat necks, and pretty dimpled arms.

Dolly's little girl was called Annette Dorothea; but her household name was Annie.

Little Stevie had come to grandmother's to stay a week or so. He cried a little the first night for mamma. Hanny begged to have him put in her bed; and she sat and told him Mother Goose Melodies until he dropped asleep. He was such a sweet, cunning roly-poly, that she couldn't help kissing him when she came to bed; and she longed to take him in her arms and hug him up; but she was afraid he might wake and cry.

The next night he was quite ready to go to Nan's bed, and didn't cry a bit.

Hanny had a delightful time taking him round among the girls. Her mother said, "You and your father will have that child spoiled." But Hanny might have turned the tables, if she had seen grandmother when she had to be in school.

As for Grandfather Underhill, he thought with Hanny there never had been such a smart and wonderful baby. Jim taught him some rather reprehensible tricks. He was still full of fun and mischief, and already had a crowd of admirers in college.

And, oh, how they missed the baby when he was gone! It didn't seem as if one little mite could fill the house; but it was big and empty now.

John's courtship had not been so engrossing as Stephen's. They had met Miss Bradley, to be sure; and Mr. Bradley was a well-to-do man with two sons and one daughter who had been named Cleanthe, after the heroine of a story Mrs. Bradley had read in her girlhood. Mr. Bradley had wanted his daughter called Priscilla, after his mother; and Mrs. Bradley's mother's name was Jemima.

"I did think Mimy and Silly two of the worst names in the world. And there isn't any nickname for Cleanthe," was Mrs. Bradley's explanation when any one wondered at the name.

Miss Cleanthe was a very nice, well-bred, rather conventional girl, with none of Dolly's dash and spirit. She was a good housekeeper, and could make all but her best dresses. They were to take the second floor of Mr. Bradley's house, and set up their own home, until they felt rich enough to indulge in a house owned by themselves.

George came down about this time to spend a month. He was decidedly tired of farming.

"Of course, if I wanted to marry and build on the old place, it wouldn't be so bad. Uncle Faid keeps in the same rut, and you can't shake him out of it. Barton Finch is the kind of man who begins with a great flourish, but flats out towards the end. I'm tired of them all!"

"It will be your turn to marry next," said his mother. "And then I'll seem quite a young woman with only three children. I _do_ suppose we'll go up to Yonkers some time and spend our old age there; though I begin to think your father is weaned away."

George laughed. "Father seems about half Uncle Faid's age. And at eighty, you won't be as old as Aunt Crete. If I had lots of money, to do as I liked--but farming so near by doesn't amount to much."

The Germans and Swiss had to come in and show us about market-gardening and floriculture.

George went down-town with Stephen, and talked with Ben, and listened to the groups on every corner discussing the golden land. He was young and strong; why shouldn't he go and seek his fortune?

Miss Bradley had a very nice evening wedding, with dancing and a supper. She was very well looking, but not as handsome as Margaret, or as pretty and piquant as Dolly. She did not seem to come close to their hearts, as Dolly had; though Mrs. Underhill was very well satisfied, and knew she would make John happy. John was a sort of solid, sober-going fellow, quite different from Steve and Joe.


CHAPTER VII

THROUGH THE EYES OF YOUTH

Then George surprised everybody by his determination to go to California.

"There are chances to make fortunes here," declared Stephen. "With the crowds going out there, and no homes and no provision made for them, there must be a good deal of suffering. The stories of gold are too fabulous for belief."

"I want to see something of the world. And all the countries on the Pacific Coast are rich in gold and treasures. I wonder what the history of the world would have been if that side had been settled first?"

"The history of Mexico and Peru. Wealth and indolence and degeneration. And the East is nearer the commerce of the world. Oh, the old Pilgrim fathers didn't go so far out of the way!" laughingly.

"And they went in the face of almost everything. We have a little of their love of adventure. I don't know as my heart is so set upon a fortune. You wouldn't believe it; but I've wished myself that intrepid explorer Fremont dozens of times. There is such a splendid excuse for going now."

At first, they were all strongly opposed. John told him to come and join them, and keep turning his money over in up-town real estate. Mrs. Underhill pleaded. She was very fond of having her children about her. But when he went down-town, and heard the exciting talk, and saw the vessels of every kind fitting out, he came home more resolved than ever.

"And then we will build the house on that beautiful knoll,--a large, rambling, commodious place, big enough to take us all in, a refuge for our old age," laughed George.

They found he was not to be talked out of it. Ben was on his side, and not only gave him encouragement, but offered to lend him a little money he had saved up, and proposed to go shares with him.

Indeed, it was a time of great excitement. The ship-yards on the East River were veritable bee-hives; and morning, noon, and night the streets were thronged with workmen. The clipper-ships began to astonish the world, and the steamers to compete with those of England. The new treaty with China was opening possibilities of trade to that country.

George decided to go by water to Vera Cruz. Round the Horn seemed too long a journey for impatient youth. If he shouldn't like it, and should not see any special prospect, he could come back the richer by his experience, if nothing else. People went to China. They often stayed two years in Europe.

"Yes," said Ben; "there's Mr. Theodore Whitney. He has had no end of a good time, and is in much better health then when he went away."

"And Fremont has gone through a great many hardships, and been in some battles, and still lives," added George, laughingly. "And some of the people in Yonkers died who had never been more than ten miles away from home."

Mrs. Underhill gave in, as mothers of big sons are often forced to do. Mr. Underhill was rather pleased with the boy's spirit. Doctor Joe felt that it wasn't a bad thing altogether, and that it would be nice to have an authentic account of that wonderful country.

So the last of March, George said good-bye to everybody. His father, Stephen, and Joe went down to see him off. It looked as if half the sailing-craft in the world were gathered in New York harbour.

Right on the top of this, something happened that engrossed the attention of the younger members of the family. There had been a disturbance in Paris; the old Bonaparte faction coming to the fore, and Louis Philippe had fled from the throne to England. Napoleon Bonaparte had shattered the divine right of kings nearly forty years earlier.

But the most startling link in the chain of events, was that Louis Napoleon, the son of Hortense Beauharnais and the once King of Holland, who, for fomenting one revolution, had been confined in the Fortress of Ham for life. He had escaped, and, with the prestige of the family name, had roused the enthusiasm of France, and helped to form a Republic. He was elected as one of the Deputies. Everybody was saying then the French were too volatile, and too fond of grandeur, to accept the democratic tendencies of a republic for any length of time. And they wondered if he would not follow in the steps of his famous uncle, and one day aim at a throne and an empire. Others hailed the step as a great advancement in the rights of the people, and thought it prefigured that Europe would be republican rather than Cossack, recalling the elder Emperor's prediction.

And Hanny learned that this young man, who was before long to be Emperor of the French, had lived in New York, as well as Louis Philippe. Joe took her down-town to the old Delmonico Restaurant, which was considered quite elegant in its day, and had entertained many famous people. Here, the young fellow who had been the son of a king, and was now an exile, used to dine, and gather about him the flower of the fashionable world, as it was called. And Lorenzo Delmonico, who rarely went into his kitchen now, would go and cook a dinner for this guest, who had the high art of persuasion in an eminent degree, it would seem. Afterward the Prince would entertain the other guests with curious tricks with cards, and conversation. Now his life bid fair to be almost as eventful as his uncle's; and, like him, he was doomed to die an exile on English soil.

Joe and Hanny took their dinner in the old place, though now the Delmonicos were fitting up a hotel at the lower end of Broadway which was destined to become quite as famous, and to house many notable people.

She was so engrossed with reading and studying that sometimes she hardly found an hour for the babies. She and Daisy, like most very young girls, had a passion for poetry. Mrs. Sigourney they thought rather grave and dry; but Mrs. Hemans, with her soft flowing numbers and beautiful face, was a great favourite. Longfellow was beginning to be appreciated, and several other poets that one saw now and then on Broadway. There were some pathetic poems by a Western writer, Alice Cary, that used to go quite to the little girl's tender heart. She had a wonderful memory for any rhythmic production, and used to say them over to her father. If she didn't sit on his lap,--and her mother had almost laughed her out of it,--she leaned her arms on his knee, or rested her head against his shoulder, while her soft, sweet voice went purling along like,--


"A hidden brook
In the leafly month of June."


The Dean girls did not care so much for poetry. They wanted stories; and stories and books were beginning to spring up on every hand. Miss Delia Whitney was writing a novel. She had accomplished some successful stories, and had one in "The Ladies' Book," the pretty fashion magazine of the day.

Poor deaf Aunt Clem had dropped out of life like a child going to sleep. Aunt Patty kept well and bright. Nora was growing up into a tall girl, and went to Rutger's Institute, though she confessed to Hanny, "She just hated all schools, and wouldn't go a day longer, only it was not quite the thing to grow up an ignoramus."

And there