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

on the old porch grandmamma sat and read; and it still hangs out with a tempting aspect, just as when she watched the pedestrians and the reverend fathers, who yet go up and down. And here is the little old Poe Cottage, about which such a flavor of romance lingers, though the place has been modernised into a "Terrace," and built about with city pretentiousness. It is still the same little low place, not a bit changed since she sat there on the door-sill and talked over her heroes with the poet. She can still see the tall spare figure of Mrs. Clemm in her rocking-chair doing her bit of mending and casting anxious glances at the son of her love, about whom so much has been written in later days. People still quote the "Raven" and "Ullalume," but all she cares to remember is "Annabel Lee," and the weird stories are not to her taste.

The old Odell house at West Farms was swept away long ago; Janey is a grandmother on a big farm that is crowded with summer boarders. Polly is in Oregon, her sons coming up with the country. And up a short distance, Jerome Park used to be thronged by the beauty and fashion of the city on racing days. And that has gone, too.

A little to the eastward is the beautiful Bronx Park, that is going to tread closely on its down-town rival. Oh, is Central Park really down-town? There are woods and wilds, ravines and the leisurely stream, trees that have been brought from everywhere, walks and drives, hills clothed with verdure, and the old Lorillard mansion still grand, with its legend of love and tragedy. Its gardens have changed indeed. Grandmamma remembers the small old man, who used to gather his rose leaves day by day from the fragrant beds,--Lorillard's rose-snuff was a great thing two generations ago.

"Did they really take snuff?" asks Ethel, in disgust. "How queer!"

"And you know," says Rose, "that Uncle Herman told us of a man who declined to take snuff, because if nature had intended his nose for a dust-pan, she would have put it the other side up."

How they both laugh at that!

They have a governess friend at home, but they are continually picking up knowledge in their rides and rambles about. They know the old city that was afraid to stray above Union Square, they know the modern city with its fifty years of improvements, and they will grow up to womanhood in Greater New York, the Star City of the Continent.

Here in one of the pleasant streets overlooking the park, they live. They are not rich; no one is now who doesn't go up in the millions. There is a pretty house looking like a hotel, an apartment house,--very moderate since it only accommodates three families. Joseph, the eldest son, who should have been a doctor, but is a fine architect, is married, and with his wife and two babies, and a dear friend who is an artist, has one side, and the other is grandmamma's. It is quite like a house by themselves, only there is a beautiful square hall, and a handsome stairway one could hardly have space for in a small house. Herman, the second son, lives with them, and is a scientist, and wields the pen of a ready writer. He has no taste for the toil and moil of money-getting,--a refined, studious, thoughtful young man.

They have all had their share of happiness. Dolly and Stephen are really old people, and have a flock of grandchildren. Hanny can see her own father again in Stephen, and Dolly, since she has grown stout and white-haired, suggests her mother. Stephen's sons are promising young business-men. There is only one little grave marking their prosperous pathway,--a baby girl, who went so soon they have hardly missed her.

Margaret is still handsome and aristocratic. Dr. Hoffman long ago gave up practice, his property interests increased so rapidly. Their sons and daughters are of the higher society order, intellectual, fine and noble, and a power in the land. One daughter has married an Englishman of rank, the other is the wife of a Bishop. Margaret is serene and satisfied, and still very fond of her little sister.

Dear Doctor Joe lectures mostly, and attends to hospital surgery, still keeping his tender sympathy for suffering humanity. After Grandmother Van Kortlandt went away, he brought Daisy Jasper home, to help fill the vacant spaces. And presently, when Mrs. Jasper was left alone, she came, too, the house being so large. Two mothers-in-law, according to the rules of family lore, ought to have quarrelled and sulked, but they didn't. And the babies that came were a source of delight. Though there was suffering in Daisy's life, there was so much joy that, to her, it was the unalloyed delight of living.

And Jim outgrew his fancy, and had many another one that did not strike deep enough in the soil to lead him to ask a woman to marry him. But he and Daisy were fast friends, and he saw that no one could ever have cared for her as well and wisely as dear Doctor Joe, with his wonderful tenderness.

Jim, brilliant and gay and witty, was a fine, fluent speaker, studying such eloquent models as Webster and Choate, and the vanished Clay. Did Hanny remember, when they had lost his election, and he, Jim, had turned out with the Democratic boys? There are grave questions now, on wider than party lines, and sometimes the hearts of thoughtful statesmen beat with an undefined fear.

The fun-loving, dancing side of his nature often asserts itself. Women adore him. Though he is not rich, the mothers smile on him for the "promise yet to be." Even Lily Williamson tries her arts; admiration is what she lives for now. She is one of the handsome, fascinating society vampires, who make great capital out of matrimonial infelicities, to appeal to the sympathies of really good and generous men, who are the more easily caught in the silken nets. One day she leaves her worthless drunken husband, when his money is all spent, and elopes with a young fellow of excellent family who has just come into a fortune, and later becomes one of the adventuresses that disgrace Americans in the eyes of European propriety.

Ben and Delia go abroad,--Ben in the interest of his paper, which is next to his wife; Delia to write travel letters for a weekly, and find material for her novel. It is quite a picnic, and they enjoy the economies.

Then the clouds that have been gathering a long, long while, break over the country, and all is tumult from end to end. The Seventh Regiment "boys" go down to Washington, with brave, laughing, high-hearted Jim, who understands that it is no child's play, but a bitter struggle that will call forth the best energies of the country, and who enlists for "three years or the whole war." Ben hurries home, and takes his place in the ranks. When things are at their lowest ebb, and men's hearts are sinking with fear, quiet, grave John buckles on a soldier's haversack and marches away. The others have substitutes.

Ah, what times they were! It is well that flowers can spring up on a battlefield. The little girl keeps track of her heroes. Kearny, who has seen Magenta and Solferino, meets his fate at Chantilly. Many another one who has come up to fame, many new ones, who are on the march to win or die.

John is wounded, patched up in a hospital, and honorably discharged, lamed for life. But he has done good work. Ben has a slight mishap, and Delia sends her two babies and their nurse to her sister's, and goes to the hospital, and remains. Women of brains and kindly impulses are much needed.

And one night some wounded are brought in. There has been a fateful reconnoisance, but it has saved the regiment from destruction on the next day. This limp figure in a captain's uniform is laid tenderly on a cot; but the surgeon, after a brief examination, shakes his head. Oh, surely, she knows that handsome face with the clustering dark curls!

He opens his eyes, and after an instant says in a faint voice, "Oh, Dele, is that you?" then lapses into insensibility. There is nothing to be done; that is the cruelest of all. Once again, after a long while, he moves his head, and opens his eyes again, brave and clear even in death.

"Delia," in a strange, strong voice that surprises her, "kiss them all good-night for me;" and James Odell Underhill has gone to the land of everlasting morning.

The war ends; and Ben comes home none the worse. He has reached his ambition, and is a "newspaper man" in every sense of the word. Delia sets up housekeeping, takes home the babies, and in the course of time adds two more to them.

But there is another ferment, and women are coming to the fore. There are clubs and suffrage meetings, lectures; women have even invaded churches, and preach; and colleges for higher education are springing up everywhere. There are poets and philosophers, there are teachers and orators; some of them ill-judged, because they are fond of notoriety; but there are always some wry sheep in the best of flocks. Have men always been honest and wise and honourable and grand?

Delia lectures and writes, and is one of the able women of the day. Mrs. Hoffman on her serene heights _is_ mortified. Mother Underhill is sure Ben has to go to a restaurant, that his stockings are never mended, his buttons always off. But patent buttons are invented, and collar-buttons that cannot be ironed off by the "washerwoman," supply a long-felt want. Ben is stout and comfortable-looking, and the same grave, affectionate fellow. The children seem to come up without much sickness or trouble. When Mother Underhill feels disposed to cavil and criticise, for she _is_ shocked by the new woman's heresies, she recalls the "last good-night kiss," and is silent. What if there had been no one at hand to bring it home?

Delia's girls grow up into "modern women." It is true they do not spend half a day a week darning stockings, neither have they learned to put the exquisite over and under darns in tablecloths that the little girl could do by the time she was ten. But they sing and play; they are ready speech-makers, and clubs are glad to get them. They know about Greek antiquities and Central American wonders; they can take up the questions of the day intelligently; one paints really very well, and has entered pictures at the Academy. One is interested in industrial schools for girls, and the doctor, who is "Daisy Jasper," a tall, bright, good-looking woman, has a big, tender heart for all babies who are suffering, and trains many a poor mother how to care judiciously for her offspring.

But all the nieces think Aunt Nan just the loveliest and sweetest body in the world. They send her flowers and bric-a-brac; they beg her to come here and there to receptions and charity bazaars, and reunions of all sorts. She is so small and dainty, and they are all growing up to the new stature.

George has come home at last, after varying fortunes. He has seen San Francisco built and destroyed by fire, and rebuilt, and at last planned into a handsome city. He has mined and been in the wild life known only to the few remaining "forty-niners." He has gained and lost, been burned out and robbed, been one of the heads of a