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

some childish tears in her eyes? But the main thing for her was to get strong and be courageous, and take her share of the world's knowledges and beautiful things. She wondered sometimes why the Lord Jesus, who was so wise and good and pitiful, should have let this misfortune come upon her, or why, when all the doctors were so in earnest, they could not have made her straight and well. And when people said, "Oh, what a pity, with that lovely face!" she thought she could have borne it better if she had been plainer.

When the great love that thinks for its neighbour imbues us all, we shall cease to make personal comments, and endeavour to bear each others burdens with silent, tender grace.

Doctor Joe was her comfort and inspiration. No one could ever estimate what his kindly interest had done for her. He was so cheerful and full of fun and sunshine. Elderly women had begun to pet up the young doctor, in spite of his youth.

In fact there were many virtues ascribed to experience in those days; and now we have learned the truth is in the application, that living through a great deal doesn't always bring wisdom.

Grandmother Van Kortlandt and Aunt Katrina had a fine time visiting Stephen. They were quite stylish, old-fashioned style, that wore fine English thread-laces with the scent of lavender, and had their silvery hair done up in puffs with side-combs. They were a little precise and formal, and would have been horrified if the children had not said "Yes, ma'am," and "No, ma'am." No free and easy manners for them!

The little girl was quite sure she loved Grandmother Underhill the best. Both called her Haneran, as if they were a little jealous of a full share in her name. Grandmother made quite a long visit, for she said, "She might never come again, she was getting rather feeble. She didn't expect to live to see the little girl married."

Hanny's father declared, "She couldn't be married until she was twenty-five, just in time to save her from being an old maid."

"But I won't be very old at twenty-five," she replied, smiling out of her big innocent eyes. "And I thought I wouldn't get married at all."

They _did_ miss Margaret. But the little girl had to study hard, and wait on her mother, and practise her music, and visit. There were so many places clamouring for her.

The boys at Houston Street missed Jim Underhill also, though he often came up that way when he could get off, which meant when he did not have to stay for a recitation. Though they were up to pranks, they were not cruel or malicious. If they could "make fun," and rhyme a fellow's name ridiculously, and ring door-bells now and then, or leave a nicely done-up parcel on some one's stoop, wrapped and tied and directed, containing a box of ashes, or a brick, they were satisfied. They still considered it fun to have Biddy Brady dance, and Limpy Dick, as they called the lame girl, run a race. She hopped along with her hand on her lame knee with surprising rapidity.


CHAPTER V

WINTER HAPPENINGS

Margaret came home and had a party at her house, "Infair" the older people called it. Then a family tea at home, and another at Stephen's. Mrs. Verplank, the Doctor's half-sister, gave her a very elegant reception.

She was oddly changed, somehow, just as sweet, but with more dignity and composure; and Jim couldn't make her turn red by teasing her. The little girl noticed that her mother treated Margaret with a peculiar deference and never scolded her; and she said Philip to Dr. Hoffman.

He had some serious talks with the little girl, for he pretended to be afraid she would love Dolly and Stephen the best. Everybody had a desire to hold her, because she was so little and light. She was not to make the baby an excuse to go the oftenest to Dolly's.

"Oh, dear," she rejoined, with a sigh, "and if John should get married, and the rest of them, as they grow up, I wouldn't have any time left for myself. But Joe isn't going to be married."

Dr. Hoffman laughed at that.

John had a sweetheart. He always dressed up in his best on Wednesday night. Young men in those days thought of homes and families of their own. There were no clubs to take them in.

An odd little incident happened to Margaret's _menage_. Stephen had one of Aunt Mary's grandsons as porter in the store. Another, who had been brought up as a sort of house-servant to some elderly people that death had visited, came to the city, and Stephen sent him to Dr. Hoffman, who was inquiring about a factotum. He was a very well-looking and well-mannered young coloured lad, and knew how to drive and care for a horse. He was quite a cook also, and soon learned to do the marketing.

Margaret kept house for herself, and enjoyed her pretty new china and beautiful cut-glass. And after a month or two Dolly persuaded her to rent two rooms to two ladies, the back room on the second floor, and one on the third. She was glad to have some company when the Doctor had to be out. One of the ladies coloured plates for magazines and illustrated books. This was done by hand then, and was considered quite artistic work. We had not printed in colours yet. The ladies were very refined, and had a small income beside the work.

The Doctor took Margaret out every pleasant afternoon. His practice was not large enough to work him very severely. In the evening they read or sang, as she played very nicely now. But she missed the breezy boys and their doings, and her mother's cheery voice ordering every one about, and, oh, she missed the little girl who didn't come half often enough.

She began a choice piece of work for her, a silk quilt. No one had gone insane over crazy work then. This was shapely, decorous diamonds, with the name of the wearer, or a date, embroidered on each block. The Morgans had given her pieces from Paris and Venice and Holland, and even Hong Kong. Some were a hundred and more years old, and were gowns of quite famous people.

This fall the American Institute Fair was held at Niblo's Garden. There were many curious things. Both telegraphs had been put up,--House's with its letter printing, Morse's with its cabalistic signs. How words could travel through a bit of wire puzzled most people. Uncle Faid went with them one afternoon.

"No use to tell me," he declared. "The fellow at one end knows just what the fellow at the other end is going to say. Now if they sent it in a box, or a letter, it would look reasonable."

"I'll send you a message," said Ben; "you go down at the end, and see if this doesn't come to you."

He wrote on a slip of paper, and gave it to Uncle Faid, who went to the other end with a disbelieving shake of the head. And when the receiver wrote it out, and Uncle Faid compared it, the astonishment was indescribable.

"There's some jugglery about it," he still insisted. "Stands to reason a bit of wire can't really know what you say."

Hanny brought home her telegraph message; and when she showed it to Nora Whitney, the child declared it was like the queer things in some books her papa had, called hieroglyphics. But Doctor Joe told her a stranger thing than that. He found the verses in the Psalms that were supposed to prefigure the telegraph:--


"There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.

"Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to
the end of the world."


"But they can't go across the ocean," said the little girl, confidently.

"Why, they are discussing the feasibility of crossing the Hudson with some kind of sunken cable. What we shall be doing fifty years from now--and I shall not be such a dreadfully old man! We are learning how to live longer as well."

Fifty years! and she would be as old as the grandmothers!

The other wonderful thing was the sewing-machine. Elias Howe had learned how to thread the needle, the opposite way, by putting the eye in the point. There was a little bent piece underneath that caught the loop while a thread ran through it. They gave away samples, and everybody admitted that it _was_ wonderful.

The little girl said she could sew a great deal better. And her mother declared such sewing was hardly good enough for a feed-bag. Her father laughed, and told her rosy fingers were good enough sewing-machine for him.

Artificial legs and feet interested Doctor Joe very much. They had curious springs and wires, and the outside was pink, like real flesh,--in fact, they looked uncanny, they were so real. Hanny had seen several old men stumping around on cork or wooden legs about which there could be no deception. But when any one met with a mishap now, they could fix him up "limber as an eel," Doctor Joe said.

There was a deal of curious machinery and implements that some people smiled over, which, like the sewing-machines, made fortunes for their inventors presently; beautiful articles and jewelry; a great vegetable and flower exhibit; a small loom; weaving; carving of all kinds; and cloths and silks. Indeed, the Fair was considered a very great thing, and the country people who came in to visit it felt almost as if they had been to a strange country. Every afternoon and evening it was crowded.

Jim liked his new school very much, and soon flung his Latin words at his little sister in perfect broadsides. Then he found that Ben had somehow picked up a good deal of Latin, and knew all the Greek alphabet; and instead of laughing at Charles Reed, as a Miss Nancy, he became quite friendly with him.

All the children came home for a Christmas dinner, and had a delightful time. Then Martha was married, and went to her own housekeeping, and a cousin of the little German girls who lived in Houston Street, who had just come from Germany, petitioned for a trial. She was so bright and clean and ambitious to learn American ways that after a fortnight, Mrs. Underhill decided to keep her.

When all the visitors had gone, Hanny found it very lonely sleeping in a big room by herself. And as they couldn't move her downstairs, Mr. and Mrs. Underhill went upstairs and changed their room to the guest-chamber. Hanny missed her sister very much when night came. But then she had so many lessons to study; and after the history of Holland, they took up that of Spain, which was as fascinating as any romance.

Everybody was a good deal excited this winter about a curious phenomenon. At a small town in Western New York two sisters had announced that they could hold communication with the spirit-world, and receive messages from the dead. Little raps announced the spirit of your friend or relative. To imaginative people, it was simply wonderful. And now the Misses Fox were giving exhibitions and making converts.

People recalled the old Salem witchcraft, and not a few considered it direct dealing with the Evil One. Ben was deeply interested. He and Joe talked over clairvoyance and mesmerism,--a curious power developed by a