"Shed not a tear o'er your friend's early bier,When I am gone, I am gone."
"Shed not a tear o'er your friend's early bier,When I am gone, I am gone."
Aunt Frasie heard her through the first verse, and then said impatiently:
"You've sung that at so many funerals, Maria Jane, that it makes me feel creepy. You used to sing 'Banks and Braes.' Do try that."
It had been said of Maria Jane in her earlier years that she had sung "Bonnie Doon" so pathetically she had moved the roomful to tears. Her voice was rather thin now, with a touch of shrillness on the high notes, but the little girl listened entranced. Then she sang "Scots wha' hae" and "Roy's wife of Aldivaloch." Margaret had come home, the supper-table was spread, the men came in, and they sat down to the feast. They teased Steve a little, and bade John beware, and were so merry all the evening that when it came her bedtime the little girl had forgotten all about the world coming to an end.
The girls discussed it the next day. Most of their mothers and fathers had scouted the idea. Josie Dean was very positive it couldn't be—her father had been going over the Bible and the Millerites had made a big mistake.
"And girls," said Josie earnestly, "St. John, one of the disciples of our Saviour, lived to be a hundred years old. Some people taught that the world would come to an end before he died. And now it's 1843, and it's stood all this while, though every now and then there's been an excitement about it. And I ain't going to be afraid at all, there now!"
The little girl wondered whether she would be afraid. But Friday evening the boys were full of it, and Steve said it was nonsense. She crept up into her father's lap and asked him in a tremulous whisper if he was afraid.
"No, dear," he answered, pressing her to his heart.
"But if itshouldcome."
"Well—I'd take my little girl and mother and Margaret——"
"And what would you do?" as he made a long pause.
"I'd beg to be taken into heaven. And we would all be together. I think God would be good to us."
"And the boys."
"Yes, the boys." He wondered within himself if they were all fit for heaven. But he was quite sure the little girl was.
There was a very great excitement. For months there had been meetings of exhortation and prophesying, and appeals to conscience, to terror, to the desire of being saved from impending destruction. Last winter there had been revivals everywhere, yet during the summer thoughtful people had questioned whether the moral tone of the community had been any higher. There were heroic souls, that always rise to the surface in times of spiritual agitation. There were others moved by any excitement, who seized on this with a kind of ungovernable rapture.
No one spoke of it in Sunday-school. Hanny brought home "Little Blind Lucy," and was so lost in its perusal that she hardly wanted to leave off for half an hour with Joe. But her mother let her look over to see whether Lucy really did have her eyesight restored. She was so sleepy that when she had said her little prayer she felt quite sure that God would take care of her and the beautiful world He had made. It would be cruel to burn it all up.
But the children went to school on Monday. Martha washed as usual. She did think it would be a waste of labor and strength if the world came to an end, though she was sure clean clothes would burn up quicker, and if it had to be, one might as well have it over as soon as possible.
All things went on, the buying and selling, the business of the day, and in some houses there were weary pain-racked bodies that slipped out of life gently without waiting for the general conflagration.
Still a strange awe did pervade the city. Some of the churches were open, and people were on their knees weeping and sobbing to be made ready; others were full of faith and expectations, singing hymns, and impatiently waiting the moment when the trump would sound and they be caught up to glory. Down on Grand Street Hester Brown's uncle was giving away shoes, and wondering at the fatal unbelief of those who were so ready to accept. Here and there another of abounding faith was doing the same thing, or perhaps giving away things they did not need, hoping it would be accounted to them for good works.
Hester was not in school. Neither did she come on Tuesday, and that night was to be the fatal end of all things. A great many people went to church that day. The children did suffer from dread, though Lottie Brower kept up a sort of cheery bravado, as one whistles or sings in the dark.
"And I don't think Hester's been such an awful sight better than the rest of us. She answered correct one day when she had talked, and pretended she had forgotten all about it. And she was just mean enough about that clover-leaf pattern and wouldn't show a single girl. And she gets mad just as easy as the rest of us."
"I think we oughtn't get mad any more. And, girls, I'll lend you my knife to sharpen your pencils. We ought totryto be just as good as we could, for my Sunday-school teacher said if we died the world came to an end for us."
They made many resolves. Mrs. Craven thought they had never been so angelic in their lives.
But the little girl was very much "stirred up."
People didn't say nervous so much in those days. In fact nervousness was rather associated with whims and tempers. Joe came over to supper—he could get off from the hospital now and then. They were all talking about going to Delancey Street Church, where it was said people would be dressed in their ascension robes, and remain to the final change.
Margaret begged to go, and said she knew all her lessons. The boys had theirs to study. Jim scouted the idea of the world's coming to an end. Benny adduced several remarkable reasons why it couldn't come just yet. The Millerites had made a mistake in the true meaning of the "days" in Daniel.
"Are you quite sure?" asked the little girl timidly.
"Well—you'll see the same old world next week this time. Don't you get frightened, Hanny dear," and Ben kissed her reassuringly.
She sat by the boys and knit on her lace a while. Then her mother looked up from the stockings she was darning. She said "she always took Time by the forelock," and the little girl had a fancy some time she would drag him out. She wondered if she would really like to see Time with his hour-glass and scythe, and all his bones showing.
Mrs. Underhill looked up at the clock.
"My goodness, Hanny!" she exclaimed, "it's time you were in bed half an hour ago. Put up your lace. You'll be sleepy enough in the morning."
The little girl wound it round her needles and then stuck the ends in the stem of the spool and put it away in her basket. She kissed Ben and Jim good-night, and followed her mother. Her eyes had a half-frightened look and the pupils were very large. Mrs. Underhill felt out of patience that there should be so much talk about the world coming to an end before children. She knew Hanny was "just alive with terror." She couldn't pretend to explain anything to her; she was of the opinion that as you grew older "you found out things for yourself." And I am really afraid she didn't believe in total depravity for sweet little girls like Hanny. It was well enough for boys. So much of her life had been spent in doing, that she might have neglected some of the "mint, anise, and cummin." She undressed the little girl. Oh, how fair and pretty her shoulders were, and her round white arms that had a dimple at the top of the elbow. She was small for her age, but nice and plump, and her mother felt just this minute as if she would like to cuddle her up in her arms and kiss her as she had in babyhood. If she had, all the fear would have gone out of the little girl's heart.
Hanny said her prayer, and added to it, "Oh, Lord Jesus, please don't let the world come to an end to-night." Then her mother patted down the bed, took off one pillow and the pretty top quilt, and put her in, kissing her tenderly, the little trembling thing.
Then she stood still awhile.
"I do wonder what I did with your red coat," she began. "Cousin Cynthia said it might be let down and do for this winter. There's no little girl to grow into your clothes. Let me see—I put a lot of things in this closet. I remember pinning them up in linen pillow-cases, but I meant to store them in the cedar chest. I wonder if I have been that careless."
She stood up on a chair and threw down some bundles with unnecessary force. Then she stepped down and began to look them over, keeping up a running comment. She would not have admitted that she was talking against time, secretly hoping the little girl would drop off to sleep. But the coat was not in any of the bundles.
"I think it must be in the chest. While I'm about it I may as well go and see. If you have outgrown it, it could be made over into a dress; it's nice, fine merino, a little thicker than I'd buy for a dress, but your father would have just that piece. I'll get a candle and go up-stairs—I wouldn't trust a glass lamp with this horrid burning-fluid inmystoreroom. Hanny, be sure you don't get up and touch it," as if there was the slightest possibility. "I'll be down again in five minutes."
That was a shrewd motherly excuse not to leave the little girl alone in the dark, though she was never afraid.
She lay there very still, with a feeling of safety since her mother was up-stairs. Of course she was old enough to know a great many things and to have ideas on religious subjects. But I think the Underhills were more intelligent than intellectual, and people were still living rather simple lives, not yet impregnated with ideas. They had not had the old Puritan training, and the ferment of science and philosophy and transcendentalism had not invaded the country places. To-night in the city there were wise heads proving and disproving the times and half times, and days and signs, but they really had no interest for Mrs. Underhill, who was training her family the best she knew how, making good men and women.
And the little girl's ideas were extremely vague. She thought her soul was that part of her heart that beat. When it ceased beating you died and the body was left behind; so of course that was what went to heaven. And when she had been naughty or when she had left something undone and was hurrying with all her might to do it, this thing beat and throbbed. If she wanted something very much and was almost tempted to take it, the feeling came up in her throat, and she knew that was conscience. She was trying now to recall and repent of her sins, and oh, she did so wish her father was here. Would he be back before the end came, and take them all in his strong arms? and they would run—Oh, no! they were to be caught up in the clouds. But she would be safe where he was.
Years afterward, she was to understand how human and finite love foreshadowed the eternal. But then she could only believe, and her faith in her human father was the rock of her salvation.
And when her mother came down shehadfallen asleep, but she thought it would be just as well to leave the lamp burning until Margaret's return. She would look in now and then to see that it didn't explode. Burning-fluid was considered rather dangerous stuff.
Hanny was so tired that she slept soundly. It was almost midnight when the folks came home, and Mrs. Underhill begged Margaret to go to bed quietly and not disturb her. And it was all light with the sun rising in the eastern sky and shining in one window when she opened her eyes. Margaret stood before the glass plaiting her pretty, long hair.
The little girl sat up. Something had happened. There was a great weight—a great fear. What was it? Oh, yes, this was their room; they were all alive, for she heard Jim's breezy voice, and Joe, who had stayed all night, said impatiently:
"Peggy, are you never coming down?"
Hanny sprang out of bed and clasped her little arms about her sister.
"Oh!" with a great exultation in her sweet child's voice—"the world didn't come to an end, did it? Oh, you beautiful world! I am so glad you are left. And everybody—only—Margaret, were the people at the church dreadfully disappointed? What a pity God couldn't have taken those who wanted to go; but I'm so glad we are left. Oh, you lovely world, you are too nice to burn up!"
I think there were a great many people in the city just as glad as Hanny, if they did not put it in the same joyful words.
Margaret smiled. "Hurry, dear," she said, "Joe will have to go, and I know he wants to see you."
Hanny put on her shoes and stockings, and Margaret helped her with the rest, washed her and just tied up her hair with a second-best ribbon. Joseph had eaten his breakfast and was impatiently waiting to say good-by. John was off already.
Nothing had happened. The world was going on as usual. True there had been the comet and falling stars and wars and rumors of wars, but the old world had sailed triumphantly through them all. The dear, old, splendid world, that was to grow more splendid with the years.
Perhaps it did rouse people to better and kindlier living and more serious thought. Before Mr. Underhill went away his wife said:
"'Milyer, hadn't you better look after those old people up at Harlem. I suppose they had some garden truck, but there's flour and meat and little things that take off the money when you haven't much. And fuel. I'll try to go up some day with you and see what they need to keep them comfortable in cold weather."
The girls could hardly study at school, there was so much excitement. Did people really have on their ascension robes? WhatwouldHester say?
Hester did not come to school all the week. Of course they had made a mistake in computing the time, but a few weeks couldn't make much difference. Still, the worst scare was over, and if one mistake could be made, why not another? Were they so sure all the signs were fulfilled?
The Whitneys and the Underhills became very neighborly. Mr. Theodore Whitney often stopped for a little chat, and he was very fond of a good game of checkers with Steve or John. He was on the other side in politics and they had some warm discussions. Ophelia, the oldest girl, was engaged and deeply absorbed with her lover. Frances went away early in the morning and did not get back until after six. Mrs. Whitney, a Southern woman by birth, was one of the easy-going kind and very fond of novels. Mr. Whitney brought them home by the dozen. The house seemed somehow to run itself, with the aid of Dele, as she was commonly called.
Dele proved a powerful rival to Miss Lily Ludlow. Lily was much prettier and more delicate looking. Dele had brown-red hair, dry and curly. She was a little freckled, even in the fall. Her mouthwaswide, but she was always laughing, and she had such splendid teeth. Then her eyes were so full of fun, and her voice had a sort of rollicking sound. She knew all kinds of boys' play, and was great at marbles. Then she had so many odd, entertaining things, and their parlor wasn't too good for use when 'Phelia's beau was not there. But the children lived mostly on the stoop and the sidewalk.
Delia went to Houston Street school. She could walk farther up the street with the boys, and watch out for them when they went. Ben liked her better than he did Lily or Rosa, but Jim was quite divided. He, like the other poor man with two charmers, sometimes wished there was only one of them. But Lily was a born coquette, and jealous at that. She had a way of calling back her admirers, while Dele didn't care a bit for admiration, but just wanted a good time.
Benny Frank was something of a bookworm and student. Jim, who was growing very fast, was a regular boy, and, I am sorry to say, did not always have perfect lessons. He was so very quick and correct in figures that he managed to slip through other things. Moreover he carried authority. The boys had called him "country" at first and teased him in different ways until small skirmishes had begun. And one day there was a stand-up fight at recess. Jim thrashed the bully of his class. It was a forbidden thing to fight in the school-yard, or in school hours, and so Jim was thrashed again for his victory. But Mr. Hazeltine shook hands with him afterward and said "it wasn't because he thrashed Upton, but because he had broken the rules, and he liked to see a boy have courage enough to stand up for himself." So Jim did not mind it very much, though he had a black eye for two or three days.
After that he was a sort of hero to the boys, and Upton did not bully as much. But some of the boys delighted to "pick" at Benny Frank, who would have made a good Quaker. Jim sometimes felt quite "mad" with him.
Lily did not seem to get along very rapidly with her intimacy. Hanny was too young, and now that she had the Deans on one side and little Nora Whitney on the other, was quite out of Lily's reach. And she did enjoy Delia immensely, though she was past thirteen and such a tall girl. So Lily tried all her arts on Jim, and succeeded very well, it must be confessed.
It was Saturday, and the world had not come to an end yet. Benny had gone down-town with Steve in the morning, but he would not have both boys together, for Jim was so full of "capers." So he had done errands for his mother, blackened the boots and shoes—the bootblack brigade had not then come in fashion, and you hardly ever saw an Italian boy. He had cleared up the yard and earned his five cents. He was wondering a little what he would do all the afternoon.
Dele came flying in, eager and impetuous.
"Oh, Mrs. Underhill!" she cried, "can't Hanny go to the Museum this afternoon? The"—it seemed so odd, Hanny thought, to call grave-looking Mr. Whitney that, but she said Steve to her big brother. "The brought home four tickets. My cousin, Walter Hay, is here, and he will go with us and then go down home. And Nora does so want Hanny to go. Oh, won't you please let her? I'll take the best of care of her. I've taken Nora and my little Cousin Julia ever so many times. Oh, Jim, what a pity! If I had one more ticket!"
"Sho!" and Jim straightened himself up. "I have twenty-eight cents, and I wouldn't want to go sponging on a girl anyhow! Oh, mother, do let us go? Hanny, come quick! Oh, do you want to go to the Museum?"
"To the Museum?" Hanny drew a breath of remembered delight and thrilling anticipation.
Dele and Jim talked together. They were so earnest, so full of entreaty. Jim might have gone in welcome, but Hanny——
"Why, we shall just take the stage and ride to the door, and we'll be so careful getting out. They drive clear up to the sidewalk, you know. Walter is fourteen and he takes his little sisters out, and knows how to care for girls. And there's such a pretty play; just the thing for children, The. said."
"Oh, mother, please do," and the little girl's voice was so persuasive, so pleading.
"Oh, please, mother! I'll see that nothing happens to Hanny."
"Oh, Mrs. Underhill, Nora would be so disappointed. And we all want Hanny."
Mrs. Underhill had told her husband if he would come up about three she would take the drive to Harlem with him. Of course she meant to take the little girl. Which would Hanny rather do?
The fascinations of the Museum outweighed the drive. Margaret was up to the Beekmans' spending the day, their last week on the farm. Of course Jim could go—and when she looked at all the eager faces she gave in, and Hanny danced with delight.
It was almost three before they could get off, and the play began at that hour. However they caught a stage out on the Bowery and were soon whirled down to the corner of Broadway and Ann Street.
People were crowding in, it was such a beautiful day, and this was considered the place preeminently for children. People who would have been horrified at the thought of a theatre did not have a scruple about the lecture-room.
"We better not stop to look at things," advised Delia. "We can do that afterward. Let's go in and get our seats."
They had to go way up front, but they didn't mind that so long as they were all together. They studied the wonderful Venetian scene on the drop-curtain, and the young lad in a supposedly green satin costume, with a long white feather in his hat, who was just stepping into a gondola where a very lovely lady was playing on a guitar. Then the orchestra gave a clash of drums, cymbals, French horns, and a big bass viol, and up went the curtain.
A musical family came out and sang. Then there were some acrobatic performances. After that the pantomime.
Grandpapa Jerome, in a very foreign costume and a bald head which he tried to keep covered with a black velvet cap, had two extremely tricksy sprites for grandchildren. They were very pretty, the girl with long, light curls, the boy with dark ones. But of all mischief, of all tormenting deeds and antics with which they nearly set grandpapa crazy and threw the audience into convulsions! They took the nice fat boiled ham off the table and greased the doorstep so thoroughly you would have thought every bone in the old man's body would have been broken by the repeated falls. They cut the seat out of the chair, and when he went to sit down he doubled up equal to any modern folding-bed, and he kicked and turned summersaults until the maid came out and rescued him. Then he spied the author of the mischief asleep on a grassy bank, and he found a big strap and went creeping up cautiously, when—whack! and the little boy flew all to pieces, and the old man was so amazed at his cruelty that he sat down and began to weep and bewail when the little lad peeped from behind a tree and, seeing poor grandfather's grief, ran out, hugged him and kissed him and wiped his eyes, and you could see he was promising never to do anything naughty again. But that didn't hinder him from cutting out the bottom of the basket into which the old man was cutting some very splendid grapes. There were not more than half a dozen bunches, and the children ran away with them. The old man descended so carefully, put his hand in the basket, his whole arm, and not a grape. There was none on the ground. Where had they gone! Oh, there was the cat. But pussy was much spryer than the old man, and the audience knew she had not touched a grape.
After that some Indians came on the scene of action, fierce red men of the forest, and their language was decidedly Jabberwocky. The little girl was quite frightened at the fierce brandishing of tomahawks. Then they had a war dance. And oh, then came the marvel of all! Four beautiful Shetland ponies with the daintiest carriage and six lads in livery. There sat General Tom Thumb, the curiosity of the time, the smallest dwarf known. He was not much bigger than a year-old baby, but he dismounted from his carriage, gave orders to his servants; a bright-eyed little fellow with rosy cheeks, graceful and with a variety of pretty tricks. He sang a song or two, then sprang into his carriage and the ponies trotted off the stage. The curtain came down.
The children were breathless at first. The crowd was surging out and the place nearly empty before they found their tongues. And then there was so much else to see. The various stuffed animals, the giraffe with his three-story neck, the mermaid, the wax figures, the birds and beasts and serpents, and a model of Paris, of London, and of Jerusalem. The place looked quite gorgeous all lighted up.
The people were beginning to thin out. They had not seen half, Jim thought.
"Oh, we haven't been up-stairs!" exclaimed Walter. "There's a great roof-garden. And you can see all the city."
They trudged up-stairs. Dele kept tight hold of the little girl's hand. It was quite light up here. What a great space it was! One large flag was flying, and around the edge of the roof numberless smaller ones. Some evergreen shrubs in boxes stood around, and there were wooden arm-chairs, beside some settees. It was rather chilly, though the day had been very pleasant. And oh, how splendid the lights of Broadway looked to them, two long rows stretching up and up until lost in indistinctness. The stores were all open and lighted as brilliantly as one could with gas. No one thought of Saturday half-holidays then. It was very grand. But what would they have said to the Columbian nights and electric lights?
"I don't feel as if I had seen it half," said Jim. He was not grudging his quarter. "If we had come about one o'clock."
"We'll have to piece it on this end," and Walter laughed. "We must get our money's worth."
"We might stay over," suggested Dele mirthfully.
"Just the thing," returned Jim, "and all for the same money."
The children glanced at each other in sudden surprise. The glory of a grand conspiracy shone in their eyes.
"Well, that's too good!" declared Walter. "Won't I just brag of that at school on Monday. Oh, yes, let's stay."
"We had better go down, for it is getting cool up here. If we only had something to eat. Hanny, are you hungry? I don't believe Nora ever knows whether she has eaten or not. Mother says she's just the worst. I don't mind a bit, but you all——"
"I wouldn't give a copper for supper. It's ever so much more fun staying," rejoined Walter.
"I'm always hungry as a bear, but I'd a hundred times rather stay," Jim replied. "Hanny, will you mind?"
"I'm not a bit hungry," answered Hanny. "It's all so beautiful. Oh, do let's stay!"
"That settles it. Dele, you are a trump."
They picked their way carefully down-stairs. The room was not very brilliantly lighted, but they found many curiosities that had escaped their attention before. They espied the diorama and it interested them very much. Half a dozen people straggled in. The janitor turned on more light, and began to arrange a platform in a recess.
How any one would feel at home Jim never thought. The rest were in the habit of doing quite as they liked, and Delia often stayed at her aunt's until nine o'clock.
At seven the main hall was quite full. The people were crowding up around the platform. The children went too. The curtain was swung aside and out stepped Tom Thumb, to be received with cheers. He sang a song and went through with some military evolutions. There was a railing around and no one could crowd upon him, but a number spoke to him and shook hands.
"My little girl," said a tall gentleman who had watched Hanny's ineffectual efforts to make herself taller, "will you let me hold you up? Wouldn't you like to shake hands? You're not much bigger yourself."
"Oh, please do," entreated Dele in her eager young voice. "She is so small."
Hanny was a little startled, but the man held her in his arms and she smiled hesitatingly. As she met the kindly eyes she said, "Oh, thank you. It's so nice."
The general came down that end.
"Here is a little lady wants to shake hands with you," the gentleman said, who was quite a friend of Tom Thumb's.
The small hand was proffered. Hanny was almost afraid, but she put hers in it and the gallant little general hoped she was well. Then he made a bow and retired behind the curtain, and it was announced that he would appear again after the lecture-room performance.
They went in and took their seats. Nora was tired, and leaning her head on Dele's shoulder went sound asleep. Hanny was getting tired; perhaps, too, she missed her supper.
It wasn't quite so much fun, for the play was just the same. The audience enjoyed it greatly. The Indians were more obstreperous, and sang a hideous song. The vocalists sang many popular songs of the day, "Old Dan Tucker," "Lucy Long," "Zip Coon," and several patriotic songs. There was more dancing than in the afternoon, and the boys enjoyed the Juba in song and dance by a "real slave darkey" who had been made so by a liberal application of burnt cork, and who could clap and pat the tune on his knee.
They did not stop to see Tom Thumb again, but went straight down-stairs. Walter said good-night and declared he had had a splendid time, and Dele must thank Cousin The again. The four others bundled into the stage, which was crowded, but some kindly disposed people held both Nora and Hanny. They had quite a habit of doing it then.
Jim had been wondering what they would say at home. Of course he knew now he ought not have stayed. But nothinghadhappened, and Hanny was all right, and—well, he would face the music whatever it was. If Dele could be trusted, why not he?
There had been a good deal of anxiety. Mrs. Underhill had expected them home by six, but their father said: "Oh, give them a little grace." But when seven o'clock came she went down to Whitney's to inquire. The table was still standing. Mrs. Whitney sat at the head with a book in her hand; Dave, the second son, was smoking and reading his paper. Both girls had gone out.
"Oh, Mrs. Underhill, don't feel a bit worried! They'll come home all safe. I shouldn't wonder if Dele had taken them over to her aunt's, and she'll never let them come home without their supper. She's the greatest hand for children I ever saw. And Dele's so used to going about. Then everybody's out on Saturday night. Dear me! I haven't given it an anxious thought," declared Mrs. Whitney.
But Mrs. Underhill could not take it so comfortably.
"There's so many of them we should hear if anything had happened," said John. "And there is no use looking, for we shouldn't know where they are; Jim's pretty good stuff too, for a country boy. Now, mother, don't be foolish."
But she grew more and more uneasy. If she had not let Hanny go! What could she have been thinking of to do such a thing?
After nine Mr. Underhill walked out to the Bowery, and watched every stage that halted at the corner. Men, women, and children alighted, but no little girl. Oh, where could she be? He felt almost as if the world was coming to an end.
Then a familiar group all talking at the same time stepped out on the sidewalk. A big girl and two little ones.
"O father, father!" cried Hanny.
He wanted to hug her there in the street. It seemed to him he had never been so glad and relieved in all his life, or loved her half so well.
"Wherehaveyou stayed so long?"
"We went to two museums," said Hanny, before the elders could find their tongues. "And oh, father, we saw Tom Thumb and he's just as little and cunning as a baby! And he shook hands with me. A gentleman held me up. It was beautiful, but I'm awful tired."
"Oh,wereyou troubled?" cried Delia. "Why didn't you just go in to ma and she would have told you that I always come up right, and that nothing ever happens to me, I'm so used to taking care of children. Why, when we lived down town I used to take out the neighbors' children—over to Staten Island and to Williamsburg, and always brought them home safely. Then we hadn't half seen the curiosities, and we should have missed the nice time with that lovely little Tom Thumb. And we thought it such capital fun!"
Mr. Underhill really could not say a word. Tired as she was, the little girl was full of delight. Jim tried to make some explanations and take part of the blame, but Delia talked them all down and was so fresh and merry that you couldn't imagine she had gone without her supper.
Mrs. Underhill stood at the area gate with a shawl about her shoulders. The little girl let go of her father's hand and ran to her.
"Dear Mrs. Underhill," began Dele, "I expect you'll almost want to kill me, but I never thought about your being worried, for no one ever worries about me. I suppose it is because I never do get into any danger. And you must not scold any one, for I was the eldest, except Cousin Walter, and it was my place to think, but I didn't one bit. It seemed awful funny, you know, to have it all over for the same money, and we not paying anything at all! And I did take good care of Hanny. She's had a lovely time—we all have. And please don't scold Jim. He's been a perfect gentleman. We didn't do anything rude nor coarse, and everybody was as polite to us as if we'd been Queen Victoria's children. And so good-night."
"Jim, your father ought to give you a good thrashing. The idea! I wouldn't have believed any child of mine could have had such a little sense," his mother declared.
I don't know what might have happened, but just then Steve and Margaret returned. And when Steve caught sight of Jim's sober face and heard the story, he thought it very boylike and rather amusing. Besides, it seemed a pity to spoil the good time. So he laughed, and told Jim he had cheated Mr. Barnum out of a quarter, and that he would have to save up his money to make it good.
"And he owes me nine cents toward the omnibus ride. He must pay me that first," said his mother sharply.
"I wasn't admittedtwice" rejoined Jim. "It is the admittance. I didn't see any notice about not staying, and I don't believe I really owe Mr. Barnum another quarter."
"Jim, I think I'll educate you for a lawyer. You have such a way of squirming out of tight places."
They all laughed.
"Mother, do give the children some supper," said their father.
"Here, Jim, pay your mother." Steve laid him down sixpence and three pennies. We had Mexican sixpences and shillings in those days. "You'll have enough on your mind without that debt. And next time think of the folks at home."
"Why didn't the Whitneys feel worried? Oh, thank you, Steve."
"It did beat all," said Mrs. Underhill. "There Mrs. Whitney sat reading a novel——"
"Perhaps it was her French exercise," interrupted Steve, with a twinkle in his eye.
"It was no such thing! It was a yellow-covered novel!" I don't know why they persisted in putting novels in pronounced yellow covers to betray people, unless it was that publishers wouldn't use false pretences. And to put a story in the fatal color made it as reprehensible to most people as a yellow aster. "And such a table!" Mrs. Underhill caught her breath. "Everything at sixes and sevens, and the cloth looking as if it had been used a month, and Mrs. Whitney as unconcerned as if the children had only gone down to the corner. I declare I couldn't be so—so——"
"But they're a jolly lot. They save a great deal of strength in not worrying. And they know Dele is trusty. She's a smart girl, too."
"Well, I wouldn't want any of my sons to marry girls brought up as those Whitneys."
"Hear that, Jim. You are fairly warned."
Jim turned scarlet.
"Jim will have to be in better business many a year than thinking of girls," subjoined his mother decisively.
The little girl didn't seem very hungry. She ate her bread-and-milk and talked over the delights of the afternoon, and her enjoyment mollified her mother a good deal. Jim considered at first whether it wouldn't rather even up things if he went without his supper, but the biscuits and the boiled beef were so tempting, and in those days boys could eat the twenty-four hours round. People were wont to say they had the digestion of an ostrich. But I think if you had tried them on nails and old shoes the ostrich would have gone up head.
"Oh, do you see how late it is? I know Hanny will be sick to-morrow! And Jim, you'll have the doctor's bill to pay."
"Oh, no," said Hanny with a smile, "Joe has promised to doctor me for nothing."
Mrs. Underhill lost her point. Jim wanted a good laugh, but he thought it would hardly be prudent.
Of course something ought to have happened to impress their wrong-doing on the children. But it didn't. They were all well and bright the next morning. Mr. Theodore Whitney took occasion to say that he hoped the Underhills wouldn't feel offended. It was just a young people's caper, and he thought it rather amusing.
Mrs. Whitney said in the bosom of her household: "Well, I wonder that Mrs. Underhill has an ounce of fat on her bones if she's worried that way about her eight children! I always felt to trust mine to Providence."
Jim "gave away" the thing at school, and was quite a hero. But some of the boys had crawled under a circus tent. And a circus was simply immense!
Lily Ludlow said, out of her bitterest envy, "I shouldn't have thought you would let a girl take you out, Jim Underhill!"
"She didn't take me! I bought my own ticket. And there was her cousin——"
"Well—if you likethatstyle of people—and red hair—and Dele Whitney has no more figure than a post! I wouldn't be such a fat chunk for anything! And her clothes are just wild."
"Of course you're ever so much the prettiest. And I wishwecould go to the Museum together, just us two." Jim thought it would be fine to take outonegirl.
That mollified Lily a little.
"And I just wish you lived up by our house. It seems so easy then to come in. And when you once get real well acquainted—intimate like—well, you know I like you better than any girl in school;" though Jim wondered a little if it was absolutely true.
"Do you, really?" The eyes and the smile always conquered him. She made good use of both.
"Oh, you know I do."
Chris didn't see why she couldn't get acquainted with Margaret. She wanted her mother to call, but Mrs. Ludlow said, "I've more friends now than I can attend to." And Miss Margaret seemed to hold up her head so high. Then Mr. Stephen was going to marry in the Beekman family. And Chris wondered why Mr. John didn't go in some store business instead of learning a carpenter's trade.
Hester Brown was out of school a week. Mrs. Craven had begged the girls not to tease her, but after a few days she announced that a mistake had been made in the calculation—some people thought three years—but the end was sure. However three years seems a lifetime to children.
George Underhill came down and made a nice long visit. He felt he liked his own home people a little the best, but his heart was still set on farming. Thanksgiving came after a lovely Indian summer, such as one rarely sees now. Then each State appointed its own Thanksgiving, and there were people who boasted of partaking of three separate dinners.
After that it was cold. The little girl had a good warm cloak and hood and mittens, and it was nothing to run to school. She studied and played, and knew two pretty exercises on the piano. Jim and Benny Frank grew like weeds. But Benny somehow "gave in" to the boys, and two or three of the school bullies did torment him.
"I'd just give it to them!" declared Jim. "I wouldn't be put upon and called baby and a mollycoddle and have that Perkins crowding me off the line and losing marks. I'd give him such a right-hander his head would hum like a swarm of bees."
It was not because Benny was afraid. But he was a peace-loving boy and he thought fighting brutal and vulgar. His books were such a delight. He liked to go in and talk to Mr. Theodore, as they all called the eldest Whitney son. Mr. Theodore in his newspaper capacity had found out so many queer things about old New York, they really called New York that in early 1800. He had such wonderful portfolios of pictures, and nothing in the Whitney house was too good to use.
Hanny often went in as well. And though Dele was such a harum-scarum sort of girl, she was good to the children and found no end of diversions for them. Nora was a curious, grave little thing, and her large dark eyes in her small, sallow face looked almost uncanny. She devoured fairy stories and knew many of the mythological gods and goddesses. They had a beautiful big cat called Old Gray. It really belonged to Mr. Theodore, but Nora played with it and tended it, and dressed it up in caps and gowns and shawls and carried it around. It certainly was a lovely tempered cat. Hanny was divided in her affection between the Deans' dolls and Nora's cat. The play-house was too cold to use now, and Mrs. Dean objected to having it all moved down to her sewing-room. But Mr. Theodore's room had a delightful grate, a big old lounge, a generous centre-table where the girls used to play house under the cover, and such piles of books everywhere, so many pictures on the wall, such curious pipes and swords and trophies from different lands. You really never knew whether it was cleared up or not, and the very lawlessness was attractive.
Sometimes they sat in the big rocker, that would hold both, and they would divide the cat between them and sing to her. Occasionally kitty would tire of such unceasing attention, and emit a long, appealing m-i-e-u. If Mr. Theodore was there—and he never seemed to mind the little girls playing about—he would say, "Children, what are you doing to that cat?" and they would no longer try to divide her, but let her curl up in her own fashion.
"Oh, mother!" said the little girl, one rainy afternoon when she had to stay in, "couldn't we have a Sunday cat that didn't have to stay out in the stable and catch mice for a living? Nora's is so nice and cunning and you can talk to it just as if it was folks. And you can't quite make dolls, folks. You have to keep making b'lieve all the time."
"Martha doesn't like cats. And Jim would torment it and plague you continually. And you know I wouldn't let Jim's little dog come in the house."
"But so many people do have cats."
"There's hardly room with so many folks. You wait until Christmas and see what Santa Claus brings you," said her mother cheerily.
There came a little snow and the boys brought out their sleds. For two days the air was alive with shouts and snowballing, and then it was like a drift of gray sand alongside of the street gutter. But winter had fairly set in. Stoves were up.
In the back room at the Underhills' they had a fire of logs on the hearth, and it was delightful.
Ben was tormented more and more. The boys knocked off his cap in the gutter and made up rhymes about him which they sang to any sort of tune. This was one:
"Benjamin Franklin Underhill,Was a little boy too awfully still:Forty bears came out of the wood,And ate up the boy so awfully good."
"Benjamin Franklin Underhill,Was a little boy too awfully still:Forty bears came out of the wood,And ate up the boy so awfully good."
"Come out from under that hill," while some boy would reply, "Oh, he dassent! He's afraid his shadder'll meet him in the way."
One day he came home with his pocket all torn out. Perkins had slipped a crooked stick in it and given it what the boys called a "yank."
"Go in and ask your mother for a needle and thread. You'll make a good tailor!" he jeered.
"What is all this row about?" asked his mother, who was in the front basement.
Ben held out his jacket ruefully, and said, "Perkins never would leave him alone."
Jim had complained and said Ben always showed the white feather. Mrs. Underhill couldn't endure cowards. She was angry, too, to see his nice winter jacket in such a plight.
"Benny Frank, you just march out and thrash that Perkins boy, or I'll thrash you! I don't care if you are almost as tall as I am. A great boy of fifteen who can't take his own part! I should be ashamed! March straight out!"
She took him by the shoulder and turned him round, whisked him out in the area before he knew where he was. She would not have him so meek and chicken-hearted.
Ben stood a moment in surprise. Jim had been scolded for his pugnacity. Perkins was always worse when Jim wasn't around.
"Go on!" exclaimed his mother.
Ben walked out slowly. The boys were down the street. If they would only go away. He passed the Whitneys and halted. He could rescue hounded cats and tormented dogs, and once had saved a little child from being run over. But to fight—in cold blood!
"Oh, here comes my Lady Jane!" sang out some one.