A Little Girl in Old New York Part 23

Joe looked just splendid, the little girl decided. If she could only have seen Dolly!

The Beekman coach was sent up for Margaret, who kissed her little sister and went off like Cinderella!

"Oh, do you suppose she will meet the king's son?" asked Hanny, all excitement.

"Oh, child, what nonsense!" exclaimed her mother.

It wasn't the king's son; but young Doctor Hoffman was there, and Margaret danced several times with him. They talked so much about Joe that Margaret felt very friendly with him.

After that the world ran on in snow, in suns.h.i.+ne, and in rain. The days grew longer. March was rough and blowy. Mother Underhill had to go up in the country for a week, for Grandfather Van Kortlandt died. He had been out of health and paralyzed for a year or two. Aunt Katrina had been staying there, and they would go on in the old house until spring. She was grandmother's sister. Of course no one could feel very sorry about poor old Uncle Nickie, as he was called. He had always been rather queer, and was no comfort to himself, for he had lost his mind, but everybody admitted that grandmother had done her duty, and the Van Kortlandt children, grown men and women, thanked her for all her good care.

Oh, what fun the children had on the first of April! What rags were pinned to people--what shrieks of "My cat's got a long tail!" And there on the sidewalk would lay a tempting half-dollar with a string out of sight, and when the pedestrian stooped to pick it up--presto! how it would vanish. When one enterprising wight put his foot on it and picked it up triumphantly the boys called out:

"April fool! That's an awful sell, mister! It's a bad half-dollar."

They watched and saw him bite it and throw it down. Then they went after it and had their fun over and over again. Stephen had given the half-dollar to Jim with strict injunctions not to attempt to pa.s.s it or he'd get a "hiding," which no one ever did in the Underhill family. Mrs.

Underhill declared "'Milyer was as easy as an old shoe, and she didn't see what had kept the children from going to ruin." Joe always insisted "it was pure native goodness."

Then they called out to the carters and other wagoners: "Oh, mister, say! Your wheel's goin' round!" And sometimes without understanding the driver would look and hear the shout.

They had another trick they played out in the Bowery. Boys had a reprehensible trick of "cutting behind," as the stages had two steps at the back, and the boys used to spring on them and steal rides. It was such a sight of fun to dodge the whip and spring off at the right moment. Sometimes a cross-grained pa.s.senger who had been a very good boy in his youth would tell.

On this day they didn't steal the ride. They called out with great apparent honesty: "Cuttin' behind, driver--two boys!"

Then the driver would slash his whip furiously, and even the pa.s.sers-by would enjoy the joke. Of course you could only play that once on each driver.

Altogether it was a day of days. You were fooled, of course; no one was smart enough to keep quite clear. But almost everybody was good-natured about it. Martha found some eggs that had been "blown," and a potato filled with ashes, and there were inventions that would have done credit to the "pixies."

The little girl would not go out to play in the afternoon, and she didn't even run when Jim said, "Nora wanted her for something special."

But she really had no conscience about fooling her father several times.

He pretended to be so surprised, and said, "Oh, you little witch!" It was a day on which you had need to keep your wits about you.

Then with the long days and the suns.h.i.+ne came so many things. Little girls skipped rope and rolled hoops, their guiding-sticks tied with a bright ribbon. The boys had iron hoops and an iron guider, and they made a musical jingle as they went along. There were kites too, but you didn't catch Benny Frank flying one. And marbles and ball. In the afternoon the streets seemed alive with children. But what would those people have said to the five-story tenement-houses with their motley crew! Then Ludlow and Allen and many another street wore such a clean and quaint aspect, and the ladies sat at their parlor windows in the afternoon sewing and watching their little ones.

"Ring-a-round-a-rosy" began again. And dear me, there were so many signs! You must not step on a crack in the flagging or something dreadful would happen to you. And you mustn't pick up a pin with the point toward you or you would surely be disappointed. If the head was toward you, you could pick it up and make a wish which would be sure to come to pa.s.s. You must cut your finger-nails Monday morning before breakfast and you would get a present before the week was out. And if you walked straight to school that morning you were likely to have good lessons, but if you loitered or stopped to play or were late, bad luck would follow you all the week. And the little girls used to say:

"Lesson, lesson, come to me, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, three, Thursday, Friday, then you may Have a rest on Sat.u.r.day,"

So you see a little girl's life was quite a weighty matter.

That summer political excitement ran high. Indeed, it had begun in the winter. A new party had nominated Mr. James Harper for mayor, and in the spring he had been elected. Mr. Theodore used to pause and discuss men and measures now that it was getting warm enough to sit out on the stoop and read your paper. Country habits were not altogether tabooed.

But what impressed his honor the mayor most strongly on the little girl's mind was something Aunt Nancy Archer, who was now an earnest Methodist, said when she was up to tea one evening.

"I did look to see Brother Harper set up a little. It's only natural, you know, and I can't quite believe in perfection. But there he was in cla.s.s-meeting, not a mite changed, just as friendly and earnest as ever, not a bit lifted up because he had been called to the highest position in the city."

"There's no doubt but he will make a good mayor," rejoined Mr.

Underhill. "He's a good, honest man. And all the brothers are capable men, men who are able to pull together. I'm not sure but we'll have to go outside of party lines a little. It ought to broaden a man to be in a big city."

The little girl slipped her hand in Aunt Nancy's.

"Is he your school-teacher?" she ventured timidly.

"School-teacher? Why, no, child!" in surprise.

"You said cla.s.s----"

"You'll have to be careful, Aunt Nancy. That little girl has an inquiring mind," laughed her father.

"Yes. It's a church cla.s.s. I belong to the same church as Brother Harper. We're old-fas.h.i.+oned Methodists. We go to this cla.s.s to tell our religious experiences. You are not old enough to understand that. But we talk over our troubles and trials, and tell of our blessings too, I hope, and then Brother Harper has a good word for us. He comforts us when we are down at the foot of the hill, and he gives us a word of warning if he thinks we are climbing heights we're not quite fitted for.

He makes a comforting prayer."

"I should like to see him," said the little girl.

"Well, get your father to bring you down to church some Sunday. Do, Vermilye."

"Any time she likes," said her father.

They talked on, but Hanny went off into a little dreamland of her own.

She was not quite clear what a mayor's duty was, only he was a great man. And her idea of his not being set up, as Aunt Nancy had phrased it, was that there was a great handsome chair, something like a throne, that had been arranged for him, and he had come in and taken a common seat.

She was to have a good deal of hero-wors.h.i.+p later on, and be roused and stirred by Carlyle, but there was never anything finer than the admiration kindled in her heart just then.

After Aunt Nancy went away she crept into her father's lap.

"Aren't you glad Mr. Harper's our mayor?" she asked. "Did everybody vote for him? Do girls--big girls--and women vote?"

"No, dear. Men over twenty-one are the only persons ent.i.tled to vote.

Steve and Joe and I voted. And it's too bad, but John can't put in his vote for President this fall."

"The mayor governs the city, and the governor, the State. What does the President do?"

Her father explained the most important duties to her, and that a President was elected every four years. That was the highest office in the country.

"And who is going to be our President?" She was getting to be a party woman already.

"Well, it looks as if Henry Clay would. We shall all work for him."

If it only wouldn't come bedtime so soon!

The little girl studied and played with a will. She could skip rope like a little fairy, but it had been quite a task to drive her hoop straight.

She was unconsciously inclined to make "the line of beauty." I don't know that it was always graceful, either.

Some new people moved in the block. Just opposite there was a tall thin woman who swept and dusted and scrubbed until Steve said "he was afraid there wouldn't be enough dirt left to bury her with." She wore faded morning-gowns and ragged checked ap.r.o.ns, and had her head tied up with something like a turban, only it was grayish and not pretty. She did not always get dressed up by afternoon. Oh, how desperately clean she was!

Even her sidewalk had a s.h.i.+ny look, and as for her door bra.s.ses, they outdid the sun.

She had one boy, about twelve perhaps. And his name was John Robert Charles Reed. He was fair, well dressed, and so immaculately clean that Jim said he'd give a dollar, if he could ever get so much money together, just to roll him in the dirt. His mother always gave him his full name. He went to a select school, but when he was starting away in the morning his mother would call two or three times to know if he had all of his books, if he had a clean handkerchief, and if he was sure his shoes were tied, and his clothes brushed.

And one day a curious sort of carriage went by, a chair on wheels, and a man was pus.h.i.+ng it while a lady walked beside it. In the chair was a most beautiful girl or child, fair as a lily, with long light curls and the whitest of hands. Hanny watched in amazement, and then went in to tell her mother. "She looks awful pale and sick," said Hanny.