A Little Girl in Old New York Part 33

They walked down First Avenue past Houston Street. Almost at the end of the next block there was a barber-pole with its stripes running round.

The barber-pole and the Indian at the cigar shops were features of that day, as well.

"Wouldn't you like to have your hair cut, Charles?" inquired his father.

The world swam round so that Charles was minded to clutch the barber-pole, but he bethought himself in time that it was dusty. He looked at his father in amaze.

"Oh, don't be a ninny! No one will take your head off. Come, you're big enough boy to go to the barber's."

The palace of delight seemed opening before the boy. No one can rightly understand his satisfaction at this late day. The mothers, you see, used to cut hair as they thought was right, and nearly every mother had a different idea except those whose idea was simply to cut it off.

They had to wait awhile. Charles sat down in a padded chair, had a large white towel pinned close up under his chin, his hair combed out with the softest touch imaginable. The barber's hands were silken soft; his mother's were hard and rough. Snip, snip, snip, comb, brush, sprinkle some fragrance out of a bottle with a pepper-sauce cork--bulbs and sprays had not been invented. Oh, how delightful it was! He really did not want to get down and go home.

Mr. Reed had been talking to an acquaintance. The other chair being vacant, he had his beard trimmed. He was not sure whether he would have it taken off this summer, though he generally did. He turned his head a little and looked at his son. He wasn't as poetical looking, but really, he was a nice, clean, wholesome, and--yes--manly boy. But he blushed scarlet.

"That looks something like," was his father's comment. What a nice broad forehead Charles had!

"He's a nice boy," said the barber in a low tone. "Boy to be proud of. I wish there were more like him."

Mr. Reed paid his bill and they went to the store. Then they strolled on down the street. But Charles was in distress lest the pungent berry and odoriferous root should take the barber's sweetness out of him. He was puzzled, too. It seemed to him he ought to say something grateful to his father. He was so very, very glad at heart. But it was so hard to talk to his father. He always envied Jim and Ben Underhill their father. He had found it easy to talk to him on several occasions.

"I must say you are improved," his father began presently. "You mother has too much to do bothering about household affairs. And you're getting to be a big boy. Why don't you find some boys to go with? There are those Underhills. You're too big to play with girls."

"But mother doesn't like boys," hesitatingly.

"You should have been a girl!" declared his father testily. "But since you're not, do try to be a little more manly."

The father hardly knew what to say himself. And yet he felt that he did love his son.

They were just at the area gate. Charles caught his father's hand. "I'm so glad," breathlessly. "The boys have laughed at me, and you--you've been so good."

Mr. Reed was really touched. They entered the bas.e.m.e.nt. Mrs. Reed, like Mrs. Gargery, still had on her ap.r.o.n. Charles put the pepper in the canister, his mother took care of the horseradish. Then he sat down with his history.

"For pity's sake, Abner Reed, what have you done to that child! He looks like a scarecrow! He's shaved thin in one place and great tufts left in another. I was going to cut his hair this very evening. And I'll trim it to some decency now."

She sprang up for the shears.

"You will let him alone," said Mr. Reed, in a firm, dignified tone. "He is quite old enough to look like other boys. When I want him to go to the barber's I'll take him. You will find enough to do. Charles, get a lamp and go up to your own room."

"I don't allow him to have a lamp in his room. He will set something a-fire."

"Then go up in the parlor."

"The parlor!" his mother shrieked.

"I'll go to bed," said Charles. "I know my lesson."

There was a light in the upper hall. On the second floor were the sleeping-chambers. Charles' was the back hall room. He could see very well from the light up the stairway.

What happened in the bas.e.m.e.nt dining-room he could not even imagine. His father so seldom interfered in any matter, and his mother had a way of talking him down. But Charles was asleep when they came to bed.

Still, he had a rather hard day on Sunday. His mother was coldly severe and captious. Once she said:

"I can't bear to look at you, you are so disfigured! If _that_ is what your father calls style----" and she shook her head disapprovingly.

He went to church and Sunday-school, and then his father took him up to Tompkins Square for a walk. It seemed as if they had never been acquainted before. Why, his father was real jolly. And it was a nice week at school after the boys got done asking him "Who his Barber was?"

He could see the big B they put to it.

On Sat.u.r.day afternoon Mrs. Reed had to go out shopping with a cousin.

She was an excellent shopper. She could find flaws, and beat down, and get a spool of cotton or a piece of tape thrown in. When Charles came home from singing-school he was to go over to the Deans and play in the back yard. He was not to be out on the sidewalk at all.

They were going to have a splendid time. Elsie and Florence Hay would bring their dolls. Even Josie envied the pretty names, though she confessed to Hanny that she didn't think Hay was nice, because it made you think of "hay, straw, oats" on the signs at the feed stores. But the girls were very sweet and pleasant. Nora had come in with the cat dressed in one of her own long baby frocks.

Hanny ran in to get her doll. It was still her choice possession, and had been named and unnamed. Her mother began to think she was too big to play with dolls, but Margaret had made it such a pretty wardrobe.

Ben sat at the front bas.e.m.e.nt window reading. Mr. and Mrs. Underhill had gone up to see Miss Lois, who was far from well. Margaret was out on "professional rounds," which Ben thought quite a suggestive little phrase. Martha was scrubbing and of course he couldn't talk to her. He had cut the side of his foot with a splinter of gla.s.s, and his mother would not allow him to put on his shoe.

Hanny brought down her doll. Ben looked rather wistfully at her.

"I wish you'd come in too. We're going to have such a nice time," she said in a soft tone.

"I'd look fine playing with dolls."

"But you needn't really play with dolls. Mrs. Dean doesn't. She's the grandmother. We go to visit her, and she tells us about the old times, just as Aunt Nancy and Aunt Patience do. Of course she wasn't there really, she makes believe, you know. And you might be the--the----"

"Grandfather who had lost his leg in the war."

Ben laughed. He had half a mind to go.

"Oh, that would be splendid. And you could be a prisoner when the British held New York. There'd be such lots to talk about. You could wear John's slipper, you see----"

She smiled so persuasively. She would never be as handsome as Margaret, but she had such tender, coaxing eyes, and such a sweet mouth.

"Well, I'll bring my book along." It was one of Cooper's novels that boys were going wild over just then. "Do you really think they'd like to have me?"

"Oh, I know they would," eagerly.

Ben had to walk rather one-sided. Joe said he must not bear any weight on the outside of his foot to press the wound open.

"I've brought Ben," announced the little girl. "And he's going to be a Revolutionary soldier."

"We are very glad to see him," and Mrs. Dean rose. She had a white kerchief crossed on her breast, and a pretty cap pinned up for the occasion.

The yard was shady in the afternoon. There was a piece of carpet spread on the gra.s.s, and some chairs arranged on it, and two or three rugs laid around. On the s.p.a.ce paved with brick stood the table, and two boxes were the dish closets. There were some cradles, and a bed arranged on another box. It really was a pretty picture.

Josie and Charles were generally the mother and father of one household.

Charles blushed up to the roots of his hair. He liked playing with the girls, when he was the only boy, with no one to laugh at him.

"Now you mustn't mind me or I shall go back home and stay all alone,"

said Ben. That appealed to everybody's sympathy. "I'm coming over here to talk to grandmother about what we did when we were young."