A Little Girl in Old New York Part 7

"Well--father and Steve and Joe and John are there"--yet her tone was a little uncertain.

"Are there any boys about?"

"I don't know any. I haven't had time to find any girls. But there is a big public school round in Houston Street, and I guess there's a thousand children. You should see them coming out of the gate."

"Hm'n! I don't believe there's a thousand children in all New York.

That's ten hundred, Miss Hanny!"

Hanny was sobered by the immensity of her statement, for she was a very truthful little girl.

"What have you been doing all this time?" Jim asked impatiently.

"Well--there was the house to get to rights. And we had to have some new clothes made. A girl laughed at me one day and said I looked queer."

"If I'd been there I'd punched her head. Yes--I see you're mighty fine.

Would _I_ look queer?"

"Oh, boys always look alike," returned Hanny reflectively. "We had a beautiful walk one Sunday on the Battery, and I think," hesitatingly, "that all the boys had on roundabouts."

"Are you sure they didn't have on overcoats?"

"Don't plague her, Jim. Tell us about the Battery, Hanny."

Hanny could describe that quite vividly. Jim soon became interested.

When she paused he said, "What else?" She told them of her ride up to Harlem, and a walk down the Bowery to Chatham Square.

"But there ain't any real bowers in it any more, only stores and such things."

"What a pity," commented Benny Frank.

"Well, I think I'd like to go as soon as mammy can get ready. It isn't as much fun here without you all."

"Oh, Jim, don't say mammy. They don't do it in the city," said the little girl beseechingly.

"If you think I'm going to put on French airs, you're much mistaken, Miss Hanny! I'll say pop and mammy when I like. I'm not going to dress up in Sunday best manners because you wear ruffled pantalets. It makes you look like a feather-legged chicken!"

"Don't mind him, Hanny," said Ben tenderly. "I wish I had seen that old man at the Bowling Green----"

"Do they make bowls there?" interrupted teasing Jim.

"Because I've been reading about France and the Reign of Terror," Benny Frank went on, not heeding his brother. "It was in about 1794.

Robespierre was at the head of it. And there was a dreadful prison into which they threw everybody they suspected, and only brought them out for execution. It must have been terrible! And the poor old man must have been quite young then. I should think he would have lost his mind."

"Bother about such stuff! You'd rather be in New York, wouldn't you, Hanny? And mother said we might come as soon as she was settled. I'm not going to stay here and be ordered about by this Finch fellow. Retty's soft as mush over him. Say, Ben, you _would_ like to go, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, I think I would," answered Ben slowly. "There would be such a splendid chance to learn about everything."

Their mother had been walking around the familiar paths with George, who had developed some ideas of his own in this brief s.p.a.ce. And his mother had not realized before how tall and stout he was getting.

"I'd like to see father and Steve and make some plans. I'd like to work part of father's ground on shares or some way. I'm glad Dave Andrews is staying on. I don't altogether like Uncle Faid's ideas, and oh, mother, 'tisn't any such jolly home as you had. Poor Aunt Crete is so miserable.

But you see if I really had some interest of my own I'd be learning all the time."

"I'm sure your father will consent." His mother felt so proud, leaning on his arm. And some time _they_ would come back. So they talked the matter over with eager interest, and she quite forgot about the little girl's bedtime. Retty had joined them and was rehearsing some of her Western experiences, and the little girl sat with wide-open eyes, looking at Retty in the moon-light, thinking what a great wonderful world it was to have so many places and all so different. Did you have two organs of thought? She was so puzzled about thought, anyhow. For with one side of her that didn't see Retty, she could see her father so plainly in this very corner, and she was in his arms, and with the faculty that wasn't listening to her cousin she could hear her father's voice. You see, she wasn't old enough to know about dual consciousness.

When Hanny went up-stairs with her mother the boys went also.

"Say, Ben," and his brother gave him a dig in the ribs with his elbow; "say, Ben, don't you want to go back to New York with mother? If we just push with all our might and main, together we can."

"Well, don't push me through the side of the house."

"You want to be pushed all the while. You're as slow as 'la.s.ses in winter time. Ben, you take after Uncle Faid. It takes him 'most all day to make up his mind. Now I can look at a thing and tell in a minute."

"You seem ready enough to tell." Ben laughed a little provokingly.

"Well, you can go or not as you like. 'Taint half the fun here that it used to be. I didn't think I cared so much for Hanny."

"Is it Hanny?" in a tone that irritated.

"It's Hanny and mother and John and father and New York, and just a million things rolled into a bundle. And if you don't care I'll fight my way through. There, Benjamin Franklin! You'd sit on a stone in the middle of a field and fly your kite forever!"

Jim was losing his temper.

"Yes, I _think_ I'd like to go. There would be so much to see and learn."

"Oh, hang it all! Simply go!"

Ben was thinking of the old man--he must have been quite young then--who was in prison through that awful Reign of Terror. He undressed slowly.

He was not such a fly-away as Jim. But Jim was asleep before he was ready for bed.

Mrs. Underhill had not really meant to take the boys home with her. She was quite sure the city was a bad place for boys. And the country was so much healthier in the summer. But they coaxed. And somehow, the old home _had_ changed already. The air of brisk cheerfulness was gone. Aunt Crete had her face tied up most of the time, or a little shawl over her head. Retty was undeniably careless. Barton Finch played cards with the hired man. Uncle Faid had some queer ideas about farming.

"I'd like wonderful well to have the boys stay," he said. "They're worth their keep. A boy 'round's mighty handy. I'd have to hire one."

Somehow she wasn't quite willing to have her boys put in the place of a hired one, or one bound out from the county house. And Jim had been her baby for so long. The little girl pleaded also. She told them finally they might come down and try. But if they were the least bit bad or disobedient they would be sent back at once.

Mrs. Underhill was half-cured of her homesickness. She had thought she could never be content in New York; why, she was almost content already.

She and Hanny took a walk the last day of their stay up on the knoll where the new house was to be built.

"When all the children are married and father and I get to be old people, we will come back here. I shall want you, Hanny," and she held the little girl's hand in a tight clasp.

Hanny wondered if she would be stout and have full red cheeks and look like Retty? And oh, she did hope her mother wouldn't have _tic douloureux_ and wear shawls over her head. When all the children were married--oh, how lonesome it would be!

But she had been quite a little heroine and gone to school one day to see the girls and boys. And one girl said: "I s'pose it's city fas.h.i.+on to wear pantalets that way, but my! doesn't it look queer!"

She was very glad to get back to her father. The country was beautiful with all its bloom and fragrance, but First Street had such a clean, tidy look with its flagged sidewalks and the dirt all swept up to the middle of the street, leaving the round faces of the cobble-stones fairly s.h.i.+ning. It was quite delightful to show the boys all over the house and then go through the yard to the stables and greet Dobbin and Prince. And Battle, the dog, called so because he had been such a fighter, but commonly known as Bat, wagged his whole body with delight at sight of the boys.