SUNDRY DISSIPATIONS
The schools were all opened again. Hanny wasn't too big to go to Mrs.
Craven's, indeed her school commenced with some girls two or three years
older. Ben went to work, starting off in the morning with John. Jim felt
rather lonely.
His best girl had been undeniably "snifty" to him. Something _had_
happened to her at last. Through a friend her father had secured a
position in the Custom House. It was not very high, but it had an
exalted sound. And instead of the paltry five hundred dollars he earned
at the shoe store, the salary was a thousand. They were going to move
around in First Avenue. Hanny was sorry that it was a few doors above
Mrs. Craven's. If Lily had only gone out of the neighborhood!
Of course she disdained the public school. She was going to Rutgers. She
held her head very high as they went back and forth during the removal,
and stared at Hanny as if she had never known her.
But there were so many things to interest Hanny. Sometimes she read the
paper to her father, and it was filled with threats and excitements. In
the year before, the independence of Texas had been consented to by
Mexico on condition that her separate existence should be maintained.
But on the Fourth of July, at a convention, the people had accepted some
terms offered by the United States, and declared for annexation. For
fear of a sudden alarm General Zachary Taylor had been sent with an army
of occupation, and Commodore Connor with a squadron of naval vessels to
the Gulf of Mexico. The talk of war ran high.
Then we were in a difficulty with England about some Oregon boundaries.
"The whole of Oregon or none," was the cry. England was given a year's
notice that steps would be taken to bring the question to a settlement.
Timid people declared that wild land was not worth quarrelling about.
If you could see an atlas of those days I think you would be rather
surprised, and we are all convinced now that geography is by no means an
exact science. The little girl and her father studied it all out. There
was big, unwieldy Oregon. There were British America and Russian
America. There were Nova Zembla and Spitzbergen, and though there were
dreams of an open Polar Sea, no one was disturbing it. We had a great
American Desert, and some wild lands the other side of the Rocky
Mountains. An intrepid young explorer, John Charles Fremont, had
discovered an inland sea which he had named Salt Lake, and then gone up
to Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River.
He had started again now to survey California and Oregon. We thought
Kansas and Nebraska very far West in those days, and the Pacific coast
was an almost unknown land. We had just ratified a treaty with China,
after long obstinacy on their part, and Japan was still The Hermit
Kingdom and the Mikado an unknown quantity.
And so everybody was talking war. But then it was so far away one didn't
really need to be frightened unless we had war with England.
There were various other matters that quite disturbed the little girl.
It had not seemed strange in the summer to have Dr. Hoffman come and
take Margaret out driving, or for an evening walk. But now he began to
come on Sunday afternoon and stay to tea. Mrs. Underhill was very chatty
and pleasant with him. She had accepted the fact of Margaret's
engagement, and to tell the truth was really proud of it. Already she
was beginning to "lay by," as people phrased it, regardless of Lindley
Murray, for her wedding outfit. There were a few choice things of Cousin
Lois' that she meant for her. Pieces of muslin came in the house and
were cut up into sheets and pillow-cases. They were all to be sewed
over-seam and hemmed by hand. A year would be none too long in which to
get ready.
Josie one day said something about Margaret being engaged. Hanny made no
reply. She went home in a strange mood. To be sure, Steve had married
Dolly, but that was different. How could Margaret leave them all and go
away with some one who did not belong to them! She could not understand
the mystery. It was as puzzling as Cousin Lois' death. She did not know
then it was a mystery even to those who loved, and the poets who wrote
about it.
Her mother sat by the front basement window sewing. Martha was finishing
the ironing and singing:
"O how happy are they
Who their Saviour obey
And have laid up their treasure above."
Martha had been converted the winter before and joined the Methodist
church in Norfolk Street. The little girl went with her sometimes to the
early prayer-meeting Sunday evening, for she was enraptured with the
singing.
But she went to her mother now, standing straight before her with large,
earnest eyes.
"Mother," with a strange solemnity in her tone, "are you going to let
Margaret marry Dr. Hoffman?"
"Law, child, how you startled me!" Her mother sewed faster than ever.
"Why, I don't know as I had much to do with it any way. And I suppose
they'd marry anyhow. When young people fall in love----"
"Fall in love." She had read that in some of the books. It must be
different from just loving.
"Don't be silly," said her mother, between sharpness and merriment.
"Everybody falls in love sooner or later and marries. Almost everybody.
And if I had not fallen in love with your father and married him, you
mightn't have had so good a one."
"Oh, mother, I'm so glad you did!" She flung her arms about her mother's
neck and kissed her so rapturously that the tears came to her mother's
eyes. Why, she wouldn't have missed the exquisite joy of having this
little girl for all the world!
"There, child, don't strangle me," was what she said, in an unsteady
voice.
"But Dr. Hoffman isn't like father----"
"No, dear. And Margaret isn't like me, now. They are young, and maybe
when they have been married a good many years they will be just as
happy, growing old together. And since Margaret loves him and he loves
her--why, we are all delighted with Dolly. She's just another
daughter."
"But we have a good many sons," said the little girl, without seeing the
humor of it.
"Yes, we didn't really need him, just yet. But he's Joe's dear friend
and a nice young man, and your father is satisfied. It's the way of the
world. Little girls can't understand it very well, but they always do
when they're grown up. There, go hang up your bonnet, and then you may
set the table."
Yes, it was a great mystery. Margaret seemed suddenly set apart, made
sacred in some way. Hanny's intensity of thought had no experience to
shape or restrain it. All the girls had liked Charles,--perhaps if there
had been several boys and spasms of jealousy between the girls, she
might have been roused to a more correct idea. But though they had made
him the father, a lover had been quite outside of their simple category.
Margaret came down presently. She had on her pretty brown merino trimmed
with bands of scarlet velvet, and at her throat a white bow just edged
with scarlet. Her front hair was curled in ringlets.
"Mother, can't we have supper quite soon, or can't I? The concert begins
at half-past seven and we want to be there early and get a good seat.
Dr. Hoffman is coming at half-past six."
Father came in. Mrs. Underhill jumped up and brought in the tea. Jim
came whistling down the area steps. They did not need to wait for John
and Benny Frank.
Hanny looked at her sister quite as if she were a new person, with some
solemn distinction. How had she come to love Dr. Hoffman?
She had not settled it when she went to bed alone. There was a dreary
feeling now of years and years without Margaret.
That was Friday, and the following Sunday Dr. Hoffman marched into the
parlor with a vital at-home step. Margaret was up-stairs. Hanny sat in
her little rocker reading her Sunday-school book. He smiled and came
over to her, took away her book, and clasping both hands drew her up,
seated himself, and her on his knee before she could make any
resistance.
"Hanny," he began, "do you know you are going to be my little sister? I
can't remember when I had a _little_ sister, mine always seemed big to
me. And I am very glad to have you. You are such a sweet, dear little
girl. Won't you give me a word of welcome?"
Something in his voice touched her.
"I wasn't glad on Friday," she said slowly. "I don't want Margaret to go
away----"
"Then you will have to take me in here."
"There's Stephen's room," she suggested naively.
"Yes, that would do. But I'm not going to take Margaret away in a long,
long time."
"Oh!" She was greatly relieved.
"But I want you to love me," and he gave her a squeeze, wondering how
she could have kept so deliciously innocent. "Won't you try? You will
make Margaret ever so much happier. We should be sad if you didn't love
us, and now if you love one, you must love the other."
Then Margaret came down, and she said the same thing, so what could
Hanny do but promise. And it seemed not to disturb any one else. When
she spoke of the prospect to her father, he said with a laugh and a hug:
"Well, I have my little girl yet."
Dolly and Stephen took possession of their new abode and had a
"house-warming," a great, big, splendid party almost as grand as the
wedding. And what a beautiful house it was! There was a bathroom and
marble basins, and gas in every room, and pretty light carpets with
flowers and green leaves all over them. There was music and dancing and
a supper, and old Mr. Beekman walked round with her and told her
Katschina wasn't well at all, and he was afraid he should lose her.
Dolly said she was to come up on Friday after school and stay until
Monday morning. Would Margaret and Dr. Hoffman have a house like this
some time?
She had more lessons to learn now. And grammar was curiously associated
with Mrs. Murray being so sweet and attentive to the British officers
while the Federal soldiers stole along--she could fairly see them with
her vivid imagination. History began to unfold the great world before
her. Another thing interested her, and this was that every pleasant day
Daisy Jasper came to school for the morning session. She was very
backward, of course, for she had never been to school at all. She could
walk now without her crutch, but Sam was always very careful of her. The
Jasper house became the rendezvous for the girls, as the Deans' had
been. Even bonnie Prince Charlie was allowed to go there. Daisy loved so
to see them dance to the music of her wonderful box. But Charles had not
been able to buy his accordeon. He needed a new suit of clothes if he
had any money to throw away, and Mrs. Reed insisted this should be put
in the bank when his father said he could buy him all the clothes he
needed.
Some of the girls at school were making pretty things for a fair to be
held in the basement of the Church of the Epiphany in Stanton Street,
and they begged Hanny to help. They were to have a fair at Martha's
church also, and the little fingers flew merrily. Hanny had found a new
accomplishment, and she was very proud to bring it into the school. This
was crocheting. Next door to the stable in Houston Street lived a very
tidy German family with a host of little children. The man did cobbling,
mending boots and shoes. His wife did shoe binding and stitching leather
"foxings" on cloth tops for gaiters. Button shoes had not come in. They
either laced in front or at the side. And very few ladies wore anything
higher than the spring heel, as it was called. To be sure, some of them
did wear foolishly thin shoes, but there were rubbers unless you
disdained them; and they were real India-rubber, and no mistake, rather
clumsy oftentimes, but they lasted two or three years.
The little German girls, Lena and Gretchen, took care of the babies and
did the work. It seemed to Hanny they were always busy. Lena knit
stockings and mittens and caps, and her small fingers flew like birds.
One day she was doing something very beautiful with pink zephyr and an
ivory needle with a tiny hook at the end.
"Oh, what is it?" cried Hanny eagerly.
"Lace. Crocheted lace. A lady on Grand Street will give me ten cents a
yard. It is for babies' petticoats. And you can make caps and hoods and
fascinators. It plagued me a little at first, but now I can do it so
fast, much faster than knitting it. And I am to have all the work I can
do."
"Oh, if I could learn!" cried Hanny.
"I'll show you because you are so good to us. Your boy brought mother
such a package of clothes. But I am not going to teach the girls around
here. They will be wanting to do it for the stores. You can make lace
with cotton thread and oh! elegant with silk. That is worth a good
deal."
Hanny bought her needle and worsted. At first she was "bothered" as
well. But she was an ingenious little girl, and when you once had the
"knack" there were such infinite varieties to it. And oh, it was so
fascinating! She hardly had time to study her lessons, and one day she
did actually miss in her definitions. But she begged Mrs. Craven to let
her study them over and recite after school, for she knew her father
would feel badly about the imperfect mark.
When she had made two yards of beautiful pink lace she showed it to
Margaret. She meant to make two yards of blue and give them both to Katy
Rhodes for her table at the Fair. Margaret was very much pleased and
said she must learn herself. Daisy Jasper did a little, too. She was
learning very rapidly and had a wonderful genius for drawing.
Oh, dear! how busy they were. They were happy and interested, and
almost forgot to take out their dolls, or read their story-books. Martha
said: "You might do something for my fair, too," and Margaret promised.
Jim _did_ feel a little sore that Lily Ludlow did not ask him to her
party, which was quite a grand affair. She announced that she had broken
with the public-school crowd, and was going to have all new friends. But
the very next week she met Jim at another party, and he was so handsome
and manly that she really regretted her haste. Jim was very proud and
dignified, and never once danced with her nor chose her in any of the
games.
Dolly and Stephen came home to the Thanksgiving dinner. If Hanny had not
been so much engrossed she might have considered herself left out of
some things, only her father never left her out. And Ben brought home
such tempting books that she did wish she could sit up like the others
and not have to go to bed at nine.
The Epiphany fair came first, the week before Christmas. The
Sunday-school room was all dressed with greens, and tables arranged over
the tops of the seats with long boards, covered with white cloths. And
oh, the lovely articles! Everything it seemed that fingers could make,
useful or ornamental, from handsomely dressed dolls to pincushions, from
white aprons with lace and ribbon bows on the dainty pockets down to
unromantic holders. Everybody laughed and chatted and were as gay as gay
could be.
In the back room that was rented out for a day school--indeed, the
little girl had come quite near being sent here--there were tables for
refreshments. The coffee and tea had a delightful fragrance, and the
different dishes looked wonderfully tempting.
It was Hanny's first fair, but people didn't expect to take children out
everywhere then, or indeed to go themselves. There was more home life,
real family life. Her father was her escort, and her mother had said:
"Now don't make the child sick by feeding her all kinds of trash, or she
can't go out again this winter." So you see they had to be careful. But
they had some delightful cake and cream, and he bought her a pound of
candy tied up in a pretty box, and the loveliest little work-basket with
a row of blue silk pockets around the inside.
Katy Rhodes was waiting at a table with her mother, but she found an
opportunity to whisper to Hanny "that her lace had sold the very first
thing, and there had been such a call for it she just wished they had
had a hundred yards."
That pleased the child very much.
"It was like a store," said Hanny to her mother; "only everybody seemed
to know everybody, and there were all kinds of things. So many people
came for their suppers they must have made lots of money. And I'm as
tired as I can be, only it _was_ beautiful."
Martha's church was to have their Christmas Sunday-school anniversary,
and Charles Reed was to sing a solo with a chorus of four voices. The
Deans and half the people in the street went. Margaret and Dr. Hoffman,
and this time John and Ben took the little girl. Mother had been up at
Steve's all day.
There was a large platform at the end of the church, and crowds of
pretty children dressed in white, ranged in tiers one above another.
After a prayer and singing by the congregation the real exercises began.
The body of children sang some beautiful hymns, then there were several
spirited dialogues, and separate pieces, very well rendered indeed. When
it came "bonnie Prince Charlie's" turn, he seemed to hesitate a moment.
Hanny thought she would be frightened to death before all the people. I
think Charles would have been a year ago.
The piano began the soft accompaniment. After the first few notes the
sweet young voice swelled out like the warble of a bird. People were
silent with surprise and admiration. The fair, boyish face and slim
figure looked smaller there on the platform. The face had a youthful
sweetness that nowadays would be pronounced artistic.
The chorus came in beautifully. There were three verses in the solo, and
really, I do not know as the audience were to blame for applauding. The
boy had to come out and sing again, this time a pretty Christmas carol
that they had practised at singing-school.
When the exercises were finished the children were all taken down-stairs
and they looked very pretty flitting about. There was another surprise,
one that greatly interested the little girl. In one prettily arranged
booth were two curious small beings who had a history. They had already
been in Sunday-school on two occasions. A missionary to China, seeing
these little girls about to be sold, had rescued them by buying them
himself. He had brought them back on his return, and now kindly disposed
people were making up a sum to provide them with a home and educate
them.
Hanny pressed forward holding John's hand tightly. They were so
strange-looking. The larger and older one was not at all pretty, but the
younger one had a sweet sort of shyness and was not so stolid. Their
yellow-brown skins, oblique dark eyes, black brows, and black hair done
up in a remarkable fashion with some long pins, and their Chinese attire
seemed very curious. The gentleman with them said there were hundreds
of little girls sold in China, and that women bought them for future
wives for their sons, and treated them like bond slaves. These
children's feet had not been cramped, this was done mainly to the higher
orders. He had some Chinese shoes worn by grown women, and they were
such short, queer things, like some of the pincushions made for the
Fair.
We didn't suppose then the Chinese would come and live with us and have
a Chinatown in the heart of the city; do our laundry work and take
possession of our kitchens; that the blue shirts and queer pointed shoes
would be a common sight in our streets. So the Chinese children were a
curiosity. Indeed, several years elapsed before Hanny saw another
inhabitant of the Flowery Kingdom.
"Don't you want to put something in the box?" John held out a quarter to
the little girl.
Her eyes sparkled with pleasure. Then she shook hands with the small
Chinese maidens, and she felt almost as if she had been to a foreign
country.
If Mrs. Reed had been present she would have marched Charles home in
short order. She did not believe in praising children, or anybody else
for that matter. Everybody, in her opinion, needed a strict hand. She
hardly approved of the singing-school, and if she had really understood
that Charles would stand out alone facing the audience, and then be
applauded for what he had done, and go into the fair and be praised and
"treated," she would have been horrified and put him on the strictest
sort of discipline for the next month.
Charles had endeavored to persuade his mother to go, but she wanted to
get the turkey ready for the Christmas dinner, and had no time for such
trifling things. No woman had who did her duty by her house and her
family. The harder and stonier and more rigid the discipline was, the
more virtue it contained, she thought. There was no especial end in view
with her; it was the way all along that one had to be careful about and
make as rough as possible.
Mr. Reed was secretly proud of his boy. He had a misgiving that all this
praise and attention was not a good thing, but the boy looked so happy,
and it was Christmas Eve, with the general feeling of joy in the air. He
was curiously moved himself. Perhaps happiness wasn't such a weak and
sinful thing after all. It did not seem to ruin the Underhill family.
But he said to Charles as they were nearing home: "I wouldn't make much
fuss about the evening. Your mother thinks such things rather foolish."
They all returned in a crowd, laughing and talking and saying merry
good-nights. Martha had the key of the basement and they trooped in.
Indeed, Martha was so much one of the family that Dr. Hoffman paid her a
deal of respect.
Father was up-stairs in the sitting-room reading his paper. He glanced
up and nodded.
"Oh!" cried Hanny, "where's mother? The house looks so dark and dull and
not a bit Christmassy. It was all so splendid, and oh, Father! Charles
sung like an angel, didn't he, Margaret? They made him sing over again,
and he looked really beautiful. And there were two Chinese girls at the
fair, such queer little things," she flushed, for the word recalled Lily
Ludlow. "Their hands were as soft as silk, and when they talked--well,
you can't imagine it! It sounded like knocking little blocks all around
and making the corners click. But where _is_ mother?"
"Mother is going to stay up to Steve's all night. They wanted her to
help them."
"Oh, dear! It won't be any Christmas without her," cried the little girl
ruefully.
"Oh, she'll be home in the morning, likely."
"Hanny, it is after eleven, and you must go to bed," said Margaret.
"I'd just like to stay up all night, once. And can't I hang up my
stocking?"
"I'll see to that. Come, dear. And boys, go to bed."