A Little Girl in Old New York Part 11

They had rush-bottomed and splint chairs, several rockers, some rustic benches, and two or three tables standing about, with work-baskets and piles of sewing and knitting, for people had not outgrown industry in those days, and still taught their children the verses about the busy bee.

Dolly put Margaret in a rocker, untied her bonnet, and took off her soft white mull scarf--long shawls they were called, and the elder ladies wore them of black silk and handsome black lace. They were held up on the arms and sometimes tied carelessly, and the richer you were, the more handsomely you trimmed them at the ends. Then for cooler weather there were Paisley and India long shawls.

Hanny kept close to her sister and leaned against her knee. She felt strange and timid with the eyes of so many grown people upon her. But they all took up their work and talked, asking Margaret various questions in sociable fas.h.i.+on.

There were three Beekman boys and one little Bond running about. The girl was very shy and would sit on her mother's lap. The Beekmans were fat and chubby, with their hair cut quite close, but not in the modern extreme. They wore long trousers and roundabouts, and low shoes with light gray stockings, though their Sunday best were white. We should say now they looked very queer, and unmistakably Dutch. You sometimes see this attire among the new immigrants. But there were no little Fauntleroy boys at that period with their velvet jackets and knickerbockers, flowing curls and collars.

The boys tried to inveigle Hanny among them. Pety offered her the small wooden bench he was carrying round. Paulus asked her "to come and see Molly who had great big horns and went this way," brandis.h.i.+ng his head so fiercely that the little girl shuddered and grasped Margaret's hand.

"Don't tease her, boys," entreated their mother. "She'll get acquainted by and by. I suppose she isn't much used to children, being the youngest?"

"No, ma'am," answered Margaret.

The boys scampered off. Annette knelt down on the short gra.s.s, and presently won a smile from the little girl, who was revolving a perplexity as to whether big boys were not a great deal nicer than little boys. Then Stephen came back and Mr. Paulus Beekman, who was stout and dark, and favored his mother's side of the family. The ladies were very jolly, teasing one another, telling bits of fun, comparing work, and exchanging cooking recipes. Miss Gitty asked Margaret about her mother's family, the Vermilyeas. A Miss Vermilye, sixty or seventy years ago, had married a Conklin and come over to Closter. She seemed to have all her family genealogy at her tongue's end, and knew all the relations to the third and fourth generation. But she had a rather sweet face with fine wrinkles and blue veins, and wore her hair in long ringlets at the sides, fastened with sh.e.l.l combs that had been her mother's, and were very dear to her. She wore a light changeable silk, and it still had big sleeves, such as we are wearing to-day. But they had mostly gone out. And the elder ladies were combing their hair down over their ears. There were no crimping-pins, so they had to braid it up at night in "tails" to make it wave, unless one had curly hair. Most of the young girls brushed it straight above their ears for ordinary wear, and braided or twisted it in a great coil at the back, though it was often elaborately dressed for parties.

Aunt Gitty was netting a shawl out of white zephyr. It was tied in the same manner that one makes fish-nets, and you used a little shuttle on which your thread was wound. It was very light and fleecy. Aunt Gitty had made one of silk for a cousin who was going abroad, and it had been very much admired. The little girl was greatly interested in this, and ventured on an attempt at friendliness.

Dolly took them away presently to show them the flower-beds. Mr. Beekman had ten acres of ground. There were vegetables, corn and potato fields and a pasture lot, beside the great lawn and flower-garden. Old Mr.

Beekman was out there. He was past seventy now, hale and hearty to be sure, with a round, wrinkled face, and thick white hair, and he was pa.s.sionately fond of his grandchildren. He had not married until he was forty and his wife was much younger.

There were long walks of dahlias of every color and kind. They were a favorite autumn flower. A great round bed of "Robin-run-away," bergamot, that scented the air and attracted the humming-birds. All manner of old-fas.h.i.+oned flowers that are coming around again, and you could see where there had been magnificent beds of peonies. In the early season people drove out here to see Peter Beekman's tulip-beds.

There were borders of artemisias, as they were called, that diffused a pungent fragrance. We had not shaken hands so neighborly with j.a.pan then, nor learned how she evolved her wonderful chrysanthemums.

The little girl grew quite talkative with Mr. Beekman. You see, in those days there was a theory about children being seen and not heard, and no one expected a little six-year-old to entertain or disturb a room full of company. The repression made them rather diffident, to be sure. But Mr. Beekman gathered her a nosegay of spice pinks, carnations now, and took her to see his beautiful ducks, snowy white, in a little pond, and another pair of Muscovy ducks, then some rare Mandarin ducks from China.

She told him about the ducks and chickens at Yonkers and how sorry she was to leave them.

And then came the handsome white Angora cat with its long fur and curious eyes that were almost blue, and when she said "mie-e-o-u" in a rather delighted tone, it seemed as if she meant "O master, where have you been? I'm so glad to see you!"

He stood and patted her and they held quite a conversation as she arched her neck, rubbed against his leg, and turned back and forth. Then she stretched way up on him and gave him her paw, which was very cunningly done.

"This is a nice little girl who has come to see me," he said, as she seemed to look inquiringly at Hanny. "She's fond of everything, kitties especially."

Kitty looked rather uncertain. Hanny was a little afraid of such a curious creature. But presently she came and rubbed against her with a soft little mew, and Hanny ventured to touch her.

"She likes you," declared old Mr. Beekman, much pleased. "She doesn't often take fancies. She loves Dolly, and she won't have anything to do with Annette, though I think the girl teases her. Nice Katschina," said her master, patting her. "Shall we buy this little girl?"

Perhaps you won't believe it, but Katschina really said "yes," and smiled. It was very different from the grin of the "Chessy cat" that Alice saw in Wonderland.

Some one came flying down the path.

"Father," exclaimed Dolly, "come and have a cup of tea or a gla.s.s of beer. Stephen and his sister think they can't stay to supper. But may be they'll leave the little girl--you seem to have taken such a notion to her."

Hanny didn't want to be impolite and she really _did_ like Mr. Beekman, but as for staying--her heart was up in her throat.

Dolly picked up Katschina and carried her in triumph. Two white paws lay over Dolly's shoulder.

There was a table with a s.h.i.+ning copper tea-kettle, a pewter tankard of home-brewed ale, bread and b.u.t.ter, cold chicken and ham, a great dish of curd cheese, pound cake, soft and yellow, fruit cake, a heaping dish of doughnuts and various cookies and seed cakes. Scipio, a young colored lad, pa.s.sed the eatables. Young Mrs. Beekman poured the tea. The mother sat near her. She was short and fat and wore her hair in a high Pompadour roll, and she laughed a good deal, showing her fine white teeth of which she was very proud.

Katschina sat in her master's lap, and the little girl was beside him.

The boys were given their hands full and sent away. It was a very pretty picture and the little girl felt as if she was reading an entertaining story. One of the Gessler cousins had been knitting lace, double oak-leaf with a heading of insertion. It looked marvellous to the little girl. She said she was making it to trim a visite. This was a Frenchy sort of garment lately come into vogue, though the little girl did not know what it was, and was too well trained to ask questions. But the lace might be the desire of one's heart.

They sipped their tea or raspberry shrub, or enjoyed a gla.s.s of ale.

They were all very merry. The little girl wondered how Dolly dared to be so saucy with Stephen when she only knew him such a little. Mrs. Beekman could hardly accept the fact that they would not stay to supper, and said they must come soon and spend the day, and have Stephen drive up for them, and that she hoped soon to see Mrs. Underhill. "It is quite delightful and we are all well satisfied," she added, nodding rather mysteriously.

Dolly put on the little girl's hat and kissed her, giving her a breathless squeeze. Miss Gitty kissed her as well and told her she was a "very pretty behaved child." The buggy came round and Stephen put them in amid a chorus of good-bys.

"The little one looks delicate," commented the younger Mrs. Beekman when they had driven away. "I'm afraid she doesn't run and play enough. But she's beautifully behaved. And what a fancy father took to her!"

"Miss Underhill doesn't seem like a real country girl," said another.

"The Underhills are a good family all through, English descent from some Lord Underhill. They were staunch Royalists at one time."

"And the Vermilyeas are good stock," said Aunt Gitty. "There's nothing like being particular as to family. It tells in the long run."

"Well, Dolly, we think he will do," said Mrs. Beekman laughingly, as Dolly, having said her good-bys, sauntered back to the circle. "He might be richer, of course. There's a large family and they can't have much apiece."

"Stephen Underhill's got the making of a good substantial man in him,"

grunted father Beekman. "If he'd been a poor shoat he wouldn't have hung around here very long, would he, Katschina? We'd 'a put a flea in his ear, wouldn't we."

Katschina arched her back. Dolly laughed and blushed. Stephen was her own true-love anyway, but she was glad to have them all like him. With the insistence of youth she felt she never could have loved any other man.

Stephen clicked to Prince, who was rested and full of spirits. They drove almost straight across the city, about at the end of our first hundred numbered streets. But the road wound around to get out of a low marshy place, a pond in the rainy season, and some rocks that seemed tumbled up on end. They struck a bit of the old Boston Post Road, and that caused the little girl to stop her prattle and think of the old ladies they had never visited. She must "jog" her father's memory. That was what her mother always said when she recalled half-forgotten things.

Stephen and Margaret had only spoken in answer to the little girl. He had a young man's awkwardness concerning a subject so dear to his heart.

Margaret was awed by the mystery of love, captivated by Dolly's friendliness, and puzzled to decide what her mother would think of it.

Stephen married! Any of them married for that matter. How strange it would seem! And yet she had sometimes said, "When I am married."

The place was wild enough. You would hardly think so now when hollows have been filled and hills levelled, and rocks blasted away. After they turned a little stream wound in and out through the trees and bushes.

Amid a tangled ma.s.s the little girl espied some wild roses.

"Oh, Steve!" she cried, "may I get out and pick some?"

"I will." He handed the reins over to Margaret and sprang down, running across a little bridge, and soon gathered a great handful.

"Oh, thank you," and her eyes shone. "What a funny little bridge."

"That's Kissing Bridge."

"Who do you have to kiss?" asked the little girl mirthfully.

"Well, a long while ago, in Van Twiller's time, I guess," with a twinkle in his eye, "there wasn't any bridge. The lovers used to carry their sweethearts over, and the charge was a kiss."

"But there wasn't any kissing _bridge_ then," she said shrewdly.

"When the bridge was built they stopped and kissed out of remembrance."

"Was it really so, Margaret?"