A Little Florida Lady Part 1

A Little Florida Lady.

by Dorothy C. Paine.

CHAPTER I

The Journey to Florida.

New York was in the throes of a blizzard. The wind howled and shrieked, heralding the approach of March, the Wind King's month of the year. Mrs. Davenport stood at a second story window of a room of the Gilsey House, and looked down idly on the bleak thoroughfare. She was a young-looking woman for her thirty-five years, and had an extremely sweet face, denoting kindliness of heart.

The hall door opened, and Elizabeth Davenport entered, carrying in her arms a little ball of fluffy gray.

Elizabeth, or Beth, as she was more commonly called at the age of seven, might have been compared to a good fairy had she not been so plump. She almost always radiated suns.h.i.+ne, and her face was generally lighted with a smile, the outcome of a warm heart. Sometimes clouds slightly dimmed the suns.h.i.+ne, but they always proved to be summer clouds that quickly pa.s.sed. Her face was now flushed, and her eyes sparkled.

Mrs. Davenport turned, and smiled in greeting, but, at the same time, brushed a tear from her eye.

"Why, mamma, dear, what's the matter?" cried Beth.

Mrs. Davenport's eyes filled, but she bravely smiled. "I'm a little unhappy over leaving all our friends, Beth. Florida seems very far away."

"I wouldn't be unhappy."

"How would you help it, dearie?"

"Why mamma," she answered triumphantly after a second's thought, "there are so many pleasant things to think about that I just never think of the unpleasant ones," and her face broke into a smile, so cheery that Mrs. Davenport's heart lightened.

"Mamma," she continued, "it's very easy for me to be happy. Every one is so good to me. The chambermaid just gave me this dear, dear kitty.

Isn't it too cute for anything? I mean to take it to Florida with me."

"Why, Beth, that would never do."

Beth was about to demur, when a door into an adjoining room opened, and Mr. Davenport called:

"Mary, come here a minute, please."

Mrs. Davenport hastened to answer the call. She was hardly out of the room before Beth rushed to an open trunk. Impatiently, she began pulling things out. She burrowed almost to the very bottom. Lastly, she took out a skirt of her mother's, and wrapped something very carefully in it.

The door into the adjoining room creaked. Beth blushed scarlet, and dropped the bundle into the trunk. Then as no one came, she threw the other articles pell-mell on top of the bundle, and scampered guiltily to the other end of the room. Not an instant too soon to escape immediate detection, for Mrs. Davenport reentered the room, followed by a girl of thirteen. This was Marian, Beth's sister. The two girls were totally unlike both in looks and in disposition. Marian was a tall blonde, and slight for her age. She had quiet, gentle ways.

"Mother, here's my red dress on the floor," she said, picking it up near the trunk.

"Beth, what have you been doing?"

Beth kept her blus.h.i.+ng, telltale face turned from her mother, and did not answer. Without another word, Mrs. Davenport went to the trunk, and began smoothing things out.

"I declare, there's something alive in here," and she drew out a poor, half smothered kitten.

"I think you might let her go in the trunk," cried Beth, aggrieved.

"Child, it would kill the poor kitty. Marian, you take it back to the chambermaid." Marian left the room with it, and Beth began to pout, whereupon Mrs. Davenport said:

"Beth, you are so set upon having your own way, I hardly know what to do with you."

Immediately Beth's pouting gave place to a mischievous smile. "You'd better call in a policeman, and have me taken away."

Mrs. Davenport smiled too. "So my little girl remembers the policeman, does she? I was at my wits' end to know how to manage you when I thought of him. Even as a little bit of a thing, you would laugh instead of cry, if I punished you with a whipping."

"Well, I was afraid of the policeman, anyway. I thought you really meant it when you said I was a naughty child, and not your nice Beth, and that the policeman would take the naughty child away."

"It worked like magic," said Mrs. Davenport. "You stopped crying almost immediately, and held out towards me a red dress of which you were very proud, and cried, 'I'm your Beth. Don't you know my pretty red dress? Don't you see my curls?'" She sat down, having finished straightening out the trunk, and Beth crept up into her mother's lap.

"Beth, do you remember one night when you were ready for bed in your little canton-flannel night-drawers, that you lost your temper over some trifling matter? You danced up and down, yelling, 'I won't. I won't.' I could hardly keep from laughing. My young spitfire looked very funny capering around and around, her long curls rumpled about her determined, flushed face, and her feet not still an instant in her flapping night-drawers. Many and many a time you escaped punishment, Beth, because you were so very comical even in your naughtiness."

"I remember that night well," answered Beth. "You said, 'There, that bad girl has come back. Even though it's night, she'll have to go.'"

"And," interrupted Mrs. Davenport, "you threw yourself into my arms, crying, 'Mamma, whip me, but don't send me away.' I knew better than to whip you, but I punished you by not kissing you good-night."

"And I cried myself to sleep," put in Beth, snuggling more closely to her mother. "I thought I must be very naughty not to get my usual good-night kiss. I do try to be good, but it's very hard work sometimes. But I'll get the better of the bad girl, I'll leave her here in New York, so she won't bother you in Florida."----

Just then Mr. Davenport entered the room. He was a tall, dark man with a very kindly face.

"I think the snow is not deep enough to detain the trains," he said.

"It's time for us to start. The porter is here to take the trunks."

"We'll be ready in a moment," answered his wife. "I fear we'll find it very disagreeable driving to the station."

And, in truth, outside the weather proved bitterly cold. The wind swept with blinding power up the now mostly deserted thoroughfare. The Davenports were glad of the shelter of the carriage which carried them swiftly along the icy pavement. Mrs. Davenport drew her furs around her, while the children snuggled together.

"I'm glad we're going, aren't you, Marian?" asked Beth, as they descended from the carriage at the station.

"I guess so," answered Marian doubtfully, remembering the friends she was leaving behind, perhaps forever.

Mr. Davenport already had their tickets, and the family immediately boarded a sleeper bound for Jacksonville.

Beth loved to travel, and soon was on speaking terms with every one on the car. She hesitated slightly about being friends with the porter.

He made her think of the first colored person she had ever seen. She remembered even now how the man's rolling black eyes had frightened her, although it was the blackness of his skin that had impressed her the most. She believed that he had become dirty, the way she sometimes did, only in a greater degree.

"Mamma," she whispered, "I never get as black as that man, do I? Do you s'pose he ever washes himself?"

Mrs. Davenport explained that cleanliness had nothing to do with the man's blackness.

"Is he black inside?" Beth questioned in great awe.

"No. All people are alike at heart. Clean thinking makes even the black man white within, dear."

Beth had not seen another colored person from that time until this.

Therefore, she was a little doubtful about making up with the porter.

But he proved so very genial that before night arrived, he and "little missy," as he called Beth, were so very friendly that he considered her his special charge.