A Little Girl in Old Boston

by Amanda M. Douglas

There was no Worth or Pingat to charge enormous prices. Patterns were passed around. Ladies went visiting and took their sleeves along to make, or their ruffles to plait, and altered over their brocades and paduasoys and crapes, and some darned Brussels "footing" until it was transformed into really handsome lace. They could clean their feathers and ribbons, and one wonders how they found time for so many things. They were very good letter writers too. Dolly Madison and Mrs. Adams are fresh and interesting to-day.

But Boston could rejoice, nevertheless. To the little girl Cary was invested with the attributes of a hero. He even looked different to her enchanted eyes.

Uncle Win used to smile with grave softness when she chattered about him. At first it had given him a heartache to hear Cary's name mentioned, but now it was like a strain of comforting music. Only he wondered how he ever would have lived without the little girl from Old Boston.

She used to play and sing "Hail, Columbia!"—for people were patriotic then. But the sweetest of all were the old-fashioned ones that his wife had sung as a young girl, daintily tender love songs. Sometimes he tried them with her, but his voice sounded to himself like a pale ghost out of the past, yet it still had a mournful sweetness.

But with the rejoicing we had many sorrows. Our northern frontier warfare had been full of defeats; 1813 opened with various misfortunes. Ports were blockaded, business dropped lower and lower. Still social life went on, and in a tentative way intellectual life was making some progress.

The drama was not neglected either. The old Boston Theater gave several stirring representations that to-day would be called quite realistic. One was the capture of the Guerriere with officers, sailors and marines, and songs that aroused drooping patriotism. Perhaps the young people of that time enjoyed it as much as their grandchildren did "H. M. S. Pinafore."

Doris liked the rare musical entertainments. People grew quite used to seeing Mr. Winthrop Adams with the pretty, bright, growing girl, who might have been his daughter. It was a delight to her when anyone made the mistake. Occasionally an old gentleman remembered her grandfather, and the little boy Charles who went to England.

Then in the early summer Mrs. King came on for a visit, and brought her eldest child Bessy, a bright, well-trained little girl.

There had been a good deal of trouble at the Mannings', and grandmother had gone back and forth, making it very confining for Betty. Crops had proved poor in the autumn; the children had the measles and Mrs. Manning a run of fever. Elizabeth had taken a cold in the early fall and had a troublesome cough all winter. Mrs. Leverett wanted to bring her home for a rest, but Mrs. Manning could not spare her, with all the summer work, and the warm weather would set her up, she was quite sure.

The country was drawing a brief breath of relief. There had been the magnificent victories on the Lakes and some on the land, and now and then came cheering news of naval successes. Everybody was in better spirits. Mrs. King seemed to bring a waft of hope from the Capital itself, and the Leverett house was quite enlivened with callers. Invitations came in for dinners and suppers and evening parties. Madam Royall quite claimed her on the strength of the Adams relation, and also Doris, who was such a favorite. Doris and little Bessy fraternized at once, and practiced a duet for the entertainment of Uncle Winthrop, who praised them warmly.