The little girl would not go out to play in the afternoon, and she didn't even run when Jim said, "Nora wanted her for something special." But she really had no conscience about fooling her father several times. He pretended to be so surprised, and said, "Oh, you little witch!" It was a day on which you had need to keep your wits about you.
Then with the long days and the sunshine came so many things. Little girls skipped rope and rolled hoops, their guiding-sticks tied with a bright ribbon. The boys had iron hoops and an iron guider, and they made a musical jingle as they went along. There were kites too, but you didn't catch Benny Frank flying one. And marbles and ball. In the afternoon the streets seemed alive with children. But what would those people have said to the five-story tenement-houses with their motley crew! Then Ludlow and Allen and many another street wore such a clean and quaint aspect, and the ladies sat at their parlor windows in the afternoon sewing and watching their little ones.
"Ring-a-round-a-rosy" began again. And dear me, there were so many signs! You must not step on a crack in the flagging or something dreadful would happen to you. And you mustn't pick up a pin with the point toward you or you would surely be disappointed. If the head was toward you, you could pick it up and make a wish which would be sure to come to pass. You must cut your finger-nails Monday morning before breakfast and you would get a present before the week was out. And if you walked straight to school that morning you were likely to have good lessons, but if you loitered or stopped to play or were late, bad luck would follow you all the week. And the little girls used to say:
"Lesson, lesson, come to me,
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, three,
Thursday, Friday, then you may
Have a rest on Saturday,"
So you see a little girl's life was quite a weighty matter.
That summer political excitement ran high. Indeed, it had begun in the winter. A new party had nominated Mr. James Harper for mayor, and in the spring he had been elected. Mr. Theodore used to pause and discuss men and measures now that it was getting warm enough to sit out on the stoop and read your paper. Country habits were not altogether tabooed. But what impressed his honor the mayor most strongly on the little girl's mind was something Aunt Nancy Archer, who was now an earnest Methodist, said when she was up to tea one evening.
"I did look to see Brother Harper set up a little. It's only natural, you know, and I can't quite believe in perfection. But there he was in class-meeting, not a mite changed, just as friendly and earnest as ever, not a bit lifted up because he had been called to the highest position in the city."
"There's no doubt but he will make a good mayor," rejoined Mr. Underhill. "He's a good, honest man. And all the brothers are capable men, men who are able to pull together. I'm not sure but we'll have to go outside of party lines a little. It ought to broaden a man to be in a big city."
The little girl slipped her hand in Aunt Nancy's.
"Is he your school-teacher?" she ventured timidly.