A Little Girl in Old New York Part 17

"Oh!" with a great exultation in her sweet child's voice--"the world didn't come to an end, did it? Oh, you beautiful world! I am so glad you are left. And everybody--only--Margaret, were the people at the church dreadfully disappointed? What a pity G.o.d couldn't have taken those who wanted to go; but I'm so glad we are left. Oh, you lovely world, you are too nice to burn up!"

I think there were a great many people in the city just as glad as Hanny, if they did not put it in the same joyful words.

Margaret smiled. "Hurry, dear," she said, "Joe will have to go, and I know he wants to see you."

Hanny put on her shoes and stockings, and Margaret helped her with the rest, washed her and just tied up her hair with a second-best ribbon.

Joseph had eaten his breakfast and was impatiently waiting to say good-by. John was off already.

Nothing had happened. The world was going on as usual. True there had been the comet and falling stars and wars and rumors of wars, but the old world had sailed triumphantly through them all. The dear, old, splendid world, that was to grow more splendid with the years.

Perhaps it did rouse people to better and kindlier living and more serious thought. Before Mr. Underhill went away his wife said:

"'Milyer, hadn't you better look after those old people up at Harlem. I suppose they had some garden truck, but there's flour and meat and little things that take off the money when you haven't much. And fuel.

I'll try to go up some day with you and see what they need to keep them comfortable in cold weather."

The girls could hardly study at school, there was so much excitement.

Did people really have on their ascension robes? What _would_ Hester say?

Hester did not come to school all the week. Of course they had made a mistake in computing the time, but a few weeks couldn't make much difference. Still, the worst scare was over, and if one mistake could be made, why not another? Were they so sure all the signs were fulfilled?

CHAPTER IX

A WONDERFUL SCHEME

The Whitneys and the Underhills became very neighborly. Mr. Theodore Whitney often stopped for a little chat, and he was very fond of a good game of checkers with Steve or John. He was on the other side in politics and they had some warm discussions. Ophelia, the oldest girl, was engaged and deeply absorbed with her lover. Frances went away early in the morning and did not get back until after six. Mrs. Whitney, a Southern woman by birth, was one of the easy-going kind and very fond of novels. Mr. Whitney brought them home by the dozen. The house seemed somehow to run itself, with the aid of Dele, as she was commonly called.

Dele proved a powerful rival to Miss Lily Ludlow. Lily was much prettier and more delicate looking. Dele had brown-red hair, dry and curly. She was a little freckled, even in the fall. Her mouth _was_ wide, but she was always laughing, and she had such splendid teeth. Then her eyes were so full of fun, and her voice had a sort of rollicking sound. She knew all kinds of boys' play, and was great at marbles. Then she had so many odd, entertaining things, and their parlor wasn't too good for use when 'Phelia's beau was not there. But the children lived mostly on the stoop and the sidewalk.

Delia went to Houston Street school. She could walk farther up the street with the boys, and watch out for them when they went. Ben liked her better than he did Lily or Rosa, but Jim was quite divided. He, like the other poor man with two charmers, sometimes wished there was only one of them. But Lily was a born coquette, and jealous at that. She had a way of calling back her admirers, while Dele didn't care a bit for admiration, but just wanted a good time.

Benny Frank was something of a bookworm and student. Jim, who was growing very fast, was a regular boy, and, I am sorry to say, did not always have perfect lessons. He was so very quick and correct in figures that he managed to slip through other things. Moreover he carried authority. The boys had called him "country" at first and teased him in different ways until small skirmishes had begun. And one day there was a stand-up fight at recess. Jim thrashed the bully of his cla.s.s. It was a forbidden thing to fight in the school-yard, or in school hours, and so Jim was thrashed again for his victory. But Mr. Hazeltine shook hands with him afterward and said "it wasn't because he thrashed Upton, but because he had broken the rules, and he liked to see a boy have courage enough to stand up for himself." So Jim did not mind it very much, though he had a black eye for two or three days.

After that he was a sort of hero to the boys, and Upton did not bully as much. But some of the boys delighted to "pick" at Benny Frank, who would have made a good Quaker. Jim sometimes felt quite "mad" with him.

Lily did not seem to get along very rapidly with her intimacy. Hanny was too young, and now that she had the Deans on one side and little Nora Whitney on the other, was quite out of Lily's reach. And she did enjoy Delia immensely, though she was past thirteen and such a tall girl. So Lily tried all her arts on Jim, and succeeded very well, it must be confessed.

It was Sat.u.r.day, and the world had not come to an end yet. Benny had gone down-town with Steve in the morning, but he would not have both boys together, for Jim was so full of "capers." So he had done errands for his mother, blackened the boots and shoes--the bootblack brigade had not then come in fashion, and you hardly ever saw an Italian boy. He had cleared up the yard and earned his five cents. He was wondering a little what he would do all the afternoon.

Dele came flying in, eager and impetuous.

"Oh, Mrs. Underhill!" she cried, "can't Hanny go to the Museum this afternoon? The"--it seemed so odd, Hanny thought, to call grave-looking Mr. Whitney that, but she said Steve to her big brother. "The brought home four tickets. My cousin, Walter Hay, is here, and he will go with us and then go down home. And Nora does so want Hanny to go. Oh, won't you please let her? I'll take the best of care of her. I've taken Nora and my little Cousin Julia ever so many times. Oh, Jim, what a pity! If I had one more ticket!"

"Sho!" and Jim straightened himself up. "I have twenty-eight cents, and I wouldn't want to go sponging on a girl anyhow! Oh, mother, do let us go? Hanny, come quick! Oh, do you want to go to the Museum?"

"To the Museum?" Hanny drew a breath of remembered delight and thrilling antic.i.p.ation.

Dele and Jim talked together. They were so earnest, so full of entreaty.

Jim might have gone in welcome, but Hanny----

"Why, we shall just take the stage and ride to the door, and we'll be so careful getting out. They drive clear up to the sidewalk, you know.

Walter is fourteen and he takes his little sisters out, and knows how to care for girls. And there's such a pretty play; just the thing for children, The. said."

"Oh, mother, please do," and the little girl's voice was so persuasive, so pleading.

"Oh, please, mother! I'll see that nothing happens to Hanny."

"Oh, Mrs. Underhill, Nora would be so disappointed. And we all want Hanny."

Mrs. Underhill had told her husband if he would come up about three she would take the drive to Harlem with him. Of course she meant to take the little girl. Which would Hanny rather do?

The fascinations of the Museum outweighed the drive. Margaret was up to the Beekmans' spending the day, their last week on the farm. Of course Jim could go--and when she looked at all the eager faces she gave in, and Hanny danced with delight.

It was almost three before they could get off, and the play began at that hour. However they caught a stage out on the Bowery and were soon whirled down to the corner of Broadway and Ann Street.

People were crowding in, it was such a beautiful day, and this was considered the place preeminently for children. People who would have been horrified at the thought of a theatre did not have a scruple about the lecture-room.

"We better not stop to look at things," advised Delia. "We can do that afterward. Let's go in and get our seats."

They had to go way up front, but they didn't mind that so long as they were all together. They studied the wonderful Venetian scene on the drop-curtain, and the young lad in a supposedly green satin costume, with a long white feather in his hat, who was just stepping into a gondola where a very lovely lady was playing on a guitar. Then the orchestra gave a clash of drums, cymbals, French horns, and a big ba.s.s viol, and up went the curtain.

A musical family came out and sang. Then there were some acrobatic performances. After that the pantomime.

Grandpapa Jerome, in a very foreign costume and a bald head which he tried to keep covered with a black velvet cap, had two extremely tricksy sprites for grandchildren. They were very pretty, the girl with long, light curls, the boy with dark ones. But of all mischief, of all tormenting deeds and antics with which they nearly set grandpapa crazy and threw the audience into convulsions! They took the nice fat boiled ham off the table and greased the doorstep so thoroughly you would have thought every bone in the old man's body would have been broken by the repeated falls. They cut the seat out of the chair, and when he went to sit down he doubled up equal to any modern folding-bed, and he kicked and turned summersaults until the maid came out and rescued him. Then he spied the author of the mischief asleep on a gra.s.sy bank, and he found a big strap and went creeping up cautiously, when--whack! and the little boy flew all to pieces, and the old man was so amazed at his cruelty that he sat down and began to weep and bewail when the little lad peeped from behind a tree and, seeing poor grandfather's grief, ran out, hugged him and kissed him and wiped his eyes, and you could see he was promising never to do anything naughty again. But that didn't hinder him from cutting out the bottom of the basket into which the old man was cutting some very splendid grapes. There were not more than half a dozen bunches, and the children ran away with them. The old man descended so carefully, put his hand in the basket, his whole arm, and not a grape.

There was none on the ground. Where had they gone! Oh, there was the cat. But p.u.s.s.y was much spryer than the old man, and the audience knew she had not touched a grape.

After that some Indians came on the scene of action, fierce red men of the forest, and their language was decidedly Jabberwocky. The little girl was quite frightened at the fierce brandishing of tomahawks. Then they had a war dance. And oh, then came the marvel of all! Four beautiful Shetland ponies with the daintiest carriage and six lads in livery. There sat General Tom Thumb, the curiosity of the time, the smallest dwarf known. He was not much bigger than a year-old baby, but he dismounted from his carriage, gave orders to his servants; a bright-eyed little fellow with rosy cheeks, graceful and with a variety of pretty tricks. He sang a song or two, then sprang into his carriage and the ponies trotted off the stage. The curtain came down.

The children were breathless at first. The crowd was surging out and the place nearly empty before they found their tongues. And then there was so much else to see. The various stuffed animals, the giraffe with his three-story neck, the mermaid, the wax figures, the birds and beasts and serpents, and a model of Paris, of London, and of Jerusalem. The place looked quite gorgeous all lighted up.

The people were beginning to thin out. They had not seen half, Jim thought.

"Oh, we haven't been up-stairs!" exclaimed Walter. "There's a great roof-garden. And you can see all the city."

They trudged up-stairs. Dele kept tight hold of the little girl's hand.

It was quite light up here. What a great s.p.a.ce it was! One large flag was flying, and around the edge of the roof numberless smaller ones.

Some evergreen shrubs in boxes stood around, and there were wooden arm-chairs, beside some settees. It was rather chilly, though the day had been very pleasant. And oh, how splendid the lights of Broadway looked to them, two long rows stretching up and up until lost in indistinctness. The stores were all open and lighted as brilliantly as one could with gas. No one thought of Sat.u.r.day half-holidays then. It was very grand. But what would they have said to the Columbian nights and electric lights?

"I don't feel as if I had seen it half," said Jim. He was not grudging his quarter. "If we had come about one o'clock."

"We'll have to piece it on this end," and Walter laughed. "We must get our money's worth."

"We might stay over," suggested Dele mirthfully.

"Just the thing," returned Jim, "and all for the same money."