BOSTON NEIGHBOURS

IN TOWN AND OUT

BY AGNES BLAKE POOR

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK and LONDON

The Knickerbocker Press

1898

Copyright, 1898

BY

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

CONTENTS

The author and the publishers desire to make acknowledgment to the publishers of the Century Magazine and of the New England Magazine for their courtesy in permitting the re-issue of certain stories which were originally published in these periodicals.

OUR TOLSTOI CLUB

I should be glad to tell a story if I only knew one, but I don't. Some people say that one experience is as interesting as another, and that any real life is worth hearing about; but I think it must make some little difference who the person is. But if I really must tell one, and since you all have told yours, and such nice ones, and anything is better than nothing when we are kept in all the morning by a pouring rain, with nothing to do, because we came only for a week, and did not expect it to rain, I will try and tell you about our Tolstoi Club, because that was rather like a story—at least it might have been like one if things had turned out a little differently.

You know I live in a suburb of Boston, and a very charming, delightful one it is. I cannot call it by its real name, because I am going to be so very personal; so I will call it "Babyland," which indeed people often do in fun. There never was such a place for children. The population is mostly under seven years old, for it was about seven years ago that young married people began to move into it in such numbers, because it is so healthy; but it was always a great place for them even when it was small. The old inhabitants are mostly grandfathers and grandmothers now, and enjoy it very much; but they usually go into town in the winter, with such unmarried children as they have left, to get a little change; for there is no denying that there is a sameness about it—the sidewalks are crowded with perambulators every pleasant day, and at our parties the talk is apt to run too much on nursery-maids, and milkmen and their cows, and drains, to be very interesting to those who have not learned how terribly important such things are. So in winter we—I mean the young married couples, of whom I am half a one—are left pretty much to our own devices.

Though we are all so devoted to our infant families, we are not so much so as to give up all rational pleasures or intellectual tastes; we could not live so near Boston, you know, and do that. Our husbands go into town every day to make money, and we go in every few days to spend it, and in the evenings, if they are not too tired, we sometimes make them take us in to the theatres and concerts. We all have a very nice social circle, for Babyland is fashionable as well as respectable, and we are asked out more or less, and go out; but for real enjoyment we like our own clubs and classes the best. We feel so safe going round in the neighbourhood, because we are so near the children, and can be called home any time if necessary. There is our little evening dancing-club, which meets round at one another's houses, where we all exchange husbands—a kind of grown-up "puss-in-the-corner"; only, as the supply of dancing husbands is not quite equal to that of wives, we have to get a young man or two in if we can; and for the same reason we don't ask any girls, who, indeed, are not very eager to come. Then there is the musical club, and the sketching-club, and we have a great many morning clubs for the women alone, where we bring our work (and it is splendid to get so much time to sew), and read, or are read to, and then talk over things. Sometimes we stay to lunch, and sometimes not; and we would have an essay club, only we have no time to write the papers.

Now, many of these clubs meet chiefly at Minnie Mason's—Mrs. Sydney Mason's. She gets them up, and is president: you see, she has more time, because she has no children—the only woman in Babyland who hasn't, and I don't doubt she feels dreadfully about it. She is not strong, and has to lie on the sofa most of the time, and that is another reason why we meet there so often; and then she lives right in the midst of us all, and so close to the road that we can all of us watch our children, when they are out for their airings, very conveniently. Minnie is very kind and sympathetic, and takes such an interest in all our affairs, and if she is somewhat inclined to gossip about them, poor dear, it is very natural, when she has so few of her own to think about.

Well, in the autumn before last, Minnie said we must get up a Tolstoi Club; she said the Russians were the coming race, and Tolstoi