SERVANTS
"I did think," said Patty, in a disgusted tone, "that we could get
settled in the house in time to eat our Christmas dinner there, but it
doesn't look a bit like it. I was over there this afternoon, and such a
hopeless-looking mess of papering and painting and plumbing I never saw
in my life. I don't believe it will _ever_ be done!"
"I don't either," said Marian; "those men work as slow as mud-turtles."
The conversation was taking place at the Elliotts' dinner-table, and
Uncle Charley looked up from his carving to say:
"It's an ill wind that blows nobody good, and the slower the mud-turtles
are, the longer we shall have our guests with us. For my part, I shall be
very sorry to see pretty Patty go out of this house."
Patty smiled gaily at her uncle, for they were great friends, and said:
"Then I shall expect you to visit me very often in my new home,--that is,
if I ever get there."
"I can't see our way clear to a Christmas dinner in Boxley Hall," said
Mr. Fairfield; "but I think I can promise you, chick, that you can
invite your revered uncle and his family to dine with you there on New
Year's day."
There were general exclamations of delight at this from all except Patty,
who looked a little bewildered.
"What's the matter, Patsie?" said her uncle. "Don't you want to entertain
your admiring relatives?"
"Yes," said Patty, "of course I do; but it scares me to death to think of
it! How can I have a dinner party, when I don't know anything about
anything?"
"Aunt Alice will tell you something about something," said her father;
"and I'll tell you the rest about the rest."
"Oh, I know it will be all right," said Patty, quickly regaining
confidence, as she looked at her father. "If papa says the house will be
ready, I know it will be, and if he says we'll have a dinner party on New
Year's day, I know we will; and so I now invite you all, and I expect you
all to accept; and I hope Aunt Alice will come early."
"I shall come the night before," said Marian, "so as to be sure to be
there in time."
"I'm not sure that any of us will be there the night before," said Mr.
Fairfield, laughing. "I've guaranteed the house for the dinner, but I
didn't say we would be living there at the time."
"That's a good idea," said Aunt Alice; "let Patty entertain her first
company there, and then come back here for the reaction."
"Well, we'll see," said Patty; "but I'd like to go there the first day of
January, and stay there."
By some unknown methods, Mr. Fairfield managed to stir up the mud-turtle
workmen to greater activity, and the work went rapidly on. The
wall-papers seemed to get themselves into place, and the floors took on
a beautiful polish; bustling men came out from the city and put up
window-shades, and curtains, and draperies; and, under Mr. Fairfield's
supervision, laid rugs and hung pictures.
The ladies of the Elliott household organised themselves into a most
active sewing-society.
Grandma, Aunt Alice, Marian, and Patty hemmed tablecloths and napkins
with great diligence, and even little Edith was allowed to help with the
kitchen towels.
Everybody was so kind that Patty began to feel weighed down with
gratitude. The girls of the Tea Club made the tea-cloth that they had
proposed, and they also brought offerings of pin-cushions, and doilies
and centre-pieces, until Patty's room began to look like a booth at a
fancy bazaar.
One Saturday morning, as the sewing-circle was hard at work, little
Gilbert came in carrying a paper bag, which evidently contained
something valuable.
"It's for you, Patty," he said. "I brought it for you, to help keep
house; and its name is Pudgy."
Depositing the bag in his cousin's lap, little Gilbert knelt beside her.
"You needn't open it," he cried; "it will open itself!"
And, sure enough, the mouth of the bag untwisted, and a little grey head
came poking out.
"A kitten!" exclaimed Patty; "a Maltese kitten. Why, that's just the very
thing I wanted! Where did you get it, Gilbert, dear?"
"From the milkman," said Gilbert proudly. "We always get kitties
from him, and I telled him to pick out a nice pretty one for you. Do
you like it?"
"I love it," said Patty, cuddling the little bunch of grey fur; "and
Pudgy is just the right name for it. It's the fattest little cat I
ever saw."
"Yes," said Gilbert gravely; "don't let it get thin, will you?"
"No, indeed," said Patty; "I'll feed it on strawberries and cream all the
year round!"
That same afternoon Patty and Aunt Alice started out on a cook-hunting
expedition. A Cook's Tour, Frank called it; and the tourists took it very
seriously.
"Much of the success of your home, Patty," said Aunt Alice, as they were
going to the Intelligence Office, "depends upon your cook; for she will
be not only a cook, but, in part, housekeeper, and overseer of the whole
place. And while you must, of course, exercise your authority and demand
respect, yet at the same time you will find it necessary to defer to her
judgment and experience on many occasions."
"I know it, Aunt Alice," said Patty very earnestly; "and I do want to do
what is right. I want to be the head of papa's home, and yet there are a
great many things that my servants will know more about than I do. I
shall have to be very careful about my proportion; but if you and papa
will help me, I think I'll come out all right."
"I think you will," said Aunt Alice, but she smiled a little at the
assured toss of her niece's head.
The Intelligence Office proved to be as much misnamed as those
institutions usually are, and varying degrees of unintelligence were
shown in the candidates offered for the position of cook at Boxley Hall;
though, if the applicants seemed unsatisfactory to Patty, in many cases
she was no less so to them.
One tall, rawboned Irishwoman seemed hopefully good-tempered and capable,
but when she discovered that Patty was to be her mistress, instead of
Mrs. Elliott, as she had supposed, she exclaimed:
"Go 'way wid yez! Wud I be workin' for the likes of a child like that?
No, mum, I ain't no nurse; I'm a cook, and I want a mistress as has got
past playing wid dolls."
"I hope you'll find one," said Patty politely; "and I'm afraid we
wouldn't suit each other."
Another Irish girl, with a merry rosy face and frizzled blonde hair, was
very anxious to go to work for Patty.
"Sure, it will be fun!" she said. "I'd like to work for such a pretty
little lady; and, sure, we'd have the good times. Could I have all me
afternoons out, miss?"
"Not if you lived with me," said Patty, laughing. "My house is large,
and there's a great deal of work to be done by somebody. I think my cook
couldn't do her share if she went out every afternoon."
Many others were interviewed, but each seemed to have more or less
objectionable traits. One would not come unless she were the only
servant; another would not come unless Patty kept five. Most of them
showed such a decided lack of respect to so young a mistress that Aunt
Alice began to despair of finding the kind, capable woman she had
imagined. They went home feeling rather discouraged, but when Patty told
her troubles to her father, he only laughed.
"Bless your heart, child," he said; "you couldn't expect to engage a
whole cook in one afternoon! It's a long and serious process."
"But, papa, you said we'd be all settled and ready by the first of
January."
"Yes, I know, but I didn't say which January."
"Now, you're teasing," said Patty; but she ran away with a light heart,
feeling sure that somehow a cook would be provided.
That evening, according to appointment, Pansy Potts appeared for
inspection. The whole Elliott family was present, and observed with much
interest the strange-looking girl.
But, though ignorant and awkward, Pansy was not embarrassed, and, seeming
to realise that her fate lay in the hands of Mrs. Elliott, Mr. Fairfield,
and Patty, she addressed herself to them.
Her manner, though untrained, showed respectful deference, and her
expressive black eyes showed quick perception and clever adaptability.
"She is all right at heart," thought Mr. Fairfield to himself, "but she
knows next to nothing. I wonder if it would be a good plan to let the two
girls help each other out."
"Have you ever waited at table, Pansy?" he asked, so pleasantly that
Pansy Potts felt encouragement rather than alarm.
"No, sir; but I could learn, and I would do exactly as I was told."
"That's the right spirit," said Mr. Fairfield "I think perhaps we'll
have to give you a trial."
"But don't you know anything of a housemaid's duties?" inquired Aunt
Alice, who was a little dubious in the face of such absolute ignorance.
"For instance, if the door-bell should ring, what would you do?"
"I would have asked Miss Patty beforehand, ma'am, and I would do whatever
she had told me to."
"Good enough!" exclaimed Mr. Fairfield. "I think you'll do, Pansy; at any
rate, you'll have nothing to unlearn, and that's a great deal."
So the waitress was engaged, and it was not long after this that a cook
"dropped from the skies," as Patty expressed it.
One afternoon a large and amiable-looking coloured woman appeared at Mrs.
Elliott's house, with a note from Mrs. Stevens recommending her as a cook
for Patty. As soon as Patty saw her she liked her, but, remembering
previous experiences, she said:
"Do you understand that you are to work for me? I'm a very young
housekeeper, you know."
"Laws, missy, dat's all right. Til do de housekeepin' and you can do de
bossin'. I reckon we'll get along mos' beautiful."
"That sounds attractive, I'm sure," said Patty, laughing. "What is
your name?"
"Emancipation Proclamation Jackson," announced the owner of the
name proudly.
"That's a big name," said Patty; "I couldn't call you all that at once."
"Co'se I shouldn't expect it. Mancy, mos' folks calls me, and dat's good
enough for me; but I likes my name, my whole name, and it does look
beautiful, wrote."
"I should think it might," said Aunt Alice. "Can you cook, Mancy?"
"Oh, yas'm, I kin cook everything what there is to cook, and I can make
things besides. Oh, they won't be no trouble about my cookin'. I know
dat much!"
"Are you a good laundress?" asked Aunt Alice.
"Yas'm, I am! Ef I do say it dat shouldn't, you jes' ought to see de
clothes I sends up! Dey's jes' like druvven snow. Oh, dey won't be no
trouble about de laundry work!"
"And can you sweep?" said Patty.
"Can I sweep? Law, chile, co'se I kin sweep! What yo' s'pose I want to
hire out for, ef I can't do all dem things? Oh, dey won't be no trouble
about sweepin'!"
"Well, where _will_ the trouble be, Mancy?" said Patty.
"Dey moughtn't be any trouble, miss," said the black woman earnestly;
"but if dey is, it'll be 'count o' my bein' spoke cross to. I jes'
nachelly can't stand bein' spoke cross to. It riles me all up."
"I don't believe there will be any trouble on that score," said Patty,
laughing. "My father and I are the best-natured people in the world."
"I believe yo', missy; an' dat's why I wants to come."
"There will be another servant, Mancy," said Aunt Alice; "a young girl
who will be a waitress. She is ignorant and inexperienced, but Very
willing to learn. Do you think you could get along with her?"
"Is she good-natured?" asked Mancy.
"I don't know her very well," said Patty; "but I think she is. I'm sure
she will be, if we are."
"Den dat's all right," said Mancy. "I kin look after you two chilluns, I
'spect, and get my work done, too. When shall I come?"
"The house isn't quite ready yet," said Patty; "but I hope to go there
to live on New Year's day."
"I think we'd be glad of Mancy's help a few days before that," said
Aunt Alice.
And so, subject to Mr. Fairfield's final sanction, Mancy was engaged. And
now Patty's whole establishment, including Pudgy the cat, was made up.