DIFFERING TASTES
A few days before the close of the old year, Patty sat at her desk in the
library of Boxley Hall.
She was making lists of good things to be ordered for the feast on
New Year's day; and, as it was her first unaided experience with
such memoranda, she wore an air of great importance and a deeply
puckered brow.
Mancy, with her arms comfortably akimbo, stood before her young mistress
ready to suggest, but tactfully chary of advice.
They were not yet living in the new home, but all the furniture was in
place, the furnace fire had been started, and the palms arranged in the
little conservatory.
So Patty spent most of her time there, and some of the Elliotts were
usually there with her.
But this morning she was alone with Mancy, struggling with the
all-important lists.
"I'll make the salad myself," she remarked, as she wrote "olive oil" on
her slip of paper.
"Yas'm," answered Mancy, rolling her eyes with an expression of dubious
approval. "Does yo' know how, missy?"
"Oh, yes," said Patty confidently; "I can make most beautiful salad
dressing. Only it does take quite a long time, and I shall have a lot to
do Thursday morning. Perhaps I'd better leave it to you this time, Mancy.
Can you make it?"
"Laws, yes, honey; and yo'd better leave it to me. Yo'll have enough to
do with yo' flowers and fixin's, and dressin' yourself up pretty. I'll
'tend to the food."
"Well, all right, Mancy; I wish you would. And, now, just help me with
this list. I'll read it to you, and see if you think of anything that
I've forgotten."
"Yas'm," said Mancy, who was most anxious to help, but who had already
learned that Patty was a little inclined to resent unasked advice.
They were deep in the fascinating bewilderments of grocers' and
greengrocers' wares, when Pansy Potts appeared in the doorway.
"Miss Patty," she said, "I've done all the things you told me to do; and
I watered the palms, and I've poked around that bunchy rosebush, but I'm
'most sure it's going to die; and now, if you please, when can I be let
to fix up my own room?"
"Sure enough, Pansy," said Patty; "we must get at that room of yours, and
we'll fix it up as pretty as we can."
"Mine, too," said Mancy; "I wants my room fixed up nice. I fetched a lot
of pictures to liven it up some, but I reckon I ain't got no time to put
'em up to-day."
"Oh, yes, you have, Mancy," said Patty, rising; "and, anyway, we'll go
right up and look at those rooms; then I can tell what we need to get
for them."
"Mine won't need anything," said Pansy, "except what's in it already,
and what I've got to put in it myself. I brought my decorations over
this morning."
"Oh, you did?" said Patty. "Well, bring them along, and we'll all go
upstairs together."
"I'll get mine, too," said Mancy, shuffling toward the kitchen.
The servants' rooms were in the third story. They had been freshly
papered and neatly and appropriately furnished, though Patty had not, as
yet, added any pictures or ornaments.
And, apparently, she would have no occasion to do so; for, as she went up
to these rooms, she was immediately followed by their future occupants,
each of whom came with her arms full of what looked like the most
worthless rubbish.
"What _is_ all that stuff, Pansy?" exclaimed Patty, as she beheld her
young waitress fairly staggering under her load.
"They're lovely things, Miss Patty, and I hope you don't mind. This is a
hornet's nest, and this is a branch of an apple tree, with a swing-bird's
nest on it."
"A branch! It's a big limb,--a bough, I should call it. What _are_ you
going to do with it?"
"I thought I'd put it on the wall, Miss Patty. It makes the room look
outdoorsy."
"It does, indeed! Put it up, if you like; but will you have room then to
get in yourself?"
"Oh, yes," said Pansy cheerfully; "and I've got a big tub over home that
I want to bring; it has an orange tree planted in it."
"With oranges on?"
"Oh, no, not oranges; indeed, it hasn't any leaves on, but I think maybe
they'll come."
"It must be beautiful!" said Patty. "But if it hasn't any leaves on, it's
probably dead."
"Oh, no, Miss Patty, it isn't dead; and it had leaves a-plenty, but my
little brother he picked the leaves all off. That's one reason I wanted
to come here, so's to get my orange tree away from Jack."
"Well, bring it along," said Patty good-naturedly. "What else are you
going to have? A grape-vine, I suppose, trained over the headboard of
your bed."
"No, Miss Patty, I haven't got no grapevine, but I've got a
wandering-jew-vine in a pot, that I want to set on the mantel."
"All right," said Patty, "bring your wandering-jew, and let him wander
wherever he likes. You'll have to keep your door shut, or he'll wander
out and run downstairs. What's in that bag?"
"Rocks, Miss Patty."
"Rocks? What in the world are you going to do with those?"
"I'm going to make a rockery, ma'am, by the window. They're just
beautiful. Miss Powers has one in her parlour, and I always wanted one,
but mother wouldn't let me have it, 'cause she says it clutters."
"But, what is it?" said Patty. "How do you make it?"
"Oh, you just pile the stones up in a heap, and you stick dried grasses,
and autumn leaves and things, in them; and, if ever you have any flowers,
you know, you stick them in, too."
"I see; it must be very effective; and sometimes I can give you flowers
for it, I'm sure."
"Thank you, Miss Patty; I hope you will. Oh, I'll be so glad to have it;
I've been saving these stones for it for years. You see, they're
beautiful stones."
Pansy Potts was on her knees arranging the stones, many of which were
jagged pieces of quartz shining here and there with mica scales, into a
symmetrical pile, which somehow had the effect of a Pagan altar.
"Well," said Patty, as she watched her, "I don't think you'll need any of
the decorations I expected to give you."
"Oh, Miss Patty," said Pansy earnestly, "please don't make me have
pictures, and pincushions, and vases, and all those things; I like my own
things so much better."
"You shall fix your room just as you choose," said Patty kindly; "and if
I can help you in any way, I'll be glad to do so. How are _you_
progressing, Mancy?"
Patty stepped across the hall to her cook's room, and found its stout
occupant rather precariously perched on a chair, tacking up a picture.
She had evidently improved her time, for many other pictures were already
in place, and, what is unusual in either a public or private art-gallery,
the pictures were all exactly alike. They were large, very highly
coloured, unframed, and, in fact, were nothing more or less than
advertisements of a popular soap. The subject was a broadly-grinning old
coloured woman, washing clothes, that were already snow-white, in a sea
of soapsuds.
"For goodness' sake, Mancy!" exclaimed Patty. "Who said you might drive
tacks all over these new walls, and where did you get all those pictures
of yourself?"
"They does favour me, don't they, missy?" exclaimed Mancy, beaming with
delight, as she took another tack from her mouth, and pounded it into
place. "I got 'em from de grocer man, and co'se I has to tack 'em, else
how would dey stay up?"
"But you have so many of them."
"Laws, chile, only a dozen; youse got mo'n that on the libr'y wall."
"But ours are different; these are all alike."
"Co'se dey's all alike! I des nachelly gets tired of lookin' at different
pitchers. It 'stracts my head."
"I should think these would distract your head. I feel as if I were in a
kinetoscope."
"Does that mean art-gal'ry?"
"Not exactly; but tell me, Mancy, did you get all these pictures because
they looked like you? And was the grocer willing to give you so many?"
"Yas'm. But I 'spects I'll hab to confess a little about dat, Miss Patty.
You see, I dun tole him I was gwine t' work for yo', and dat's huccome he
guv 'em to me."
"That's all right, Mancy. After he gets that long order we made out this
morning, I'm sure he'll feel he was justified in favouring us; but get
down out of that chair. In the first place, you'll fall and break your
neck, and if you don't, you'll break the chair. Get down, and I'll tack
up the rest of your pictures."
"Thank you, missy, do; and I'll hand you the tacks. There's only six
more, anyhow. I 'llowed to have three over the mantel, and two over that
window, and one behind the door."
"But you can't see it; that door is usually open."
"No'm; but I'll know it's there jes' the same."
"All right; here goes, then," and soon Patty had the rest of the gaudy
lithographs tacked into their designated places.
"Now, Mancy," she said, as she jumped down from the chair for the last
time, "you don't want any other pictures, do you? It would interfere with
the artistic unities to introduce any other school."
"Laws 'a' massy, chile; I don't want to go to school! Miss Patty,
sometimes you does cert'nly talk like a Choctaw Injun. Leastways, _I_
can't understand you."
"It doesn't really matter," said Patty, "and we're even, anyway; for I
can't understand why _you_ want those fearful posters in your room,
instead of the nice little pictures I had planned to give you."
"Oh, yes; I knows yo' nice little pictures! with a narrow black ban',
jes' about the size ob a sheet of mo'nin' paper! No, thank you, missy,
no black-bordered envelopes hanging on my wall! Give me good reds and
yallers and blues; the kind you can hear with yo' eyes shut. That is,
ef yo' don't mind, missy. Ef yo' does, I'll take 'em all right
slam-bang down."
"No, no, Mancy; it's all right. In your own room I want you to have just
exactly what you want, and nothing else. Now, let's go and see how
Pansy's getting along."
The rockery was completed, and was a most imposing structure. Wheat ears
and dried oats were sticking out from between the stones, and pressed
autumn leaves added a touch of colour. At the base of the rockery were a
large pink-lined conch-shell and several smaller shells. On the walls
were various branches of different species of vegetation; among others a
tangle of twigs of the cotton plant, from which depended numerous bolls.
Pansy was struggling with a lot of evergreen boughs, which she was trying
to crowd into a strange-looking receptacle.
"How do you like it, Miss Patty?" she asked, as Patty stood in the
doorway and gazed in.
"I like it very much, for you, Pansy," replied Patty. "If this is the
kind of room you want, I'm very glad for you to have it; only, I don't
know whether to call it 'First Course in Mineralogy,' or 'How to Tell the
Wild Flowers,'"