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MISS PAT AT SCHOOL
by
PEMBERTON GINTHER
Frontispiece by the Author
[Frontispiece: PATRICIA TOILED ALL AFTERNOON WITH THE ARDOR OF
IGNORANCE AND HOPE.]
Philadelphia
The John C. Winston Company
Publishers
Copyright, 1915, by
The John C. Winston Company.
TO NANCY
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE TWO NEW STUDENTS
II. GETTING ACQUAINTED
III. ANTICIPATION
IV. THE INITIATIONS
V. THE GHOST DANCE
VI. AFTERMATH
VII. DAVID'S TREAT
VIII. SMOOTH WATERS
IX. THE ACADEMY BALL
X. THE PRIZE DESIGNS
XI. THE LITTLE RIFT
XII. JUDITH'S DISCOVERY
XIII. RESTITUTION
XIV. NEW QUARTERS AND OLD FRIENDS
XV. AFTERNOON TEA
XVI. APRIL SHOWERS
XVII. FAREWELL TO THE STUDIO
Miss Pat at School
CHAPTER I
THE TWO NEW STUDENTS
"Isn't it jolly--to be here in a real Academy of Fine Arts, just like
all the famous artists when they were young and unknown? Doesn't it
make you feel all excited and quivery, Norn?" asked Patricia, as she
fitted her key into the narrow gray locker with an air of huge
enjoyment. "I don't see how you can look so cool. You are as calm and
refrigerated as a piece of the North Pole."
Elinor smiled and her shining eyes traveled down the wide dim corridor
with its rows of battered gray lockers, past the confusion of chairs
and easels that clustered around the big screen of the composition
room, straight into the farthest nook of the great bare work rooms
beyond, where an array of heroic-sized white casts loomed conspicuous
in the cold north light above the clutter of easels, stools and
drawing-boards that encompassed the silent, intent workers.
"I'm not half so calm as I look, Miss Pat," she said, seriously. "I'm
more excited than I ever was in my life. It's too deep to come to the
surface, I guess. I haven't any words for it."
Patricia nodded approval.
"That's your 'sensitive, artistic temperament,' as Mrs. Hand calls it.
It must be awfully trying, though, not to be able to babble when you're
pleased. It's such a relief to get it out of your system. I'd simply
burst if I tried to keep quiet when I felt excited."
Elinor smiled absently, and then burst out fervently, "Isn't it all
gloriously workmanlike--the bare walls and smudged doors and the painty
smell, too? It's so serious. Outside, the people regard a picture as
a mere luxury, but in here, _here_," she said, exultantly, "it is
absolutely the necessary thing in life."
Patricia shut her door with a snap and turned to her sister with a
glowing face, sweeping her stray tendrils back with an eager gesture.
"I know it!" she cried. "It makes even me feel as though I could turn
off masterpieces _instanter_. Merely to look at those lumps of clay in
the modeling room made me simply _ache_ to get my hands into them. I
was enchanted the moment I came in here with you this morning, never
dreaming that I should be so lucky as to be one of the illustrious band
myself. You're a perfect duck, Norn, to let me tag along after you
here."
"You might as well do that as anything else," said Elinor, rather
absently. "The best of it is that we shall be together. It will be
such fun to see how we each get along."
"'We!'" echoed Patricia. "You mean how _you_ get along. I shan't
count at all. I may have to give up when I actually get at it." Then
with a swift change of spirit she added: "All the same, if I couldn't
do better than some of those smudgy celebrities in the modeling room
were doing, I'd feel pretty sorry for myself. Such forlorn, lop-sided
caricatures of human beings I never saw. I don't see how they can do
them."
Elinor's soft laugh rippled out. "It's clear that you haven't tried to
do it, or you'd see how easy it is to make caricatures instead of
portraits," she said. "I didn't think they were so very bad."
"I'd be ashamed to have anyone see them if I'd done them," declared
Patricia, unconvinced. "They seemed quite cocky over them, poor
idiots. I hope some of them do better than that, or I shan't learn
much."
"It would be wonderful if you did make a success of it," said Elinor,
beginning to put her newly acquired implements into her locker. "How
surprised Bruce will be that you are studying here, too."
"Don't tell him, for the world!" cried Patricia, her brow wrinkling at
the thought of that noted artist's surprise. "I shouldn't have dared
to take the course if he was ever to see anything I did! I'm only
going into it for fun, and I shouldn't have dreamed of doing it if it
hadn't been the cheapest course in the whole school. You know I
shouldn't have, Elinor dear, so please don't tell."
Elinor gave her a reassuring squeeze. "Don't be afraid, Miss Pat. I
won't give away your dark secrets to anyone till you want me to.
You'll tell David, won't you?"
Patricia pondered a moment. "I don't believe I'll tell anyone until I
see what I can do," she decided. "I'd love to surprise Francis Edward
David Carson Kendall, otherwise known as Frad, but I'll wait till I
know whether it is to be the sort of surprise he'd welcome before I
spring it on him. He wouldn't appreciate a hideous fizzle, like some
of those we saw, and I'd hate to inflict a newly discovered twin
brother with anything of that sort myself."
"I don't believe Fra--David would be very critical; he's so good
natured," said Elinor. "Isn't it hard to get used to him as our
brother, after knowing him as David Carson for a whole summer? I can't
ever feel sure of what is his right name now. We knew him as David
Carson for so long, and now that he wants to be called by his real
name, I simply get more twisted all the time."
"That's why I call him Frad," said Patricia, with a twinkle. "Combines
the whole and is entirely original, and so suited to his situation. I
don't think he ought to drop all the Carson name, particularly while
we're all living comfortably on the Carson money. It seems sort of
ungrateful to me."
"But you know Mrs. Carson always wanted him to take his own name if he
ever found it," said Elinor, closing her locker and dropping the key
into her bag.
"Well, he's dear with any name, and I'm glad Judy discovered him when
she did, money or no money," said Patricia seriously. "He was so
disappointed when Madam Blitz said my voice needed another year to grow
in, that I'm awfully glad I've hit on something to do that will fill in
the time, and keep me learning. That's really the great thing, isn't
it, after all?"
As she spoke a gong sounded from beyond the closed door of a nearby
class room; there was sound of movement and subdued voices, then the
door swung grudgingly and a number of students of various ages with
smudged hands and soiled aprons came straggling out into the dim
corridor, laden with canvases and drawings to be stowed in the long
line of lockers that stretched on either side of the hallway.
Elinor looked at them with a little quick sigh of excited envy.
"They are all so used to it," she said, with a note of humility in her
sweet voice. "They make me feel so _green_!"
"Poof! You needn't care," said Patricia, breezily. "If Bruce Haydon
says you can draw, you shouldn't mind a lot of sloppy students. Wait
till you've been here a month--you'll be rearing your crest as high as
any."
Elinor shook her head. "To tell the truth, Miss Pat dear, I almost
wish Bruce hadn't gotten me into the life and portrait classes without
the regular term in the antique rooms. I shouldn't feel half so
shivery about going in there and drawing from those big casts, for I
know they are all more or less beginners there."
"Stuff!" protested Patricia stoutly. "You know you've been simply
crazy to get here. Why spoil it all by _squibbling_? I think it's
perfectly gorgeous. I'm wild to begin myself, and I'm about as green
as any old shamrock. Besides, it's a mighty poor way to show your
gratitude to Bruce for putting you right slap into the highest classes
without slaving your life out for years, perhaps. I'll tell him----"
"Indeed, you'll do no such thing!" cried Elinor, the color rushing to
her cheeks and her authority as eldest sister asserting itself
promptly. "I don't intend that Bruce shall hear a word until I've had
my first good criticism."
Patricia smiled to herself at the effect of her ruse. "All right.
I'll be good," she promised. "Now, to come down to earth again--where
are we going to feed? I wish we could find the lunch room. It would
be such fun to look our future classmates over while we browse."
"I think it's in the basement," said Elinor dubiously, "but I don't
believe we can buy things there. We'd have to go out, anyway, I'm
afraid."
A blue-aproned girl who had been packing her materials in an adjoining
locker turned civilly.
"Are you speaking about the lunch room?" she asked in a pleasant
contralto voice. "I can show you where it is, but you'll have to bring
your lunch with you. There are gas stoves to cook on in the back room,
and tables and chairs in the front one, if you're not too late to get a
place."
Elinor thanked her cordially, while Patricia almost dislocated her neck
trying to get a glimpse of the big canvas that protruded from the
locker while still keeping far enough behind Elinor for her curiosity
to pass unnoticed.
"It is down a little iron stairway behind that screen," said the girl,
tucking a paper parcel into the capacious pocket of her blue jean paint
dress, "and it's only for girls. The men have one on the other side of
the building. Come down as soon as you can, for it's fearfully crowded
later on."
Patricia watched her disappear behind the big screen of the composition
room, and then she turned excitedly to Elinor.
"Isn't she nice?" she asked admiringly. "She's so cock-sure of herself
and so calm about it. I like the way her eyebrows meet over her
haughty nose, and that superior kink in her nice, crinkly lips. I know
she's going to be worth while when we know her."
"For goodness' sake, don't be jumping into admirations wholesale, Miss
Pat, darling," said Elinor, gently pulling Patricia's arm through hers
as they passed into the narrow entrance to the dressing room. "Don't
rush at it so, ducky. You can't know the right people at once, and it
saves a lot of bother not to get too familiar with the wrong ones."
"Just as you say, Miss Solomon," rippled Patricia, too happy to be
depressed by anything. "I'll be as frigid as you like, and if any of
these frivolous young things try to scrape an acquaintance with me,
I'll snub them good and hard."
She lowered her voice as two newcomers entered--one a slender, faded
young woman with near-sighted pale eyes, and the other a blond girl
with a dazzling skin and glorious shimmering hair wound around a
shapely head. Both were in aprons, but the younger wore a dull green
that set off her fair beauty to perfection, while the checked gingham
of the other proclaimed a hopelessly downright taste.
Patricia, at the mirror, paused in the act of pinning on her hat, her
eyes riveted on the vision in dull green.
"Isn't she lovely?" she demanded in a thrilling whisper of Elinor, who
had slipped into her things and was already at the door.
The girl unmistakably caught the words, for she turned a brilliant,
measuring, half-approving look on her while she slowly began to divest
herself of the alluring green apron. She was so evidently used to
admiration that her smooth cheek showed no change of color, though the
panic red of swift confusion flamed on Patricia's bright face.
Pinning on her hat hastily, she fled after Elinor, feeling that she
must seem most inexperienced and childish in the eyes of this
fascinating creature who at once had eclipsed all previous claimants to
her admiration.
"I wonder if she is in the modeling class?" she said as she caught up
with Elinor in the composition room. "I don't suppose there's any such
luck as that. She looks too clean----"
Elinor interrupted her with a little shake. "You hopeless little
goose," she said, in laughing despair. "You've just promised me not
to, and here you are it, hammer and tongs, under my very eyes."
"My word!" cried Patricia indignantly. "You don't mean I'm not to look
at anyone! I can't even express a little tame approval without your
accusing me of grabbing a new soul mate. You can't say she isn't
simply ravishing, and just because she's alive instead of being a
picture or statue or some such _made-up_ thing, you want me to turn up
my nose at her. I must say you are getting to be awfully extreme,
Elinor Kendall. You'll want me to wear a muzzle next."
Elinor gave her a loving look, and Patricia, appropriating a corner of
her big muff, gave her hand a surreptitious squeeze.
"I wish I could kiss you, you old angel," she said, irrelevantly.
"Let's lay in our pemmican, and hustle back for a seat in the parquet
circle. I'm dying to look them over and see who's who and what's what
before I make any more breaks."