a body wiped its feet on the door-mat and tiptoed through on a last
visit of inspection. The cottage contained three rooms, with a cellar
and woodshed besides. The wall paper and chintz hangings of the parlor
were flaming pink peonies with a wealth of foliage--a touch of
flamboyant for some tastes, but Granpa's and Gramma's eyes were failing,
and they liked strong colors. Also, crafty questioning had elicited the
fact that "pinies" were Gramma's favorite flower. The kitchen had
turkey-red curtains with a cheerful strip of rag carpet and two
comfortable easy chairs before the hearth. The cellar was generously
stocked from the school farm--Miss Sallie's contribution--with potatoes
and cabbages and carrots and onions, enough to make Irish stew for three
months to come. The woodbin was filled, and even a five-gallon can of
kerosene. Sixty-four pairs of eyes had scanned the rooms minutely to
make sure that no essential was omitted.
Both the Murphy and Flannigan households had been agog for days over the
proposed flitting of the pair. Even Mrs. Tammas had volunteered to wash
the windows of the new cottage, and for a week she had scarcely been
cross. The old man was already wondering at life. When the time arrived,
Mrs. Murphy secretly packed Gramma's belongings and dressed her in her
best, under the pretext that she was to be taken in a carriage to a
Christmas party to have supper with her husband. The old woman was in a
happy flutter at the prospect. Granpa was prepared for the journey by
the same simple strategy.
Patty and Conny and Priscilla, as originators of the enterprise, had
been appointed to install the old couple; but with tactful forbearance,
they delegated the right to the son and daughter. They saw that the
fires were burning, the lamps lighted, and the cat--there was even a
cat--asleep on the hearth rug; then when the sound of carriage wheels in
front told them that Martin had arrived with his passengers, they
quietly slipped out the back way and jogged home to dinner through the
snowy dusk.
They were met by a babel of questions.
"Was Gramma pleased with the parlor clock?"
"Did she know what to do with the chaffing-dish?"
"Were they disappointed at not having a feather bed?"
"Did they like the cat, or would they rather have had a parrot?" (The
school had been torn asunder on this important point.)
At the dinner table that night--such of the school as was
left--chattered only of Laurel Cottage. They were as excited over Gramma
and Granpa's happiness, as over their own approaching holiday. All
sixty-four were planning to drink tea, on the first day of their return,
from Gramma's six cups.
Toward nine o'clock, Patty and Priscilla, by a special dispensation that
allowed late hours in vacation, received permission to accompany Conny
and ten other dear friends to the station for the western express.
Driving back alone in the "hearse," still bubbling with the hilarity of
Christmas farewells, they passed the Laurel Cottage.
"I believe they're still up!" said Priscilla. "Let's stop and wish 'em a
Merry Christmas, just to make sure they like it."
Martin was readily induced to halt; his discipline also was relaxed in
vacation. They approached the door, but hesitated at sight of the
picture revealed by the lighted window. To interrupt with the boisterous
greetings of the season, seemed like rudely breaking in upon the
seclusion of lovers. Only a glance was needed to tell them that the
house-warming was successful. Gramma and Granpa were sitting before the
fire in their comfortable red-cushioned rocking-chairs; the lamp shed a
glow on their radiant faces, as they held each other's hands and smiled
into the future.
Patty and Priscilla tiptoed away and climbed back into the hearse, a
touch sobered and thoughtful.
"You know," Patty pondered, "they are just as contented as if they lived
in a palace with a million dollars and an automobile! It's funny, isn't
it, what a little thing makes some people happy?"
VI
The Silver Buckles
"To be cooped up for three weeks with the two stupidest girls in the
school--"
"Kid McCoy isn't so bad," said Conny consolingly.
"She's a horrid little tomboy."
"But you know she's entertaining, Patty."
"She never says a word that isn't slang, and _I_ think she's the limit!"
"Well, anyway, Harriet Gladden--"
"Is perfectly dreadful and you know it. I would just as soon spend
Christmas with a weeping angel on a tombstone."
"She is pretty mournful," Priscilla agreed. "I've spent three
Christmases with her. But anyway, you'll have fun. You can be late for
meals whenever you want, and Nora lets you make candy on the kitchen
stove."
Patty sniffed disdainfully as she commenced the work of resettling her
room, after the joyous upheaval of a Christmas packing. The other two
assisted in silent sympathy. There was after all not much comfort to be
offered. School in holiday time was a lonely substitute for home.
Priscilla, whose father was a naval officer, and whose home was a
peripatetic affair, had become inured to the experience; but this
particular year, she was gaily setting out to visit cousins in New
York--with three new dresses and two new hats! And Patty, whose home was
a mere matter of two hours in a Pullman car, was to be left behind; for
six-year old Thomas Wyatt had chosen this inopportune time to come down
with scarlet fever. The case was of the lightest; Master Tommy was
sitting up in bed and occupying himself with a box of lead soldiers. But
the rest of the family were not so comfortable. Some were quarantined
in, and the others out. Judge Wyatt had installed himself in a hotel and
telegraphed the Dowager to keep Patty at St. Ursula's during the
holidays. Poor Patty had been happily packing her trunk when the news
arrived; and as she unpacked it, she distributed a few excusable tears
through the bureau drawers.
Ordinarily, a number remained for the holidays,--girls whose homes were
in the West or South, or whose parents were traveling abroad or getting
divorces--but this year the assortment was unusually meager. Patty was
left alone in "Paradise Alley." Margarite McCoy, of Texas, was stranded
at the end of the South Corridor, and Harriet Gladden of Nowhere, had a
suite of eighteen rooms at her disposal in "Lark Lane." These and four
teachers made up the household.
Harriet Gladden had been five years straight at St. Ursula's--term time
and vacations without a break. She came a lanky little girl of twelve,
all legs and arms, and she was now a lanky big girl of seventeen, still
all legs and arms. An invisible father, at intervals mentioned in the
catalogue, mailed checks to Mrs. Trent; and beyond this made no sign.
Poor Harriet was a mournful, silent, neglected child; entirely out of
place in the effervescing life that went on around her.
She never had any birthday boxes from home, never any Christmas
presents, except those that came from the school. While the other girls
were clamoring for mail, Harriet stood in the background silent and
unexpectant. Miss Sallie picked out her clothes, and Miss Sallie's
standards were utilitarian rather than æsthetic. Harriet, with no
exception, was the worst dressed girl in the school. Even her school
uniform, which was an exact twin of sixty-three other uniforms, hung
upon her with the grace of a meal-bag. Miss Sallie, with provident
foresight, always ordered them a size too large in order to allow her to
grow and Harriet invariably wore them out, before she had established a
fit.
"What on earth becomes of Harriet Gladden during vacation?" Priscilla
once wondered on the opening day.
"They keep her on ice through the summer," was Patty's opinion, "and she
never gets entirely thawed out."
As a matter of fact this was, as nearly as possible, what they did do
with her. Miss Sallie picked out a quiet, comfortable, healthy
farmhouse, and installed Harriet in charge of the farmer's wife. By the
end of three months she was so desperately lonely, that she looked
forward with pleasurable excitement to the larger isolation of term
time.
Patty, one day, had overheard two of the teachers discussing Harriet,
and her reported version had been picturesque.
"Her father hasn't seen her for years and years. He just chucks her in
here and pays the bills."
"I don't wonder he doesn't want her at home!" said Priscilla.
"There isn't any home. Her mother is divorced, and married again, and
living in Paris. That was the reason Harriet couldn't go abroad with the
school party last year. Her father was afraid that when she got to
Paris, her mother would grab her--not that either of them really wants
her, but they like to spite each other."
Priscilla and Conny sat up interestedly. Here was a tragic intrigue,
such as you expect to meet only in novels, going on under their very
noses.
"You girls who have had a happy home life, cannot imagine the loneliness
of a childhood such as Harriet's," said Patty impressively.
"It's dreadful!" Conny cried. "Her father must be a perfect _Beast_ not
to take any notice of her."
"Harriet has her mother's eyes," Patty explained. "Her father can't bear
to look at her, because she reminds him of the happy past that is dead
forever."
"Did Miss Wadsworth say that?" they demanded in an interested chorus.
"Not in exactly those words," Patty confessed. "I just gathered the
outline."
This story, with picturesque additions, lost no time in making the
rounds of the school. Had Harriet chosen to play up to the romantic and
melancholy rôle she was cast for, she might have attained popularity of
a sort; but Harriet did not have the slightest trace of the histrionic
in her make-up. She merely moped about, and continued to be heavy and
uninteresting. Other more exciting matters demanded public attention;
and Harriet and her blasted childhood were forgotten.
Patty stood on the veranda waving good-by to the last hearseful of
Christmas travelers, then turned indoors to face an empty three weeks.
As she was listlessly preparing to mount the stairs, Maggie waylaid her
with the message:
"Mrs. Trent would like to speak to you in her private study, Miss
Patty."
Patty turned back, wondering for just which of her latest activities she
was to be called to account. A visit to the Dowager's private study
usually meant that a storm was brewing. She found the four left-behind
teachers cosily gathered about the tea table, and to her surprise, was
received with four affable smiles.
"Sit down, Patty, and have some tea."
The Dowager motioned her to a chair, while she mingled an inch of tea
with three inches of hot water. Miss Sallie furnished a fringed napkin,
Miss Jellings presented buttered toast, and Miss Wadsworth, salted
almonds. Patty blinked dazedly and accepted the offerings. To be waited
on by four teachers was an entirely new experience. Her spirits rose
considerably as she mentally framed the story for Priscilla's and
Conny's delectation. When she had ceased to wonder why she was being
thus honored, the reason appeared.
"I am sorry, Patty," said the Dowager, "that none of your special
friends are to be here this year; but I am sure that you and Margarite
and Harriet will get on very happily. Breakfast will be half an hour
later than usual, and the rules about bounds will be somewhat
relaxed--only of course we must always know where to find you. I shall
try to plan a matinée party in the city, and Miss Sallie will take you
to spend a day at the farm. The ice is strong enough now for you to
skate, and Martin will get out the sleds for you to coast. You must be
in the open air as much as possible; and I shall be very pleased if you
and Margarite can interest Harriet in out-of-door sports. Speaking of
Harriet--"
The Dowager hesitated momentarily, and Patty's acute understanding
realized that at last they were getting at the kernel of the interview.
The tea and toast had been merely wrapping. She listened with a touch of
suspicion, while the Dowager lowered her voice with an air of
confidence.
"Speaking of Harriet, I should like to enlist your sympathy, Patty. She
is very sweet and genuine. A girl that anyone might be proud to have for
a friend. But through an accident, such as sometimes happens in a
crowded, busy, selfish community, she has been overlooked and left
behind. Harriet has never seemed to adjust herself so readily as most
girls; and I fear that the poor child is often very lonely. It would be
highly gratifying to me if you would make an effort to be friendly with
her. I am sure that she will meet your advances half way."
Patty murmured a few polite phrases and retired to dress for dinner,
stubbornly resolved to be as distant with Harriet as possible. Her
friendship was not a commodity to be bought with tea and buttered toast.
The three girls had dinner alone at a little candle-lit table set in a
corner of the dining-room, while the four teachers occupied a
conveniently distant table in the opposite corner.
Patty commenced the meal by being as monosyllabic as possible; but it
was not her natural attitude toward the world, and by the time the veal
had arrived (it was Wednesday night) she was laughing whole-heartedly at
Kid's ingenuous conversation. Miss McCoy's vocabulary was rich in the
vernacular of the plains, and in vacation she let herself go. During
term time she was forced to curb her discourse, owing to the penny tax
on slang. Otherwise, her entire allowance would have gone to swell the
public coffers.
It was a relief to let dinner-table conversation flow where it listed;
usually, with a teacher in attendance and the route marked out, there
was a cramped formality about the meal. French conversation was supposed
to occupy the first three courses five nights in the week, and every
girl must contribute at least two remarks. It cannot be said that on
French nights the dining-room was garrulous. Saturday night was devoted
to a discussion (in English) of current events, gleaned from a study of
the editorials in the morning paper. Nobody at St. Ursula's had much
time for editorials, and even on an English Saturday conversation
languished. But the school made up for it on Sunday. This day, being
_festa_, they could talk about anything they chose; and sixty-four
magpies chattering their utmost, would have been silence in comparison
to St. Ursula's at dinner time on Sunday.
* * * * *
The four days preceding Christmas passed with unexpected swiftness. A
snow-storm marked the first, followed by three days of glistening
sunshine. Martin got out the bobs, and the girls piled in and rode to
the wood-lot for evergreens. There were many errands in the village, and
the novelty of not always having a teacher at one's heels, proved in
itself diverting.
Patty found the two companions which circumstances had forced upon her
unexpectedly companionable. They skated and coasted and had snow fights;
and Harriet, to Patty's wide-eyed astonishment, assumed a very
appreciable animation. On Christmas Eve they had been out with Martin
delivering Christmas baskets to old time protégés of the school; and on
the way home, through pure overflowing animal spirits, for a mile or
more they had "caught on" the back of the bob, and then tumbled out and
run and caught on again, until they finally dove head foremost into the
big piled-up drift by the porte-cochère. They shook the snow from their
clothes, like puppies from a pond, and laughing and excited trooped
indoors. Harriet's cheeks were red from contact with the snow, her
usually prim hair was a tangled mass about her face, her big dark eyes
had lost their mournful look. They were merry, mischievous, girlish
eyes. She was not merely pretty, but beautiful, in a wild, unusual
gypsyish way that compelled attention.
"I say," Patty whispered to Kid McCoy as they divested themselves of
rubbers and leggins in the lower hall. "Look at Harriet! Isn't she
pretty?"
"Golly!" murmured the Kid. "If she knew enough to play up to her looks,
she'd be the ravingest beauty in all the school."
"Let's make her!" said Patty.
At the top of the stairs they met Osaki with a hammer and chisel.
"I open two box," he observed. "One Mees Margarite McCoy. One Mees Patty
Wyatt."
"Hooray!" cried the Kid, starting at a gallop for her room in the South
Wing.
A Christmas box to Kid McCoy meant a lavish wealth of new possessions
out of all proportion to her desserts. She owned a bachelor guardian who
was subject to fits of such erratic generosity that the Dowager had
regularly to remind him that Margarite was but a school girl with simple
tastes. Fortunately he always forgot this warning before the next
Christmas--or else he knew Kid too well to believe it--and the boxes
continued to come.
Patty had also started without ceremony for Paradise Alley, when she
became aware of deserted Harriet, slowly trailing down the dim length
of Lark Lane. She ran back and grasped her by an elbow.
"Come on, Harry! And help me open my box."
Harriet's face flushed with sudden pleasure; it was the first time, in
the five and a half years of her school career, that she had ever
achieved the dignity of a nickname. She accompanied Patty with some
degree of eagerness. The next best thing to receiving a Christmas box of
your own, is to be present at the reception of a friend's.
It was a big square wooden box, packed to the brim with smaller boxes
and parcels tied with ribbon and holly, and tucked into every crevice
funny surprises. You could picture, just from looking at it, the kind of
home that it came from, filled with jokes and nonsense and love.
"It's the first Christmas I've ever spent away from home," said Patty,
with the suggestion of a quiver in her voice.
But her momentary soberness did not last; the business of exploration
was too absorbing to allow any divided emotion. Harriet sat on the edge
of the bed and watched in silence, while Patty gaily strewed the floor
with tissue paper and scarlet ribbon. She unpacked a wide assortment of
gloves and books and trinkets, each with a message of love. Even the
cook had baked a Christmas cake with a fancy top. And little Tommy, in
wobbly uphill printing, had labeled an elephant filled with candy, "FOR
DERE CISTER FROM TOM."
Patty laughed happily as she plumped a chocolate into her mouth, and
dropped the elephant into Harriet's lap.
"Aren't they dears to go to such a lot of trouble? I tell you, it pays
to stay away sometimes, they think such a lot more of you! This is from
Mother," she added, as she pried off the cover of a big dressmaker's
box, and lifted out a filmy dancing frock of pink crêpe.
"Isn't it perfectly sweet?" she demanded, "and I didn't need it a bit!
Don't you love to get things you don't need?"
"I never do," said Harriet.
Patty was already deep in another parcel.
"From Daddy, with all the love in the world," she read. "Dear old Dad!
What on earth do you s'pose it is? I hope Mother suggested something.
He's a perfect idiot about choosing presents, unless--Oh!" she squealed.
"Pink silk stockings and slippers to match; and look at those perfectly
lovely buckles!"
She offered for Harriet's inspection a pink satin slipper adorned with
the daintiest of silver buckles, and with heels dizzily suggestive of
France.
"Isn't my father a lamb?" Patty gaily kissed her hand toward a
dignified, judicial-looking portrait on the bureau. "Mother suggested
the slippers, of course, but the buckles and French heels were his own
idea. She likes me sensible, and he likes me frivolous."
She was deep in the absorbing business of holding the pink frock before
the glass to make sure that the color was becoming, when she was
suddenly arrested by the sound of a sob, and she turned to see Harriet
throw herself across the bed and clutch the pillow in a storm of
weeping. Patty stared with wide-open eyes; she herself did not indulge
in such emotional demonstrations, and she could not imagine any possible
cause. She moved the pink satin slippers out of reach of Harriet's
thrashing feet, gathered up the fallen elephant and scattered
chocolates, and sat down to wait until the cataclysm should pass.
"What's the matter?" she mildly inquired, when Harriet's sobs gave place
to choking gasps.
"My father never sent me any s-silver b-buckles."
"He's way off in Mexico," said Patty, awkwardly groping for consolation.
"He never sends me anything! He doesn't even know me. He wouldn't
recognize me if he met me on the street."
"Oh, yes, he would," Patty assured her with doubtful comfort. "You
haven't changed a bit in four years."
"And he wouldn't like me if he did know me. I'm not pretty, and my
clothes are never nice, and--" Harriet was off again.
Patty regarded her for a moment of thoughtful silence, then she decided
on a new tack. She stretched out a hand and shook her vigorously.
"For goodness' sake, stop crying! That's what's the matter with your
father. No man can stand having tears dripped down his neck all the
time."
Harriet arrested her sobs to stare.
"If you could see the way you look when you cry! Sort of streaked. Come
here!" She took her by the shoulder and faced her before the mirror.
"Did you ever see such a fright? And I was just thinking, before you
began, about how pretty you looked. I was, honestly. You could be as
pretty as any of the rest of us, if you'd only make up your mind--"
"No, I couldn't! I'm just as ugly as I can be. Nobody likes me and--"
"It's your own fault!" said Patty sharply. "If you were fat, like Irene
McCullough, or if you didn't have any chin like Evalina Smith, there
might be some reason, but there isn't anything on earth the matter with
you, except that you're so _damp_! You cry all the time, and it gets
tiresome to be forever sympathizing. I'm telling you the truth because
I'm beginning to like you. There's never any use bothering to tell
people the truth when you don't like them. The reason Conny and Pris and
I get on so well together, is because we always tell each other the
exact truth about our faults. Then we have a chance to correct
them--that's what makes us so nice," she added modestly.
Harriet sat with her mouth open, too surprised to cry.
"And your clothes are awful," pursued Patty interestedly. "You ought not
to let Miss Sallie pick 'em out. Miss Sallie's nice; I like her a lot,
but she doesn't know any more than a rabbit about clothes; you can tell
that by the way she dresses herself. And then, too, you'd be a lot nicer
if you wouldn't be so stiff. If you'd just laugh the way the rest of us
do--"
"How can I laugh when I don't think things are funny? The jokes the
girls make are awfully silly--"
Speech was no longer possible, for Kid McCoy came stampeding down the
corridor with as much racket as a cavalcade of horses. She was decked in
a fur scarf and a necklace set with pearls, she wore a muff on her head,
drum-major fashion; a lace handkerchief and a carved ivory fan protruded
from the pocket of her blouse and a pink chiffon scarf floated from her
shoulders; her wrist was adorned with an Oriental bracelet and she was
lugging in her arms a silver-mounted Mexican saddle, of a type that
might be suited to the plains of Texas, but never to the respectable
country lanes adjacent to St. Ursula's.
"Bully for Guardie!" she shouted as she descended upon them. "He's a
daisy; he's a ducky; he's a lamb. Did you ever see such a perfectly
corking saddle?"
She plumped it over a chair, transformed the pink chiffon scarf into a
bridle, and proceeded to mount and canter off.
"Get up! Whoa! Hi, there! Clear the road."
Harriet jumped aside to avoid being bumped, while Patty snatched her
pink frock from the path of the runaway. They were shrieking with
laughter, even Harriet, the tearful.
"Now you see!" said Patty, suddenly interrupting her mirth. "It's
perfectly easy to laugh if you just let yourself go. Kid isn't really
funny. She's just as silly as she can be."
Kid brought her horse to a stand.
"Well I like that!"
"Excuse me for telling the truth," said Patty politely, "I'm just using
you for an illustration--Heavens! There's the bell!"
She commenced unlacing her blouse with one hand, while she pushed her
guests to the door with the other.
"Hurry and dress, and come back to button me up. It would be a very
delicate attention for us to be on time to-night. We've been late for
every meal since vacation began."
* * * * *
The girls spent Christmas morning coasting. They were on time for
luncheon--and with appetites!
The meal was half over when Osaki appeared with a telegram, which he
handed to the Dowager. She read it with agitated surprise and passed it
to Miss Sallie, who raised her eyebrows and handed it to Miss Wadsworth,
who was thrown into a very visible flutter.
"What on earth can it be?" Kid wondered.
"Lordy's eloped, and they've got to hunt for a new Latin teacher," was
Patty's interpretation.
As the three girls left the table, the Dowager waylaid Harriet.
"Step into my study a moment. A telegram has just come--"
Patty and Kid climbed the stairs in wide-eyed wonder.
"It can't be bad news, for Miss Sallie was smiling--" meditated Patty.
"And I can't think of any good news that can be happening to Harriet."
Ten minutes later there was the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and
Harriet burst into Patty's room wild with excitement.