by Jean Webster
"That an' I don't! You might as well have a husband dead, as a mile an' a half away an' laid oop with rheumatism."
The clock pointed to a quarter of six, and the visitors rose. They had still to walk half a mile and dress before dinner.
The old woman clung to Patty's hand at parting. She seemed to find more comfort in the little stray sympathy that Patty had offered, than in all her exuberant brood of grandchildren.
"Isn't it dreadful to be old, and just sit around waiting to die?" Patty shuddered, as they faced the cold darkness outside.
"Dreadful!" Conny cordially agreed. "Hurry up! Or we'll be late for dinner, and this is chicken night."
They turned homeward at a jog trot that left little breath for speech; but Patty's mind was working as fast as her legs.
"I've got a perfectly splendid idea," she panted as she turned in at the gate and trotted up the driveway toward the big lighted house that spread wide wings to receive them.
"What?" they asked.
The quick insistent clang of the gong floated out to meet them, and on the instant, hurrying figures flitted past the windows--the summons to meals brought a readier response than the summons to study.
"I'll tell you after dinner. No time now," Patty returned as she peeled off her coat.
They were unlacing their blouses as they clattered up the back stairs, and pulling them over their heads in the upper hall.
"Go slow--please!" they implored of the down-going procession whose track they crossed. Dinner was the only meal which might be approached by the front stairs, which were carpeted instead of tinned.
Their evening frocks were fortunately in one piece, and they dove into them with little ceremony. The three presented themselves flushed of cheek and somewhat rumpled as to hair, but properly gowned and apologetic, just as grace was ended. To be late for grace only meant one demerit; the first course came higher, and the second higher still. Punishment increased by geometrical progression.
During the half hour's intermission before evening study, the three separated themselves from the dancers in the hall, and withdrew to a corner of the deserted schoolroom.
Patty perched herself on a desk, and loudly stated her feelings.
"I'm tired of having the Dowager get up at prayers, and make a speech about the beautiful Christmas spirit, and how sweet it is to make so many little children happy, when she knows perfectly well that it's just a lark for us. I'm chairman this year and I can do as I please. I've had enough of this fake charity; and I'm not going to have any Christmas tree!"
"No Christmas tree?" Conny echoed blankly.
"But what are you going to do with the thirty-seven dollars and eight-four cents?" asked Priscilla, the practical.
"Listen!" Patty settled to her argument. "There aren't any children around here who need a blessed thing, but Gramma and Granpa Flannigan do. That poor old woman, who is just as nice as she can be, is crowded in with all those horrid, yelling, sticky little Murphys; and Granpa Flannigan is poked into Tammas Junior's kitchen, running errands for Tammas Junior's wife, who is a per-fect-ly terrible woman. She throws kettles when she gets mad. Gramma worries all the time for fear he has rheumatism, and nobody to rub on liniment, or make him wear the right underclothes. They're exactly as fond of each other as any other husband and wife, and just because Ursula wants to have callers, I say it's a mean shame for them to be separated!"
"It is too bad," Conny agreed impartially. "But I don't see that we can help it."
"Why, yes! Instead of having a Christmas tree, we'll rent that empty little cottage down by the laurel walk, and mend the chimney--Patrick can do that for nothing--and put in new windows, and furnish it, and set them up in housekeeping."
"Do you think we can do it for thirty-seven dollars and eighty-four cents?" Priscilla asked.
"That's where the charity comes in! Every girl in school will go without her allowance for two weeks. Then we'll have more than a hundred dollars, and you can furnish a house perfectly beautifully for that. And it would be real charity to give up our allowances, because they are particularly useful at Christmas time."
"But will the girls want to give their allowances?"
"We'll fix it so they'll have to," said Patty. "We'll call a mass meeting and make a speech. Then everybody will file past and sign a paper. No one will dare refuse with the school looking on."
Patty's fire kindled an answering flame in the other two.
"It is a good idea!" Conny declared.
"And it would be a lark, fixing the house," said Priscilla. "Almost as much fun as getting married ourselves."
"Exactly," Patty nodded. "Those poor old things haven't had a chance to see each other alone for years. We'll give 'em a honeymoon all over again."
Patty was outwardly occupied with geometry the next hour, but her mind was busy hemming sheets and towels and tablecloths. It being Thursday evening, the hour between eight and nine was occupied with "manners." The girls took turns in coming gracefully downstairs, entering the drawing-room, announced by Claire du Bois in the rôle of footman, and shaking hands with their hostesses--Conny Wilder, as dowager mama, and towering above her, as débutante daughter, Irene McCullough, the biggest girl in the school. The gymnasium teacher who assigned the rôles, had a sense of humor. An appropriate remark was expected from each guest, the weather being barred.
"Mrs. Wilder!" Priscilla gushed, advancing with outstretched hand, "and dear little Irene! It doesn't seem possible that the child is actually grown. It was only yesterday that she was a mite of a thing toddling about--"
Priscilla was shoved on by Patty.
"Me dear Mrs. Wilder," she inquired in a brogue that would have put the Murphys to shame, "have ye heard the news that's goin' round? Mr. and Mrs. Tammas Flannigan have taken the Laurel Cottage for the season. They are thinkin' of startin' a salon. They will be at home ivery afternoon during recreation hour--and will serve limonade and gingerbread in summer, and soup and sandwiches in winter. Ye must take Irene to call on thim."
The moment "manners" was over, the three withdrew to the seclusion of Patty's and Conny's room in Paradise Alley, and closed the door against callers. Between nine and nine-thirty was the fashionable calling hour at St. Ursula's. The time was supposed to be occupied in getting ready for bed, but if one were clever about undressing in the dark, one might devote the thirty minutes to social purposes.
"Gone to sleep! Don't disturb us!" the placard read that they impaled upon the door, but the clatter of tongues inside belied the words.
"Isn't my idea fine about the lemonade and soup?" Patty demanded.
"The great thing about charity is not to make it charity. You must keep people self-supporting," Priscilla quoted from their last lesson in sociology.
"We'll fix little tables under the apple tree in summer and in the parlor in winter," Patty planned, "and all the school girls and automobiles will stop for lemonade. We'll charge the girls five cents a glass and the automobiles ten."
"And I say, let's make Patrick and Tammas each contribute a dollar a week toward their support," Conny proposed. "They must eat up a dollar's worth of potatoes as they are living now."
They continued planning in whispers until long after "lights-out" had rung; and Priscilla, in a laudable desire to be inconspicuous, was obliged to crawl on hands and knees past Mademoiselle's open door, before she gained her own room at the end of the corridor.
The moment recreation sounded the next afternoon, they obtained permission to be out of bounds, and set off at a brisk trot. It was their business-like intention to have all the statistics complete, before submitting the matter to the assembled school.
"We'll first call on Patrick and Tammas and make 'em promise the dollar," said Patty.
Patrick readily promised his dollar--Patrick was always strong in promises--and the girls proceeded gaily to Tammas Junior's. They found Granpa on the back doorstep anxiously wiping his feet; he was a tremulous reed that bowed before every blast of the daugh
ter-in-law's tongue. Tammas Junior, after being taken aside and told the project, thought he could manage two dollars a week. An expression of relief momentarily took the hunted look from his eyes. He was clearly glad to rescue his father from the despotic rule of his wife.
The girls turned away with their minds made up. It only remained to secure the cottage, coerce the school, and hem the sheets.
"You go and price furniture and wall paper," Patty issued her orders, "while I see about the rent. We'll meet at the soda-water fountain."
She found the real-estate man who owned the cottage established in an office over the bank; and by what she considered rare business ability, beat him down from nine dollars a month to seven. This stroke accomplished, she intimated her readiness for the lease.
"A lease will not be necessary," he said. "A month to month verbal agreement will do for me."
"I can't consider it without a lease," said Patty, firmly. "You might sell or something, and then we'd have to move out."
The gentleman amusedly filled in the form, and signed as party of the first part. He passed the pen to Patty and indicated the space reserved for the signature of the party of the second part.
"I must first consult my partners," she explained.
"Oh, I see! Have them sign here, and then bring the lease back."
"All of them?" she asked, dubiously scanning the somewhat cramped quarters. "I'm afraid there won't be room."
"How many partners have you?"
"Sixty-three."
He stared momentarily, then as his eye fell on the embroidered "St. U." on Patty's coat sleeve, he threw back his head and laughed.
"I beg your pardon!" he apologized, "but I was a bit staggered for a moment. I am not used to doing business on such a large scale. In order to be legal," he gravely explained, "the paper will have to be signed by all the parties to the contract. If there is not enough room, you might paste on an er--"
"Annex?" suggested Patty.
"Exactly," he agreed and with grave politeness bowed her out.
As the bell rang that indicated the end of study that evening, Patty and Conny and Priscilla jumped to their feet, and called a mass meeting of the school. The door was closed after the retreating Miss Jellings, and for half an hour the three made speeches separately and in unison. They were persuasive talkers and they carried the day. The allowance was voted with scarcely a dissenting voice, and the school filed past and signed the lease.
For two weeks St. Ursula's was a busy place--and also Laurel Cottage. Bounds were practically enlarged to include it. The girls worked in gangs during every recreation hour. The cellar was whitewashed by a committee of four, who went in blue, and came out speckled like a plover's egg. Tammas Junior had volunteered for this job, but it was one the girls could not relinquish. They did allow him to kalsomine the ceilings and hang the wall paper; but they painted the floors and lower reaches of woodwork themselves. The evening's hour of recreation no longer found them dancing, but sitting in a solid phalanx on the stairs hemming sheets and tablecloths. The house was to be furnished with a completeness that poor Mrs. Flannigan, in all her married life, had never known before.
When everything was finished, the day before the holidays, the school in 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 w
as 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.
