Patty's Perversities

The spraining of Patty's ankle seemed to Bathalina a direct visitation of Providence in reproof for her vain merry-making.

"I knew some judgment would happen to you," the servant said. "'My sinfulness has been visited upon me.' If you'd only live as you'll wish you had when you come to stand around your dying-bed!"

"Bathalina," Patty said sedately, "I am glad you mention it. I intend to behave until my ankle gets better; and I wanted to ask you if you'd mind taking my place in the theatricals we are getting up."

"You may mock now," retorted Bathalina wrathfully; "but at the last you'll bite like an adder, and sting like a serpent. – Mrs. Sanford, I came to tell you that I am going this afternoon to the funeral of my cousin Sam's first wife's child."

"Is she dead?" asked Mrs. Sanford. "I hadn't heard of it; though, now, I remember I did hear a dog howl night before last."

"I suppose she's dead," the servant answered; "because, when I was over there Saturday, Jane said to me, says she, 'We sha'n't churn till after Emma dies.' And she wouldn't ha' said that if she warn't a-goin' to die soon. And, as that family always has their funerals Wednesday, I thought I better go over."

"But to-night is bread night," Mrs. Sanford objected; while Patty sank back in convulsions of laughter.

"Well'm, I'll mix it up early to-morrow morning."

"No," the housewife said decidedly; "none of your bread raised by daylight in my house. I'll see to it myself to-night. Grandmother Sanford is coming to-day; and she knows what good bread is, if anybody does."

"Mother," Patty asked, as the door closed behind Bathalina, "do you suppose Bath is as crazy as she seems? She talks like a perfect idiot."

"Well," her mother answered meditatively, "sometimes I think that perhaps maybe she isn't; and then, again, I don't know but after all I can't tell but she is."

Later in the forenoon Patty lay upon a light willow lounge which Will had placed for her on the piazza. It was a lovely summer's day. The bees hummed drowsily among the flowers, and Patty had drifted halfway from waking into sleeping. Through an opening in the vines which shaded the piazza, she watched the clouds moving slowly through the far, still spaces of blue ether, one shape insensibly changing into another as they passed.

The girl was thinking of nothing higher or greater than her suitors, perhaps having meditated sufficiently upon graver subjects in the days since her accident, now making almost a week. She was not counting her conquests; yet she had a pleasant consciousness of her power, and recalled with satisfaction the compliments bestowed upon her in words or attentions. The two nephews of Mr. Putnam, Frank and Hazard Breck, had the previous afternoon called upon her; and the younger was of old a devoted worshipper at her shrine. Hazard Breck was a fine, manly fellow a year Patty's junior. He believed himself madly in love with her; and indeed, in the fashion of pure-minded youth, he felt for her that maiden passion which is light and sweetness without the heat and wholesome bitter of a man's love.

As Patty lay watching the clouds, and enjoying the colors brought out by the sunlight as it filtered through the leafy screen, she heard the latch of the gate click. Without turning her head, she tried to guess whose step it was coming up the gravel-walk, and rightly concluded it must be that of Hazard Breck. He crossed the piazza, and came to her side.

"Good-morning," he said, in a tone having something of the richness of his uncle's voice. "Are you asleep, or awake?"

"Asleep," she answered, closing her eyes. "Isn't it a delicious morning to sleep and dream?"

"What do you dream?"

"That you have good news to tell."

"You are no witch to guess that. You knew it from my voice."

"What is it?"

"Now I can torment you," he said, "as you did me last night. Guess."

"One never guesses in sleep."

"Dream it, then."

"I should dream that the sky had fallen, and you had caught larks."

"No, I haven't, worse luck. But you'll never get it."

"Then tell me."

"It is about uncle Tom," he said after some further bantering. "He's had a windfall. The Samoset and Brookfield stock has gone up like a rocket, and made his fortune. Isn't that jolly!"

"I know nothing about stocks," she answered; "but I'm glad he's made his fortune."

"I'm just wild over it!" Hazard said. "It is so opportune!"

"Did he need it so much, then?" Patty asked, with a secret consciousness that she was pumping her guest.

"Uncle Tom is so generous!" Breck answered.

"He has not usually had that reputation," she returned, dropping the words slowly, one by one.

"I know," he said indignantly. "Of course I've no right to tell it, because he has always insisted that I should not. But I'd like you, at least, to know, and it can't do any harm to tell you now. He has supported not only aunt Pamela, but Frank and me; and of course, with two of us in college, it has been a hard pull on him."

"But I should think," she began, "that" —

"That we wouldn't have let him?" Hazard said as she hesitated. "I wonder – I've always wondered that we did. But he insisted, and said we could pay him back when we got our professions; and so we shall, of course."

Patty was silent. She was filled with self-reproach for having misjudged the lawyer. Why, from all her suitors, her heart had chosen this elderly-looking man, his hair already threaded with gray, she could have told as little as any one else. Love as a rule is so illogical, that it is strange the ancients did not give the little god the female sex; though it is true they approximated toward it by representing him eternally blindfold. Something in Patty had instinctively recognized the innate nobility of Mr. Putnam's character, hidden beneath a somewhat cold exterior. Against the fascination which his personality exercised over her, she struggled as a strong will always struggles against the dominion of a stronger. She could not easily yield herself up, and often treated the lawyer with less tenderness, or even courtesy, than the rest of her suitors. At the revelations of Hazard, however, she was much softened; and had Tom Putnam been at hand – but he was not; and it is idle to speculate upon chances, albeit the whole world is poised upon an IF, as a rocking-stone upon its pivot.

CHAPTER IX

AN ARRIVAL

The silence of the pair upon the piazza was broken by the arrival at the gate of Will, who had been to the station to meet grandmother Sanford. Patty started up as if to run to meet her, but fell back.

"I forget that I am a cripple," she said.

"Mother, how do you do?" exclaimed Mrs. Sanford, appearing in the doorway. "Do come up on to the piazza. I don't want to meet you on the stairs, or I'll have a disappointment."

"Thee art as full of foolish superstitions as ever, daughter Britann," the old lady said, coming slowly up the steps on Will's arm.

"You dear little grandmother!" Patty cried. "How glad I am you've come!"

"I am glad to come," her grandmother answered, "and grieved much to find thee lame. How dost thee do to-day?"

"Oh! I'm nicely. My ankle isn't painful at all. It would have been well if I could have kept still. This is Hazard Breck, grandmother, Mr. Putnam's nephew; you remember him. – And this, Hazard, is the nicest grandmother that ever lived."

"Thee art the nephew of an honest man," the old lady said, "though he is somewhat given to irreverent speech."

"He is the best of uncles, at least," Hazard answered warmly.

"He is a very respectable old gentleman," Mrs. Sanford said patronizingly.

Will laughed meaningly, and glanced at his sister, whose cheeks flushed. Mrs. Sanford's antipathy to the lawyer was no secret.

"Mr. Putnam is the finest man I know," Patty said, a trifle defiantly, "except my father."