Patty's Perversities

"Indeed?" Will said teasingly. "Grandmother," he added, "I think it is all nonsense about Patty's ankle. She only makes believe, so as to have everybody come and see her. She has a regiment of callers about the house all the time."

"Hazard," Patty said, "if mother has no objections, I wish you'd please toss Will into that bed of pinks."

"Objections!" exclaimed Mrs. Sanford. "Of course I've objections. Your own brother and the most thrifty bed of pinks I've got! Patience Sanford, I'm surprised at you!"

"If thee hast no objection, daughter Britann," grandmother Sanford said with her quiet smile, "I'll go in and rest a little."

The old lady was the mother of Dr. Sanford and of Mrs. Plant. She was a woman of strong character, and had adopted the Quaker faith after her marriage, being converted to it by the labors of a woman who had nursed her through a long illness. In her youth, grandmother Sanford had perhaps been somewhat stern, as people of strong wills are apt to be: but age had mellowed her, as it does all sound fruit; and now she was so beloved by her friends and relatives, that they were ready to quarrel for her society to such a degree, that she declared she lived "on the circuit." She had keen perceptions, a quick sense of the ludicrous, and a kindly heart, which endeared her to all. Even Mrs. Sanford, who was undemonstrative in her affection for everybody else, brightened visibly whenever her mother-in-law came, and showed her pleasure in numerous kindly attentions. As for Patty, she worshipped her grandmother, who understood her as no one else but Dr. Sanford did. It was a peculiarity of the girl's to make few confidences; but to her grandmother she would talk of matters which she mentioned to no one else. Nor was the old lady less proud and fond of her grand-daughter; and the love between them was, as is always love between youth and age, a most beautiful thing to see.

Patty and Hazard Breck were scarcely left alone on the piazza, when a new visitor appeared, in the person of Burleigh Blood. The young man had been to the depot to see about the freight of the products of the dairy-farm which he owned in company with his father, and had chosen to improve his opportunity by calling at the Sanford cottage. At sight of him, young Breck said good-by, and betook himself home by a short cut across the garden, much to Patty's disappointment, as she wished to hear further concerning his uncle's good fortune. She, however, sped the parting, and welcomed the coming guest with a smile; and the young farmer sat bashfully on the steps of the piazza before her.

"How big you are, Burleigh!" she said, glancing admiringly over his breadth of shoulder and chest, the strong head, and the firm, large hands.

"You told me that the other day," he said ruefully; "but I can't help it."

"Help it? Of course not. What makes you think I meant any thing but praise?"

"I thought I was so big and clumsy, that you must be making fun of me."

"Oh, no! I was only thinking what a mere morsel Flossy looked beside you at the picnic."

He blushed, and pulled at his hat, after his usual awkward fashion; and at that moment, as if summoned by a call-boy for her part in the play, Flossy herself appeared in the doorway, bowl of pop-corn, and all.

"Good-morning, Mr. Blood," she said. "Can you tell why mutton always tastes catty? As if it were cats, I mean."

"I – I never tasted any cats," he said with the utmost earnestness.

"No? Well, I wouldn't. But why didn't you come to inquire how I felt after the picnic? Montfield manners and bonnets both need to be issued in a revised edition."

"Montfield manners are perfect," Patty said, coming to the rescue of the guest. "They cannot be improved. But you remember, Flossy, what you had to ask Burleigh."

"Of course you understand, Mr. Blood," Flossy said, "that a lady's request is a command."

"Yes, certainly."

"Very well. It is this I spoke to you about the other day, you know."

"I don't remember what you mean."

"You are to be my lover in this play."

"What?"

"You don't look over-charmed at the prospect," Flossy remarked coolly. "You ought to feel honored. So saying, I will eat a few kernels of corn. Have some, Patty?"

"But of course I can't act."

"Of course you can. I'll get the book for you now, so you can be studying your part. We don't have rehearsal until next week."

"You are to be Jonathan Cowboy in the play," Flossy continued, having produced the book. "Will is Mr. Bramble, and Ease Apthorpe his daughter. I'm to be Waitstill Eastman. I chose that because she has things to eat."

"Shall you eat pop-corn?" asked Patty.

"Really, I couldn't think of taking a part," Burleigh said.

"Nobody wants you to think of it," Flossy returned placidly. "It is settled that you are to have it. It is a bashful part, and, if you make any mistakes, people will think it is part of the play."

"'Vanity of vanities,'" said the voice of Bathalina Clemens, who had approached unperceived. "'All is vanity.'"

"So are you," Flossy retorted.

"How came you home so soon?" Patty asked. "Didn't they have the funeral?"

"No," the doleful servant answered. "Emma ain't dead: so they had to put it off. Jane concluded to do her churning, after all; but she says she's in hopes to get through the burying by next Wednesday. And I should think she'd want to; for that'll finish up all the first wife's children. It'll naturally give her more time to look after her own."

"Did you ever hear any thing so atrocious!" exclaimed Patty, as the maid-servant disappeared round the corner of the house. "The way she talks about that funeral is more crazy than her usual speeches, and that is certainly needless."

"Don't names," Flossy asked pensively, "always convey a color to your mind, Mr. Blood?"

"Convey a color?"

"Yes. Like Caroline, you know: that always makes me think of pale yellow, and Susan of red, and Mary of blue."

"What nonsense!" laughed her cousin. "What color would Bathalina suggest?"

"That name," said Flossy, "always calls up a grayish, dirty green, like faded linsey-woolsey."

And at that moment the dinner-bell rang.

CHAPTER X

A CHANCE MEETING

The Putnam mansion, wherein the lawyer's ancestors had lived and died for several generations, stood next to the cottage of Dr. Sanford; or rather the two places were back to back, each facing one of the two principal of the village streets. To reach either house from the more distant thoroughfare, a short cut was taken across the grounds of the other, right-of-way being conceded by mutual agreement.

People in Montfield retired early; and thus it happened that at ten o'clock of the Friday night following the coming of grandmother Sanford the lights were out in the doctor's cottage, and sleep was supposed to have descended upon all the dwellers therein. Patty had not, however, retired. A thunder-storm was slowly rising out of the west, with golden fringes of lightning about its dark edges; and she sat at her open window to watch its progress. The unusual restraint imposed upon her by her lameness had made her restless; and she longed to steal out of the house, and run races across the orchard as she had done when a child. The sultry closeness of the night made her take a fan, with which she did little but tap impatiently upon the window-ledge. She was not thinking connectedly, but in a vague way unpleasant thoughts and feelings crowded tumultuously through her brain like the crew of Comus.

Suddenly in the garden below she heard voices. A man was speaking earnestly, but in a tone too low to be audible at the window above. A woman answered him, the pair seeming to discuss something with much emphasis. Her curiosity greatly excited by so unusual a circumstance, Patty leaned out of the window to discover, if possible, who were the speakers.

"Well, it's the Lord's will," she heard the woman's voice say. "And I, for one, ain't a-going to run a muck agin it."

"It is Bathalina!" the listener said to herself. "Who in the world can she be talking to?"

She leaned farther from her window, but by an unlucky movement of her arm sent her fan fluttering down to the gravel walk below. The speakers departed in different directions like phantoms, and Patty was left once again to her own reflections. At first she speculated upon the possible nature of the interview she had interrupted; then her thoughts came back to her fan. It chanced to be one painted by an artist-cousin, and one of which she was fond: a thunder-storm was rapidly approaching, and the fan likely to be ruined. Her ankle was fast recovering, and she was not long in determining to go down into the garden for her property. With the aid of the furniture and the stair-railings she got safely down to the side-door, cautiously unbolted it and slipped out. The fan was only a few steps from the door, but a rolling-stone lay in wait for the lame ankle, and gave it so severe a turn that Patty sank down a miserable heap upon the ground. She sat there a moment to recover herself, and then crawled back to the door-steps. Seated here, she gazed ruefully at the fan, a white spot upon the dusky walk, and, coddling her aching ankle in her hands, wondered how she was to regain her room.

At that moment brisk steps sounded on the walk, approaching the spot where she sat. A tall form defined itself amid the darkness, pausing before her.

"Good-evening," said the voice of Tom Putnam. "Is it you, Patty?"