Patty's Summer Days

“It’s patchwork,” she announced, “and I make it my habit to get all the help I can. I’m piecing a quilt, goose-chase pattern, and while I don’t know as it’s the prettiest there is, yet I don’t know as ’tisn’t. If you girls expect to sit the morning, and I must say you look like it, you might lend a helping hand. I made the geese smaller’n I otherwise would, ’cause I had so many little pieces left from my rising-sun quilt. Looks just as well, of course, but takes a powerful sight of time to sew. And I must say I’m sorter particular about sewing. However, I don’t s’pose you young things of this day and generation know much about sewing, but if you go slow you can’t help doing it pretty well.”

As she talked, Miss Bender had hastily presented each of the girls with a basted block of patchwork, and had passed around a needle-cushion and a small box containing a number of old-fashioned silver thimbles.

“Lucky I had a big family,” she commented, “else I don’t know what I’d done for thimbles to go around. I can’t abide brass things, that make your finger look like it had been dipped in ink, but thanks to my seven sisters who are all restin’ comfortably in their graves, I have enough thimbles to provide quite a parcel of company. Here’s your thread. Now sew away while we talk, and we’ll have a real nice little bee.”

Although not especially fond of sewing, the girls looked upon this episode as a good joke, and fell to work at their bits of cloth.

Elise was a dainty little needlewoman, and overhanded rapidly and neatly; Patty did fairly well, though her stitches were not quite even, but poor Bertha found her work a difficult task. She never did fancywork, and knew nothing of sewing, so her thread knotted and broke, and her patch presented a sorry sight.

“Land o’ Goshen!” exclaimed Miss Aurora, “is that the best you can do, Bertha Warner? The town ought to take up a subscription to put you in a sewin’ school. Here child, let me show you.”

Miss Bender took Bertha’s block and tried to straighten it out, while Bertha herself made funny faces at the other girls over Miss Aurora’s shoulder.

“I can see you,” said that lady calmly, “I guess you forget that big mirror opposite. But them faces you’re makin’ ain’t half so bad as this sewin’ of yours.”

The girls all laughed outright at Miss Bender’s calm acceptance of Bertha’s sauciness, and Bertha herself was in nowise embarrassed by the implied rebuke.

“There, child,” said Miss Aurora, smoothing out the seams with her thumb nail, “now try again, and see if you can’t do it some better.”

“Is your quilt nearly done, Miss Bender?” asked Patty.

“Yes, it is. I’ve got three hundred and eighty-seven geese finished, and four hundred’s enough. I work on it myself quite a spell every day, and I think in two or three days I’ll have it all pieced.”

“Oh, Miss Bender,” cried Bertha, “then won’t you quilt it? Won’t you have a quilting party while my friends are here?”

“Humph,” said Miss Aurora, scornfully, “you children can’t quilt fit to be seen.”

“Elise can,” said Bertha, looking at Elise’s dainty block, “and Patty can do pretty well, and as I would spoil your quilt if I touched it, Miss Aurora, I’ll promise to let it alone; but I can do other things to help you. Oh, do have the party, will you?”

“Why, I don’t know but I will. I kinder calculated to have it soon, anyhow, and if so be’s you young people would like to come to it, I don’t see anything to hinder. S’pose we say a week from to-day?”

The date was decided on, and the girls went home in high glee over the quilting party, for Bertha told them it would be great fun of a sort they had probably never seen before.

The days flew by rapidly at Pine Branches. Patty rapidly recovered her usual perfect health and rosy cheeks. She played golf and tennis, she went for long rides in the Warners’ motor-car or carriages, and also on horseback. There were many guests at the house, coming and going, and among these one day came Mr. Phelps, whom they had met on their journey out from New York.

This gentleman proved to be of a merry disposition, and added greatly to the gaiety of the party. While he was there, Roger also came back for a few days, having left Mr. and Mrs. Farrington for a short stay at Nantucket.

One morning, as Patty and Roger stood in the hall, waiting for the other young people to join them, they were startled to hear angry voices in the music-room.

This room was separated from them by the length of the library, and though not quite distinct, the voices were unmistakably those of Bertha and Winthrop.

“You did!” said Winthrop’s voice, “don’t deny it! You’re a horrid hateful old thing!”

“I didn’t! any such thing,” replied Bertha’s voice, which sounded on the verge of tears.

“You did! and if you don’t give it back to me, I’ll tell mother. Mother said if she caught you at such a thing again, she’d punish you as you deserved, and I’m going to tell her!”

Patty felt most uncomfortable at overhearing this quarrel. She had never before heard a word of disagreement between Bertha and her brother, and she was surprised as well as sorry to hear this exhibition of temper.

Roger looked horrified, and glanced at Patty, not knowing exactly what to do.

The voices waxed more angry, and they heard Bertha declare, “You’re a horrid old telltale! Go on and tell, if you want to, and I’ll tell what you stole out of father’s desk last week!”

“How did you know that?” and Winthrop’s voice rang out in rage.

“Oh, I know all about it. You think nobody knows anything but yourself, Smarty-cat! Just wait till I tell father and see what he’ll do to you.”

“You won’t tell him! Promise me you won’t, or I’ll,—I’ll hit you! There, take that!”

“That” seemed to be a resounding blow, and immediately Bertha’s cries broke forth in angry profusion.

“Stop crying,” yelled her brother, “and stop punching me. Stop it, I say!”

At this point the conversation broke off suddenly, and Patty and Roger stared in stupefied amazement as they saw Bertha and Winthrop walk in smiling, and hand in hand, from exactly the opposite direction from which their quarrelsome voices had sounded.

“What’s the matter?” said Bertha. “Why do you look so shocked and scared to death?”

“N-nothing,” stammered Patty; while Roger blurted out, “We thought we heard you talking over that way, and then you came in from this way. Who could it have been? The voices were just like yours.”

Bertha and Winthrop broke into a merry laugh.

“It’s the phonograph,” said Bertha. “Winthrop and I fixed up that quarrel record, just for fun; isn’t it a good one?”

Roger understood at once, and went off into peals of laughter, but Patty had to have it explained to her.

“You see,” said Winthrop, “we have a big phonograph, and we make records for it ourselves. Bertha and I fixed up that one just for fun, and Elise is in there now looking after it. Come on in, and see it.”

They all went into the music-room, and Winthrop entertained them by putting in various cylinders, which they had made themselves.

Almost as funny as the quarrel was Bertha’s account of the occasion when she fell into the creek, and many funny recitations by Mr. Warner also made amusing records.

Patty could hardly believe that she had not heard her friends’ voices really raised in anger, until Winthrop put the same record in and let her hear it again.

He also promised her that some day she should make a record for herself, and leave it at Pine Branches as a memento of her visit.

CHAPTER XVI

A QUILTING PARTY

Miss Aurora Bender’s quilting party was to begin at three o’clock in the afternoon, and the girls started early in order to see all the fun. They were to stay to supper, and the young men were to come over and escort them home in the evening.

When they reached Miss Bender’s, they found that many and wonderful preparations had been made.

Miss Aurora had two house servants, Emmeline and Nancy, but on this occasion she had called in two more to help. And indeed there was plenty to be done, for a quilting bee was to Miss Bender’s mind a function of great importance.

The last of a large family, Miss Bender was a woman of great wealth but of plain and old-fashioned tastes. Though amply able to gratify any extravagant wish, she preferred to live as her parents had lived before her, and she had in no sense kept pace with the progress of the age.

When the three girls reached the old country house, they were met at the front door by the elderly Nancy. She courtesied with old-time grace, and invited them to step into the bedroom, and lay off their things.