Patty at Home

"That's a good idea," said Aunt Alice; "let Patty entertain her first company there, and then come back here for the reaction."

"Well, we'll see," said Patty; "but I'd like to go there the first day of January, and stay there."

By some unknown methods, Mr. Fairfield managed to stir up the mud-turtle workmen to greater activity, and the work went rapidly on. The wall-papers seemed to get themselves into place, and the floors took on a beautiful polish; bustling men came out from the city and put up window-shades, and curtains, and draperies; and, under Mr. Fairfield's supervision, laid rugs and hung pictures.

The ladies of the Elliott household organised themselves into a most active sewing-society.

Grandma, Aunt Alice, Marian, and Patty hemmed tablecloths and napkins with great diligence, and even little Edith was allowed to help with the kitchen towels.

Everybody was so kind that Patty began to feel weighed down with gratitude. The girls of the Tea Club made the tea-cloth that they had proposed, and they also brought offerings of pin-cushions, and doilies and centre-pieces, until Patty's room began to look like a booth at a fancy bazaar.

One Saturday morning, as the sewing-circle was hard at work, little Gilbert came in carrying a paper bag, which evidently contained something valuable.

"It's for you, Patty," he said. "I brought it for you, to help keep house; and its name is Pudgy."

Depositing the bag in his cousin's lap, little Gilbert knelt beside her. "You needn't open it," he cried; "it will open itself!"

And, sure enough, the mouth of the bag untwisted, and a little grey head came poking out.

"A kitten!" exclaimed Patty; "a Maltese kitten. Why, that's just the very thing I wanted! Where did you get it, Gilbert, dear?"

"From the milkman," said Gilbert proudly. "We always get kitties from him, and I telled him to pick out a nice pretty one for you. Do you like it?"

"I love it," said Patty, cuddling the little bunch of grey fur; "and Pudgy is just the right name for it. It's the fattest little cat I ever saw."

"Yes," said Gilbert gravely; "don't let it get thin, will you?"

"No, indeed," said Patty; "I'll feed it on strawberries and cream all the year round!"

That same afternoon Patty and Aunt Alice started out on a cook-hunting expedition. A Cook's Tour, Frank called it; and the tourists took it very seriously.

"Much of the success of your home, Patty," said Aunt Alice, as they were going to the Intelligence Office, "depends upon your cook; for she will be not only a cook, but, in part, housekeeper, and overseer of the whole place. And while you must, of course, exercise your authority and demand respect, yet at the same time you will find it necessary to defer to her judgment and experience on many occasions."

"I know it, Aunt Alice," said Patty very earnestly; "and I do want to do what is right. I want to be the head of papa's home, and yet there are a great many things that my servants will know more about than I do. I shall have to be very careful about my proportion; but if you and papa will help me, I think I'll come out all right."

"I think you will," said Aunt Alice, but she smiled a little at the assured toss of her niece's head.

The Intelligence Office proved to be as much misnamed as those institutions usually are, and varying degrees of unintelligence were shown in the candidates offered for the position of cook at Boxley Hall; though, if the applicants seemed unsatisfactory to Patty, in many cases she was no less so to them.

One tall, rawboned Irishwoman seemed hopefully good-tempered and capable, but when she discovered that Patty was to be her mistress, instead of Mrs. Elliott, as she had supposed, she exclaimed:

"Go 'way wid yez! Wud I be workin' for the likes of a child like that? No, mum, I ain't no nurse; I'm a cook, and I want a mistress as has got past playing wid dolls."

"I hope you'll find one," said Patty politely; "and I'm afraid we wouldn't suit each other."

Another Irish girl, with a merry rosy face and frizzled blonde hair, was very anxious to go to work for Patty.

"Sure, it will be fun!" she said. "I'd like to work for such a pretty little lady; and, sure, we'd have the good times. Could I have all me afternoons out, miss?"