Just Patty by Jean Webster (best romance ebooks txt) 📗

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 daughter-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