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

again. "Did you happen to see any 'No Trespassing' signs as you came through?"

"Mercy, yes! The whole place is peppered with 'em."

"They don't seem to have impressed you much."

"Oh, I never pay any attention to 'No Trespassing' signs," said Patty easily. "You'd never get anywhere in this world if you let them bother you."

The man unexpectedly chuckled.

"I don't believe you would!" he agreed. "I've never let them bother me," he added meditatively.

"Can't I help you plant your onions?" Patty asked politely. It struck her that this might be the quickest route to the Italian garden.

"Why, yes, thank you!"

He accepted her offer with unexpected cordiality, and gravely explained the mode of work. The onions were very tiny, and they must be set right-side up with great care; because it is very difficult for an embryonic onion to turn itself over after it has once got started in the wrong direction.

Patty grasped the business very readily, and followed along in the next row three feet behind him. It turned out sociable work; by the end of fifteen minutes they were quite old friends. The talk ranged far--over philosophy and life and morals. He had a very decided opinion on every subject--she put him down as Scotch--he seemed a well-informed old fellow though, and he read the papers. Patty had also read the paper that morning. She discoursed at some length upon whether or not corporations should be subject to state control. She stoutly agreed with her editor that they should. He maintained that they were like any other private property, and that it was nobody's damned business how they managed themselves.

"A penny, please," said Patty, holding out her hand.

"A penny?--what for?"

"That 'damn.' Every time you use slang or bad grammar you have to drop a penny in the charity box. 'Damn' is much worse than slang; it's swearing. I ought to charge you five cents, but since this is the first offense, I'll let you off with one."

He handed over his penny, and Patty gravely pocketed it.

"What sort of things do you learn in that school?" he inquired with a show of curiosity.

She obligingly furnished a sample:

"The perimeters of similar polygons are as their homologous sides."

"You will find that useful," he commented with the suggestion of a twinkle in his eye.

"Very," she agreed--"on examination day."

After half an hour, onion-planting grew to be wearying work; but Patty was bound to be game, and stick to her job as long as he did. Finally, however, the last onion was in, and the gardener rose and viewed the neat rows with some satisfaction.

"That will do for to-day," he declared; "we've earned a rest."

They sat down, Patty on the wheelbarrow, the man on an upturned tub.

"How do you like working for Mr. Weatherby?" she inquired. "Is he as bad as the papers make out?"

The gardener chuckled slightly as he lighted his pipe.

"Well," he said judiciously, "he's always been very decent to me, but I don't know as his enemies have any cause to love him."

"I think he's horrid!" said Patty.

"Why?" asked the man with a slight air of challenge. He was quite willing to run his master down himself, but he would not permit an outsider to do it.

"He's so terribly stingy with his old conservatories. The Dowager--I mean Mrs. Trent, the principal, you know--wrote and asked him to let the botany class see his orchids, and he was just as rude as he could be!"

"I'm sure he didn't mean it," the man apologized.

"Oh, yes, he did!" maintained Patty. "He said he couldn't have a lot of school girls running through and breaking down his vines--as if we would do such a thing! We have perfectly beautiful manners. We learn 'em every Thursday night."

"Maybe he was a little rude," he agreed. "But you see, he hasn't had your advantages, Miss. He didn't learn his manners in a young ladies' boarding-school."

"He didn't learn them anywhere," Patty shrugged.

The gardener took a long pull at his pipe and studied the horizon with narrowed eyes.

"It isn't quite fair to judge him the way you would other people," he said slowly. "He's had a good deal of trouble in his life; and now he's old, and I dare say pretty lonely sometimes. All the world's against him--when people are decent, he knows it's because they're after something. Your teacher, now, is polite when she wants to see his conservatories, but I'll bet she believes he's an old thief!"

"Isn't he?" asked Patty.

The man grinned slightly.

"He has his moments of honesty like the rest of us."

"Perhaps," Patty grudgingly conceded, "he may not be so bad when you know him. It's often the way. Now, there was Lordy, our Latin teacher. I used to despise her; and then--in the hour of trial--she came up to the scratch, and was per-fect-ly bully!"

He held out his hand.

"A penny."

Patty handed him back his own.

"She kept me from getting expelled--she did, really. I've never been able to hate her since. And you know, I miss it dreadfully. It's sort of fun having an enemy."

"I've had a good many," he nodded, "and I've always managed to enjoy them."

"And probably they're really quite nice?" she suggested.

"Oh, yes," he agreed, "the worst criminals are often very pleasant people when you see their right side."

"Yes, that's true," said Patty. "It's mainly chance that makes people bad--I know it is in my own case. This morning for instance, I got up with every intention of learning my geometry and going to the dentist's--and yet--here I am! And so," she pointed a moral, "you always ought to be kind to criminals and remember that under different circumstances you might have been in jail yourself."

"That thought," he acknowledged, "has often occurred to me. I--we--that is," he resumed after a moment of amused meditation, "Mr. Weatherby believes in giving a man a chance. If you have any convict friends, who are looking for a job, this is the place to send them. We used to have a cattle thief taking care of the cows, and a