Patricia (15 page)

Mr. Prentiss was still for quite a long time, until they could hear Mrs. Prentiss coming up the front walk talking to one of her friends who was evidently coming in to visit, and then Mr. Prentiss drew a long sigh and said, “Oh, little Pat, you ought to have had a father like that! I was brought up that way, and I ought to have kept it up, even if I had to do it by myself! I'm sorry and ashamed, little Pat! I guess your mother wouldn't have stood for it. But I ought to have done it anyway.”

Patricia folded her arms lovingly around his neck and kissed him hard, whispering “Dear Daddy.” He held her close for just a minute, until suddenly they heard footsteps coming down the hall toward the library where they were. Patricia stepped back into the shadow, and her father quickly brushed the mist away from his eyes and said in a husky voice, “I liked that man, Pat. We'll go and see him someday when we have time. I'd like to know him.”

“Oh, but Daddy, he isn't there anymore. He's gone to heaven. Last summer while we were away!”

“You don't say!” said Mr. Prentiss, looking troubled. “Now that's too bad! That was an unusual man, I'm sure. I thought when I saw him I'd like to know him.”

“He was a professor in a college,” said Patricia softly, for the footsteps were very near now, “and they had such a nice picture of the college and a picture of Mrs. Worth's old home in Scotland. Oh, I wish you could have seen it!”

Then the door opened and Mrs. Prentiss swept in.

“For mercy's sake!” she said. “What are you two sitting in a dark room for? Why didn't you have a light on? It's quite dark outside and high time the lights were on everywhere. It must look very strange to people passing outside to see no lights in the house. I wonder what the servants are thinking of.”

That was the end of their talk that night, but Patricia and her father felt nearer to one another than ever after that.

Toward the end of the school year Patricia, to her great surprise, became popular with the whole class, and three or four of the boys began to show her little attentions. The most daring of them took turns walking home with her, carrying her books, vying with one another to get first place.

She was always gracious and sweet and most friendly, yet they never got to the place where they felt quite free to go in with her unless she asked them in, and then they would only go as far as the porch. They still didn't drop in at any hour of the day or evening as they did at the other girls' houses. They admired her, but she was still in a class by herself.

Patricia liked them all pretty well, some better than others of course, but none of them enough to want them around continually. She was content with things as they were.

One day her mother happened to be passing through the hall as Bramwell Brown stood on the front steps with her, talking about who should be on the decorating committee for commencement. Afterward her mother asked, “Who was that good-looking young man with you at the door?” And Patricia answered, “That was Bramwell Brown.”

“Do you mean he is from your high school?”

“Yes, Mother. He's the prize debater and sings in the class quartet.”

“Really? As good-looking as that? I don't think I ever saw him before. Has he just recently come to town?”

“Oh no,” said Patricia. “He's been in my class since primary days. You probably never noticed him.”

“Well, that's strange, as good-looking as that. He's almost as handsome as Thorny Bellingham! Who is his mother? Strange I never met her at the club or somewhere.”

“You wouldn't,” said Patricia, half smiling. “She's a dressmaker, Mother, and lives down on South Street. She wouldn't have time to go to a club.”

“A dressmaker! And one who lives on South Street! Well, Patricia Prentiss, I am amazed at you, that you would allow such a young man to walk you home! No matter how handsome he is, you could certainly have made some excuse. I certainly am thankful that there are only two or three weeks of that dreadful school left. I don't know what your father can be thinking of to allow you to be exposed to things of this sort. But then, of course, the poor dear man doesn't understand social correctness, and never will, I'm afraid. Please don't bring that young man around again, my dear. I know, your father said you were to have freedom, but when it comes to somebody from South Street that certainly is the limit. What would my friends think if they saw such a young man attending my daughter? Patricia, I simply
can't
have it!”

“But Mother! He wasn't tagged! He didn't have a placard pinned to his back saying he was from South Street, and you said yourself he was good-looking!”

“Don't be ridiculous, Patricia! Well, I suppose we can stand anything for the next few weeks and hope it will all be forgotten next year when you go away to college.”

Little brushes like these were only occasional, however, and Patricia lived from day to day happily.

Of course there was a big fuss over her commencement wardrobe. Mrs. Prentiss wanted an elaborate dress of chiffon with hand-drawn work in the waist and profusely edged with handmade lace, or else a lovely tailored white taffeta with a real lace overblouse. But Patricia would have nothing but a simple organdy.

“Mother, we're all dressing alike,” she said gently with a smile. “You see, there are some who can't afford elaborate expensive dresses, so we voted to have everything very simple. Then everybody will be happy. And we're not having any lace at all, just simple lines, sort of tailored, with deep hems. Some of the girls are making their own, and we've chosen a very simple pattern, but I think it's going to be lovely. Then each one will wear the kind of sash or belt she chooses. Some are having white organdy sashes. I'd like a white silk sash, I think. And then for class day we're wearing the class color, light green, or green and white.”

“Do you mean you are going to look just like everybody else?
My
daughter going to look just like all the rest? I think that is
terrible
! Just look like some scrub woman's child!”

“Oh no, Mother! I'll have my own face, you know,” laughed Patricia. “And we haven't a single scrub woman's child in the class! Betty Low's mother scrubs offices at night, but Betty is a soph and won't graduate for two years. Besides, Betty is the prettiest girl in the whole school! Mother, don't look so disappointed. It's just like a school uniform, you know, and I think it will look lovely having us all alike!”

“But you only graduate once, Patricia, and I've been planning on your dress all this year.”

“Oh yes, mother dear. I hope I'll graduate from college sometime, and you can spread yourself then, although I don't think it is in good taste. Always in stories I've read a graduating dress is a simple thing.”

“Oh, dear me!” sighed the mother. “How simply impossible you have become! If I had known what a difficult child you were going to be I should have been so discouraged I would have given up at the start. Now take this matter of low heels; it's absurd to wear low heels like a child. And this awful party you are going to have. Whoever heard of a party without dancing? What on earth will you do all the time?”

“Oh, we have all that planned. Some lovely new games. I've been hunting them out all the year. They are going to be fun! Some of them are fascinating.”

“Games?” said her bewildered mother. “You mean card games?”

“Not a card, mother dear, just cute funny games and old-fashioned charades and things. Daddy has helped me telling me some of the games they used to play when he was a boy.”

“
Daddy!
” said Mrs. Prentiss with contempt. “As if Daddy knew anything that would be suitable for entertainment! I declare you two are the most impossible creatures that ever lived. But if Daddy has helped you plan this, I suppose it is quite useless for me to concern myself about it.”

“Oh, quite, mother dear!” laughed Patricia again, whirling away upstairs to complete her arrangements and glad to escape further inquisition.

But the evening of the class party Mrs. Prentiss had a new grievance.

“What have you done with all the ashtrays, Patricia?”

“Put them away in the closet, dearest,” answered the girl promptly.

“Well, get them out, all of them, and put them around. I certainly am not going to run the risk of having my lovely rugs and upholstery ruined by cigarette stubs and ashes everywhere. Of course they'll be smoking all the time.”

“Oh no,” said Patricia, “they won't. It isn't done at the school events, not when the teachers are present, and we are having three of our nicest teachers here. You needn't worry about ashtrays. Besides, they all know how I feel about it. We'll just forget the ashtrays, please.”

“Oh, Patricia! You are so difficult! So that's where you get that strange idea about not smoking! You know, you're going to have to learn to do it, now and then at least. Simply everybody does it.”

“No!” said Patricia. “I'm not going to learn. I don't like it, and I think it is silly. I know Daddy doesn't like it when you do it.”

“There you go, condemning your mother. You think that is right, do you?”

“I'm not condemning you, Mother, but—I just wish you didn't do it.”

“But, Patricia, if you don't smoke people are going to think you are very odd when you get out into society. You won't be smart at all!”

“I'm not anxious to get out into society,” said Patricia, “and I wouldn't care to be thought smart. It doesn't seem a nice word to me. Come, Mother, forget it, and let's have a nice time!” Patricia was very happy and her eyes were shining, her cheeks aglow. She was wearing a little pink dress and a pink rose in her hair. She was lovely.

“Nice time!” sniffed her mother. “Nice time at a lowdown party, for a horde of children who don't know how to act at a party. But you do look beautiful, darling. Only, I wish you would run up to my dressing table and just put the weest mite of lipstick on your lips. Then you would look all right. Do that to please Mother, won't you, precious?”

“Oh no, please, Mother,” said Patricia firmly. “I want to be myself, not a primped up society girl. I hate lipstick!”

“Oh, you perfectly impossible child!” sighed her mother. “Shall I ever be able to make anything out of you after this awful time is over?”

“I sincerely trust not,” said her father in a low reverent tone as he came in the door just then. “You certainly ought to be satisfied with her the way she is now, Amelia. I never saw anything lovelier. In fact, she looks a little as you did when you were her age,” he added grimly. “I used to think you were the prettiest girl in the whole countryside.”

“There, Mother, listen to that!” said Patricia. “You ought to be satisfied with a compliment like that from our dear silent Daddy!” And then Patricia escaped up the stairs laughing.

The party went off “with a bang” as Mr. Prentiss said afterward, because everything had been so well thought out and prepared beforehand.

When the guests arrived and went down the line in the wide hall, Patricia stood first by the door to greet her classmates and introduce them, first to a grim reluctant mother who had pretended until the last minute that she did not intend to appear at all at the party, and then to her smiling father.

Mr. Prentiss had his pockets full of little green ribbon bows with cards attached on which were written the names of characters about which they had all studied during the last year. After he had laughingly, cordially, greeted each guest personally, he pinned one of the little bows to their backs and bade them go among the rest and find out be asking questions just who they were supposed to be. Thus was the first awkward moment of stiffness avoided and the guests made to feel at home at once. So the line went rollicking down the hall, and Mrs. Prentiss, watching each one critically, failed to discover the bad manners and illiteracy she had expected to find in young people who had not had the privilege of Miss Greystone's Select School for Girls. She was quite surprised. One startling incident that made for her further astonishment was the fact that Della Bright was wearing an exact duplicate of the dress she had wanted to get Patricia for a graduating dress. Patricia's mother was amazed. Why, these girls looked just like other girls! And Jennie McGlynn was wearing the replica of a charming little imported pink organdy; Mrs. Prentiss did not guess that her mother had made it at night after her hard work of the day was over. The evident charm of the young people had made Mrs. Prentiss unbend far more than she had intended. Besides, she was quite intrigued to see what was happening next. For her husband and daughter, failing in getting her cooperation, had not confided their plans to her, and she had been greatly distressed to know what on earth they would do all the evening if they did not dance. She had secretly told the servants to be ready at a moment's notice to serve the refreshments, if the interest should lag, and she had asked a friend who was a fine player for dances to be ready to run over and supply the accompaniment for dancing in case Patricia found she had to resort to that after all before the evening was over. Therefore she was amazed at the way everything moved on like a performance that had been rehearsed many times and was letter perfect.

She was even more nonplussed when she discovered by the conversation of the three teachers and the superintendent, who had been the last of the guests to arrive, that she herself also was wearing one of those ridiculous name-bows on her back, and they were bursting with information to impart concerning her namesake.

But unfortunately Mrs. Prentiss had not been studying history nor the biographies of famous people that winter, and she found that the whole company were so much better informed about the person she was supposed to be than she was herself that she was in despair. These people all seemed to be remarkably intelligent. Perhaps after all there was something in what George had been reiterating all these years, that public school people were sharp and keen and well informed. At least it was something she could say when she had to explain that her daughter had attended public school.

The first guest who discovered his identity was to ring a tiny bell. Everybody stopped talking when it rang, and one of the boys announced that his name was George Washington.

With prompt response Mr. Prentiss produced a small hatchet decorated with a bunch of artificial cherries as the prize. There was a good deal of laughter, and then the guests turned with renewed zest each to find out who he was. It was great fun as one by one the guests solved the problem of his or her identity and received an appropriate prize. George Prentiss had enjoyed selecting those prizes.

It was all very fun, and the little bell rang over and over as more identities were discovered, and then there followed other games, fully as well planned and just as happy.

Suddenly a halt was called and the company was asked to sit down. It was explained that ten of them, whose names were called, were wanted upstairs for a few minutes, and while they were gone the rest of them were going to indulge in a game of old-fashioned stagecoach. Then each one was named some part of the outfit, and there began cheerful hilarity again. Even Mrs. Prentiss, who had seated herself in a large comfortable chair hoping to rest a little, learned she was to be a bandbox and had to jump up and turn around every time it was named. The story for the game was being ingeniously told by one of the teachers at Patricia's suggestion, and Patricia, coming down the stairs to make an announcement about a charade that was to follow, was moved almost to tears to see her smiling dignified mother earnestly whirling around as a bandbox and then joining with the whole company in a common whirl as the word
stagecoach
was mentioned. Patricia felt that her mother was being the grandest sport ever and was convinced in her heart that never again would she have such a terrible prejudice against the public school. She gave a little quick sigh as she wished, oh how she wished, that this party might have come sooner in her life. What happy years those would have been if Mother only had been in sympathy with her school life.