Miss Pat at School Part 5

"I do hope they like it and won't be too hard on me," she thought, as she hastened on. "It took a lot of trouble to make all the little figures, but if they'll only let me off from speechifying, I'll feel it was worth it."

There was no one in the modeling room but Naskowski, the silent, heavy-shouldered Slav who toiled early and late making up for his lost youth. Him Patricia held to be as impersonal as any of the other furnishings of the room, and she readily took him into her plan.

"Let's wheel all the stands into a circle around the model stand," she said briskly. "You see, I want them all to get them at once if I can work it. I'll put the figures in under the cloths, beside each head, so they won't show."

Naskowski slowly shook his head.

"They will approach at different times--not? It will be more better to place them during the first rest."

"But how can I?" insisted Patricia. "They don't all go out at the rests, you know."

He held up his finger.

"Listen," he said, impressively. "I make a figure that they all wish to see, but I have not shown him. Well, when I show him, at the rest, all, all go out to the clay room to see."

Patricia clapped her hands.

"And I stay in and slip the figures on the stands! How nice! It's awfully good of you." She broke off with a sudden clouding of her gayety. "But perhaps you don't really want them to see your figure? I couldn't have you----"

He interrupted her with an upheld hand.

"I was to exhibit it today, and I am pleased to be serviceable to a newcomer at once," he said gravely.

Patricia was only too glad to give in. "That makes it perfectly simple, then," she said gratefully. "I'm tremendously obliged to you for helping me out."

"It iss nothing," said Naskowski stolidly as he went back to the clay room, but Patricia could see that he was pleased at the ardor of her grat.i.tude.

"He's an awfully good sort, if he is queer and stubby," she said, pausing to hide her parcel beneath her stand until the propitious moment.

The first half hour seemed longer than any that Patricia had spent in the modeling room. The students straggled in at various times, and when the gong rang there were still several of the usual number who had not appeared. Naskowski, as the cla.s.s broke up for the brief interval, found chance to whisper a suggestion that she postpone it till the next rest, and Patricia eagerly agreed.

"I'll go look up my sister and tell her," she said. "We can smuggle her into the clay room, too, to see your work, can't we? I know she'd be crazy to get a glimpse of it, and then she might get a snap-shot at the fun in here."

Naskowski nodded a pleased a.s.sent, and Patricia sped away.

She found Elinor perturbed and excited beyond her wont.

"Isn't it horrid? Mr. Benton's come already, and I won't have a chance with my candy before criticism, as I hoped. I don't know what to do about it. I did so want to get it off my mind before I got my criticism, for I'm scared stiff about both of them."

"Why, you goose! Don't you see that it makes it easy for you!" cried Patricia, her eyes dancing. "You can simply put your nice big box of candy on the model stand during a rest, and they won't dare ask you to do any stunts with him in the room."

Elinor laughed helplessly. "I don't know what is the matter with my brain," she said in relieved contempt of her own confusion of mind.

"Of course, it is ever so much easier. What a stupid I am not to see it for myself!"

Patricia squeezed her hand surrept.i.tiously. "You're so far up in the clouds these days that the commonplace side of life doesn't exist.

You'll be all right after you get used to it," she soothed. "You're going to be pretty free to inhabit cloudland for this winter, and I'm willing to bet any reasonable amount that Hannah Ann will see to it that the housekeeping doesn't distract you next summer. She's perfectly crazy over your painting, since it's like Aunt Louise. And there won't be any boarders or any other money-making schemes this year to harrow our souls."

"It seems too good--after all those years at the boarding schools, and the scrimmage we had when the mortgage was foreclosed--to feel secure at last," said Elinor gratefully. "Everything seems to be heaping up to make us happy."

"Time's up!" cried Patricia, jumping up. "Be on hand at the next rest, angel child. Come in the clay room 'immejit' the gong rings," and she hurried off, humming a gay little song.

The gay little song persisted, much to the dissatisfaction of the severe monitor, Miss Green, whose fat and lugubrious countenance took on a deeper shade of gloom at every hushed note that trembled in Patricia's rounded throat.

After casting a martyr-like glance of reproach at her, as she worked on, all unconscious of the mental agony she was inflicting, Miss Green cleared her throat slushily, and in the most subdued tone possible addressed Patricia.

"Miss Kendall will not disturb the cla.s.s, I am sure, if she realizes that her humming is a source of annoyance," she said, her own really musical voice fluting in melodious minor cadences.

Patricia started and looked up with a sunny smile.

"Was I humming?" she asked genially. "I didn't know I was making any noise at all. I'm awfully sorry to have gotten on your nerves. I was thinking about some exercises, and I must have thought out loud."

Miss Green, much mollified by Patricia's ready acknowledgment, beamed over her round spectacles.

"I am sure Miss Kendall has the best intentions possible to any agreeable young lady," she said in a hushed though ceremonious manner.

She paused so long, regarding Patricia with her head on one side, that Patricia was afraid she was going to orate further, and visions of a premature initiation flitted uneasily through her nimble mind. Miss Green, however, said nothing further, taking up her tools and going on with her work with a complacent and benignant smile in her little pink mouth.

Griffin, who was just behind her, winked solemnly at Patricia and then shook her head sadly, as if to indicate that the monitor was in her opinion hopelessly incorrigible.

"Doesn't Greeny make you a bit weary?" she asked, as she slipped over beside Patricia as the gong was about to sound. "She's so drearily ornate."

"Oh, I don't know," replied Patricia easily. "She's kind, anyway. I think if she were thin, people wouldn't find her half bad. Fat people never seem quite as human as the rest of us."

"Stuff!" said Griffin energetically. "She'd be simply awful if she were thin. Aren't you coming in to see Naskowski's lion-tamer? He's showing it in the clay room."

"I'll be along later. I've got something to attend to first," promised Patricia, inwardly quaking lest the other should offer to wait for her; but she went off with the crowd that was hurrying into the clay room, and Patricia was free to arrange her surprise.

Diving under her stand, she fished out the bundle and opened it with trembling fingers.

"If I can only get them all placed before they come back," she said to herself, as she unwrapped each little bulky parcel. "I hope Naskowski gives me time."

CHAPTER IV

THE INITIATIONS

"Wasn't it the flattest thing you ever saw?" said Patricia, disgustedly, as they waited for Judith at the side door. "I thought it was going off well when Griffin opened the ball by finding her little figure poked away there on the stand back of her head, and made such a cute speech to it, but the rest of them certainly behaved like tame tabbies. I was never so disappointed in my life."

"I thought Miss Green was really quite clever," said Elinor brightly.

"She certainly read the verse attached to her's with a lot of expression. I didn't think she could be so sprightly."

Patricia drummed on the railing. "She was well enough," she admitted grudgingly. "But after I had modeled those figures and tried to get something appropriate for each one--and it was hard to get the candy into the inside of them, too, without spoiling it--they go and accept them as though they were a cup of afternoon tea. I thought they'd show more spirit. Don't talk to me about artists being gay and Bohemian after this."

"It was a little quiet," acknowledged Elinor, "but, at least, they were very pleasant about it. They all agreed that it was the cleverest thing that had been done in that line."

Patricia gazed gloomily at the door of the life-cla.s.s room.