Patricia Part 5

Sarah sat down heavily on the piazza bench; "I knowed it! I jest 'spicioned you-un was sh.o.r.e up to something!"

Patricia rolled over on her back, stretching her wiry little frame out lazily.

"You come right 'long into dis yere house, Miss P'tricia!" Sarah rose commandingly.

"But what for?" Patricia questioned.

"What for? If you wasn't a white child, Miss P'tricia, I'd sh.o.r.e say you was onery. I's going be 'bliged to disport you to your pa, if you continues such disbehavior."

Patricia scrambled to her feet, and came slowly over to the edge of the lawn. Then, lifting her ap.r.o.n, she asked quietly: "Is my frock torn, Sarah, or isn't it?"

"You knows it is, Miss P'tricia!"

Patricia stretched out one slender leg. "Is my stocking torn, or isn't it?"

Sarah groaned.

Wheeling suddenly round, and still holding up her ap.r.o.n, Patricia demanded: "Is my frock dirty, or isn't it?"

"Miss P'tricia, you's sh.o.r.e possessed to-day!"

"Aunt Julia said yesterday morning, that the very next time I got myself torn or dirty, needlessly, I must put a clean gingham ap.r.o.n on and go that way for the rest of the day."

"But, honey--you know Miss Julia never 'tended you to come to your own party in any such fixings! A gingham ap.r.o.n at a party! You come 'long upstairs with me, Miss P'tricia; I'll resume all the 'sponsibility."

"Aunt Julia said 'the very next time'; this is the very next time."

"She done lay out your dress 'fore she went, honey--so crisp and nice and all the pretty pink ribbons," Sarah spoke coaxingly.

"Aunt Julia didn't know--I hadn't tumbled out of the apple tree then."

"I'se going phonegraph your aunt right off!" Sarah declared.

Patricia caught her breath. Then she remembered. "But they haven't any 'phone at Gar's Hollow!"

Sarah wrung her hands. "And all them little ladies in white dresses, and the hostess o' the 'casion looking like 'straction!"

"I always _feel_ like distraction when I'm all stiff and starchy and uncomfortable," Patricia said; "I'd rather look it than feel it."

"Oh, I ain't overlooking that you're powerful reconciled to going to your own party dressed like you is now, Miss P'tricia! Anyhow, you're going to have a good wash-up and your hair combed; Miss Julia ain't laid down no commands against that."

"W-well," Patricia slowly conceded, "only I'll see to it myself, Sarah."

Patricia's thick mop of brown curls was of the tangly order; and when things had gone wrong, Sarah's touch was not always of the gentlest.

An hour later, Sarah, from her post of vantage on the side porch, saw six little girls coming up the path. There were no boys invited. Miss Kirby thought it so much nicer for little girls to play quietly by themselves.

A moment, Sarah stared at them in amazement; then her fat sides shook with laughter. "I sh.o.r.e might've knowed it! So that's what she was so busy phonegraphing 'bout! That chile sh.o.r.e weren't born yesterday.

Gingham ap.r.o.ns, every last one o' them!"

Some of the six wore sunbonnets, the rest plain garden hats; and all wore stout serviceable shoes and stockings. Never had those six little girls gone to a party before in such unparty-like costumes.

Patricia came dancing to meet them, bareheaded as usual. "Let's go down to the barn right off," she proposed. "Goodness, how funny you do look!"

she giggled.

"So do you," Nell Hardy retorted; then the seven stood still a moment to survey one another.

"Oh!" Mable Lane cried, "whatever put such an idea into your head, Pat?"

"I--I happened to think of it, that was all," Patricia answered vaguely.

"Come on--we'll play hide and seek, and no going out of the barn."

"Are--are there any horses there?" Susy asked.

Patricia shook her head. "Not today; Daddy's got Sam and d.i.c.k's gone to pasture."

They played hide and seek all over the delightful big dusty old barn; until Patricia, trying to reach goal by a short cut down from the loft, came to an abrupt halt in her descent, caught on a projecting beam.

"Go back!" Ruth Martin advised; but Patricia, wriggling herself free, dropped in a laughing heap on the barn floor.

"But you've torn your ap.r.o.n, Pat!" Nell exclaimed.

Patricia glanced up at the bit of blue gingham hanging from a nail in the beam.

"Look's like this was my busy day," she observed; "I'll go put another on."

"I put it on over the first," she explained, on her return. "You see, Aunt Julia said--I mean, I thought it would be--fun; and, anyhow, it saved time, it takes a lot of time to unb.u.t.ton these ap.r.o.ns. Let's go down to the brook and wade." She glanced at Susy, who was looking rather doubtful. "Aren't you allowed to wade in brooks?"

"I--don't know," Susy began, then her mild little face took on a look of sudden resolution, "but I'm going to."

Patricia smiled in prompt friendliness. "Mostly, when I'm not sure I just take the chance," she encouraged.

Sitting on the edge of the brook, the seven took off shoes and stockings. "It's the queerest, nicest party," Bessy Martin declared.

It was a gay little brook, running between a broad, sunny meadow and the old Kirby apple orchard, broad enough in places to make the crossing of it on stepping stones delightfully uncertain, and again narrowing to a mere thread. To Patricia, it was like some live thing, one of the dearest and most intimate of playmates.

"Let's play Follow my Leader," Nell suggested, and they drew lots to see who should be first leader.

It fell to Kitty Hall, next to Susy the quietest of the seven; the lead she set them was a very mild affair, limited to the shallowest and narrowest parts of the brook.

But with Patricia's turn, matters took a change for the better, or worse, according to the point of view. Patricia hopped and skipped, and did everything except walk demurely on two feet, out of the safe, pleasant shallows straight for the "pool," which was quite knee deep at this time of year.

Once there, she turned to view her followers, and it wouldn't have been Patricia, if she hadn't slipped and, with a little shriek of surprise, sat right down in the pool.

There was a moment's hesitation, then Nell boldly followed suit; one by one, ending with Susy, the other five dropped down in the cool rippling water, which seemed to laugh, as if it saw the joke.

"Oh!" Patricia cried, "I never meant--" She was on her feet as quickly as possible. Susy was just the kind to go and catch cold, why she had begun to shiver and shake already.

The next few moments were strenuous ones for Patricia's followers. Never had she led them such a chase, through all the hottest, sunniest parts of the big meadow.