Patricia Part 6

"We've got to run, so as not to catch cold," she panted; and run they did, their wet skirts flapping against their bare legs, hats and sunbonnets sent scattering in every direction. While Custard, regarding it as a game gotten up for his especial benefit, urged them on, barking and leaping about them, taking little pretend nips at the seven sets of bare toes, choosing Susy's the oftenest, because she always squealed the loudest.

At last the seven dropped down breathless in the middle of the meadow.

Patricia felt of Susy's skirts anxiously. "They're 'most dry; let's--"

She turned over on her face, and the six followed suit once more.

"The sun feels good, doesn't it," Susy said, she was on one side of Patricia. "I'm having a be-au-ti-ful time!"

Patricia raised herself on her elbows, and, chin in hand, surveyed Susy closely. "Truly true?"

"Truly true," Susy insisted.

Patricia smiled approvingly; and, when she liked, Patricia's smile could be very approving indeed. "I guess maybe I'm going to like knowing you,"

she said.

Susy's little pink and white face had lost its look of peaceful placidity, her yellow curls their smoothness. Wet, bedraggled, but happier than ever before in her life, and joyfully conscious that she had for once boldly strayed from the narrow path of harmless routine, she smiled back at Patricia.

"I guess we're all dry now," Patricia said presently. "It seems to me as if it must be pretty near supper time."

Nell spread out her limp skirts. "Pretty looking set, we are, to go to supper!"

But Patricia was thinking. "A gingham ap.r.o.n party supper ought to be different," she said slowly; "Nell, let's you and me go get the refreshments and bring them out here."

It was a glorious suggestion. Six pairs of eyes opened wide with delight.

"B-but Sarah--" Mabel asked. Mabel had a knack of asking such questions.

"Oh, I reckon Sarah'll ask a heap of questions--Sarah's mighty inquisitive at times," Patricia answered. "I rather think the best way will be just to go ahead and not bother her about it."

"But how?" Mabel insisted.

"You leave that to Nell and me--we'll manage. The rest of you must wait here; keep Custard with you. Oh, dear! I thought you were beautifully dry, Susy Vail; what did you go sneeze for? Well, you'll just have to keep moving, that's all. You see that she does, Mabel."

Patricia's commands seldom fell on deaf ears and Mabel promptly insisted on a game of tag; while Patricia herself, accompanied by Nell Hardy, started on a brisk run across the meadow.

At the garden gate, Patricia called a halt. "Duck," she ordered, dropping on the gra.s.s. From half-way up the path, came Sarah's voice: "Oh, Miss P'tricia! Miss P'tricia!"

"She'll go back presently, if she doesn't hear us," Patricia whispered with elaborate caution; "then we must get to the house as quickly and as quietly as possible and secure the re--the booty. Oh, go away!" she added sternly, as Custard came sniffing about them.

But Custard only wriggled and danced about and over them, urging them as eloquently as he could to get up and continue their way indoors. Wasn't the pantry indoors? Custard could have told his mistress long ago that it was quite supper time.

At half-past six, the doctor and Miss Kirby drove into the yard.

As the gig drew up before the side door, Sarah, voluble and indignant, appeared. From the ma.s.s of information she hurled upon them, one fact only was quite clear--Patricia was missing.

She was so often missing, that the announcement failed to excite any great apprehension in the mind of either her father or her aunt.

"But the party--" Miss Kirby began.

"She done take the party with her!" Sarah wailed.

Miss Kirby looked more indignant than surprised; to have come home and found that nothing untowards had happened would have been the surprising thing.

"I ain't laid my eyes on her since them six gingham ap.r.o.ns came gavorting up the walk!" Sarah proclaimed dramatically. "That young-un's a limb, for sh.o.r.e!"

Miss Kirby sat down on the piazza bench. "Gingham ap.r.o.ns, Sarah," she repeated. "Patrick, what can she mean?"

The doctor shook his head, smiling, "That remains to be discovered."

"For the love o' goodness, Miss Julia!" Sarah implored; "the nexest time you sets out to give a party for that there young-un, I hopes and prays you stays home to sup'intend the obsequies youself!"

The doctor turned to send Sam on to the barn.

"Gingham ap.r.o.ns," Miss Kirby murmured.

"Ain't Miss P'tricia done 'tire herself in one for the 'casion!" Sarah exclaimed; "and ain't she done tell all the others over that 'phone to do the very same--I ain't never held with thet there 'phone, nohow--'tain't nothin' better'n devilment, anyhow. My sakes, such doings, Ma.r.s.e Doctor! You and Miss Julia just come cast your glance over this supper table!"

They followed her into the dining-room.

"It certainly looks very pretty," the doctor said, glancing at the table.

Sarah groaned. "Where's them plates o' sandwiches gone? I ask you that!

Where's them plates o' biscuits gone? I ask you that! Where's the little cakes, what I iced so pretty, gone? I ask you that! Ain't I done fix them all in place and then I goes out to call them--ginham ap.r.o.ns--to come in,--and I done galivant all over the place and all up and down the street and I ain't seen the least speck o' one o' them--but when I comes indoors--the party done vanish! And that ain't all--the cherry pie I done make for you's and Miss Julia's supper done vanish too. But they ain't got the ice cream--I reckon the freezer was too heavy."

"That at least is something to be thankful for," the doctor said, "there would probably have been--consequences--had they secured both the cherry pie and the ice cream."

"And the table looking so stylish," Sarah mourned, "with the flowers and all the fixings. Where's that plate o' chicken gone? I ask you that!"

"Patrick," Miss Kirby said, "you really must go look that child up! such behavior is--"

"I'm going," the doctor a.s.sured her, and as he went Miss Kirby saw him put his handkerchief to his eyes more than once.

Through the garden he went, through the orchard. Half-way across the meadow beyond the orchard he came upon Custard dining at second table, and too busy to do more than wag a welcome.

A few yards further on stood an old apple tree, and from the top-most branch came, in Patricia's clear notes:

"'If I could find a higher tree Farther and farther I should see, To where the grown-up river slips Into the sea among the ships.'"

The doctor stood still, making a trumpet of his hands. "Ship ahoy!" he called.

The next instant seven girls came wriggling and scrambling down from the various branches. "Oh! Daddy," Patricia cried joyously, "we're having the jolliest time--we're pirates! I'm captain--

"'My name is Captain Kidd, And most wickedly I did, As I sailed, as I sailed!'"

"And, according to report, before you sailed, young lady. Suppose you make explanation regarding certain late extremely piratical proceedings."

"You mean about the supper, Daddy? You see, we didn't feel very partified--at least, we thought we didn't look exactly--"