Patty's Success Part 21

"And you've done a dozen in a day. That won't bring you fifteen dollars in a week."

"Well, I thought the second dozen would go faster, and it probably will.

And, of course, I shan't make that mistake with the sleeves again. Truly, Nan, it's a heap easier than embroidery."

"Well, don't worry over it to-night," said Nan, kissing her. "Take a hot bath and hop into bed. Perhaps you have found the right work after all."

Nan didn't really think she had, but Patty had begun to look worried, and Nan feared she wouldn't be able to sleep.

But sleep she did, from sheer physical exhaustion.

And woke next morning, almost unable to move! Every muscle in her body was lame from her strenuous machine work. She couldn't rise from her bed, and could scarcely raise her head from the pillow.

When Catherine, Nan's maid, came to her room, Patty said, faintly:

"Ask Mrs. Fairfield to come up, please."

Nan came, and Patty looked at her comically, as she said:

"Nan, I'm vanquished, but not subdued. I'm just one ma.s.s of lameness and ache, but if you think I've given up my plan, you're greatly mistaken.

However, I'm through with 'white work,' and I've sewed my last sew on a machine."

"Why, Patty girl, you're really ill," said Nan, sympathetically.

"No, I'm not! I'm perfectly well. Just a trifle lame from over-exercise yesterday. I'll stay in bed to-day, and Nan, dear, if you love me, take those slips back to the kind lady who let me have them to play with. Make her pay you a dollar for the dozen, and don't let her deduct more than a dollar for the upside-downness of the sleeves. Tell her they're prettier that way, anyway. And, Catharine, do please rub me with some healing lotion or something,--for I'm as lame as a jelly-fish!"

"Patty," said Nan, solemnly, "the occasion requires strong language. So I will remark in all seriousness, that, you do beat all!"

CHAPTER X

THE CLEVER GOLDFISH

FINANCIALLY, Patty came out just even on her 'white work,' for though the woman paid Nan the dollar for the dozen finished garments, she deducted the same amount for the wrongly placed sleeves.

She also grumbled at the long machine st.i.tch Patty had used, but Nan's patience was exhausted, and giving the woman a calm stare, she walked out of the shop.

"It's perfectly awful," she said to Patty, when relating her adventure, "to think of the poor girls who are really trying to earn their living by white work. It's all very well for you, who are only experimenting, but suppose a real worker gets all her pay deducted!"

"There's hardly enough pay to pay for deducting it, anyway," said Patty.

"Oh, Nan, it is dreadful! I suppose lots of poor girls who feel as tired and lame as I do this morning, have to go straight back to their sewing-machine and run it all day."

"Of course they do; and often they're of delicate const.i.tutions, and insufficiently nourished."

"It makes me feel awful. Things are unevenly divided in this world, aren't they, Nan?"

"They are, my dear; but as that problem has baffled wiser heads than yours, it's useless for you to worry over it. You can't reform the world."

"No; and I don't intend to try. But I can do something to help. I know I can. That's where people show their lack of a sense of proportion. I know I can't do anything for the world, as a world, but if I can help in a few individual cases, that will be my share. For instance, if I can help this Christine Farley to an art education, and so to a successful career, why that's so much to the good. And though father has set me a hard task to bring it about, I'm going to do it yet."

"Your father wouldn't have set you such a task if you hadn't declared it was no task at all! You said you could earn your living easily in a dozen different ways. Already you've discarded two."

"That leaves me ten!" said Patty, airily. "Ten ways of earning a living is a fair show. I can discard nine more and still have a chance."

"All right, Patsy. I'm glad you're not disheartened. And I suppose you are learning something of the conditions of our social economy."

"Gracious, Nan! How you _do_ talk! Are you quite sure you know what you mean?"

"No, but I thought you would," said Nan, and with that parting shot, she left the room.

It was late in the afternoon before Patty dawdled downstairs.

Her shoulders and the back of her neck still ached, but otherwise she felt all right again, and her spirits had risen proportionately.

About four o'clock Kenneth called, bringing a mysterious burden, which he carried with great care.

He knew of Patty's scheme, and though he appreciated the n.o.bility of her endeavour, he could not feel very sanguine hopes of her success.

"You're not cut out for a wage-earner, Patty," he had said to her; "it's like a b.u.t.terfly making bread."

"But I don't want to be a b.u.t.terfly," Patty had pouted.

"Oh, I don't mean b.u.t.terfly,--as so many people do,--to represent a frivolous, useless person. I have a great respect for b.u.t.terflies, myself. And you radiate the same effect of joy, happiness, gladness, and beauty, as a b.u.t.terfly does when hovering around in the golden sunshine of a summer day."

"Why, Ken, I didn't know you were a poet. But you haven't proved your case."

"Yes, I have. It's your mission in life to be happy, and so to make others happy. This you can do without definite effort, so stick to your calling, and let the more prosaic people, the plodders,--earn wages."

"Let me earn the wages of my country, and I care not who makes it smile,"

Patty had rejoined, and there the subject had dropped.

To-day, when he arrived, carrying what was evidently something fragile, Patty greeted him gaily.

"I'm not working to-day," she said; "so you can stay 'most an hour if you like."

"Well, I will; and if you'll wait till I set down this precious burden, I'll shake hands with you. I come, like the Greeks, bearing gifts."

"A gift? Oh, what is it? I'm crazy to see it."

"Well, it's a gift; but, incidentally, it's a plan for wage-earning. If you really want to wage-earn, you may as well do it in an interesting way."

"Yes," said Patty, demurely, for she well knew he was up to some sort of foolery. "My attempts so far, though absorbing, were not really interesting."

"Well, this is!" declared Kenneth, who was carefully taking the tissue papers from his gift, which proved to be a gla.s.s globe, containing two goldfish.

"They are Darby and Juliet," he remarked, as he looked anxiously into the bowl. "I am so tired of hackneyed pairs of names, that I've varied these.