Patty's Summer Days Part 23

"That" seemed to be a resounding blow, and immediately Bertha's cries broke forth in angry profusion.

"Stop crying," yelled her brother, "and stop punching me. Stop it, I say!"

At this point the conversation broke off suddenly, and Patty and Roger stared in stupefied amazement as they saw Bertha and Winthrop walk in smiling, and hand in hand, from exactly the opposite direction from which their quarrelsome voices had sounded.

"What's the matter?" said Bertha. "Why do you look so shocked and scared to death?"

"N-nothing," stammered Patty; while Roger blurted out, "We thought we heard you talking over that way, and then you came in from this way. Who could it have been? The voices were just like yours."

Bertha and Winthrop broke into a merry laugh.

"It's the phonograph," said Bertha. "Winthrop and I fixed up that quarrel record, just for fun; isn't it a good one?"

Roger understood at once, and went off into peals of laughter, but Patty had to have it explained to her.

"You see," said Winthrop, "we have a big phonograph, and we make records for it ourselves. Bertha and I fixed up that one just for fun, and Elise is in there now looking after it. Come on in, and see it."

They all went into the music-room, and Winthrop entertained them by putting in various cylinders, which they had made themselves.

Almost as funny as the quarrel was Bertha's account of the occasion when she fell into the creek, and many funny recitations by Mr. Warner also made amusing records.

Patty could hardly believe that she had not heard her friends' voices really raised in anger, until Winthrop put the same record in and let her hear it again.

He also promised her that some day she should make a record for herself, and leave it at Pine Branches as a memento of her visit.

CHAPTER XVI

A QUILTING PARTY

Miss Aurora Bender's quilting party was to begin at three o'clock in the afternoon, and the girls started early in order to see all the fun. They were to stay to supper, and the young men were to come over and escort them home in the evening.

When they reached Miss Bender's, they found that many and wonderful preparations had been made.

Miss Aurora had two house servants, Emmeline and Nancy, but on this occasion she had called in two more to help. And indeed there was plenty to be done, for a quilting bee was to Miss Bender's mind a function of great importance.

The last of a large family, Miss Bender was a woman of great wealth but of plain and old-fashioned tastes. Though amply able to gratify any extravagant wish, she preferred to live as her parents had lived before her, and she had in no sense kept pace with the progress of the age.

When the three girls reached the old country house, they were met at the front door by the elderly Nancy. She courtesied with old-time grace, and invited them to step into the bedroom, and lay off their things.

This bedroom, which was on the ground floor, was a large apartment, containing a marvellously carved four-post bedstead, hung with old-fashioned chintz curtains and draperies.

The room also contained two ma.s.sive bureaus, a dressing-table and various chairs of carved mahogany, and in the open fireplace was an enormous bunch of feathery asparagus, flecked with red berries.

"Oh," cried Patty in delight, "if Nan could see this room she'd go perfectly crazy. Isn't this house great? Why, it's quite as full of beautiful old things as Washington's house at Mt. Vernon."

"I haven't seen that," said Bertha, "but it doesn't seem as if anything could be more complete or perfect in its way than this house is. Come on, girls, are you ready?"

The girls went to the parlour, and there found the quilt all prepared for working on. Patty had never before seen a quilt stretched on a quilting-frame, and was extremely interested.

It was a very large quilt, and its innumerable small triangles, which made up the goose-chase pattern, were found to present a methodical harmony of colouring, which had not been observable before the strips were put together.

The large pieced portion was uppermost, and beneath it was the lining, with layers of cotton in between. Each edge was pinned at intervals to a long strip of material which was wound round and round the frame. The four corners of the frame were held up by being tied to the backs of four chairs, and on each of the four sides of the quilt were three more chairs for the expected guests to occupy.

Almost on the stroke of three the visitors arrived, and though some of them were of a more modern type than Miss Bender, yet three or four were quite as old-fashioned and quaint-mannered as their hostess.

"They are native up here," Bertha explained to Patty. "There are only a few of the old New England settlers left. Most of the population here is composed of city people who have large country places. You won't often get an opportunity to see a gathering like this."

Patty realised the truth of this, and was both surprised and pleased to find that these country ladies showed no trace of embarra.s.sment or self-consciousness before the city girls.

It seemed not to occur to them that there was any difference in their effects, and indeed Patty was greatly amused because one of the old ladies seemed to take it for granted that Patty was a country girl, and brought up according to old-time customs.

This old lady, whose name was Mrs. Quimby, sat next to Patty at the quilt, and after she had peered through her gla.s.ses at the somewhat uneven st.i.tches which poor Patty was trying her best to do as well as possible, she remarked:

"You ain't got much knack, have you? You'll have to practise quite a spell longer before you can quilt your own house goods. How old be you?"

"Seventeen," said Patty, feeling that her work did not look very well, considering her age.

"Seventeen!" exclaimed Mrs. Quimby. "Laws' sake, I was married when I was sixteen, and I quilted as good then as I do now. I'm over eighty now, and I'd ruther quilt than do anything, 'most. You don't look to be seventeen."

"And you don't look to be eighty, either," said Patty, smiling, glad to be able to turn the subject by complimenting the old lady.

The quilting lasted all the afternoon. Patty grew very tired of the unaccustomed work, and was glad when Miss Bender noticed it, and told her to run out into the garden with Bertha. Bertha was not allowed to touch the quilt with her incompetent fingers, but Elise sewed away, thoroughly enjoying it all, and with no desire to avail herself of Miss Bender's permission to stop and rest. Patty and Bertha wandered through the old-fashioned garden, in great delight. The paths were bordered with tiny box hedges, which, though many years old, were kept clean and free from deadwood or blemish of any sort, and were perfectly trimmed in shape.

The garden included quaint old flowers such as marigolds, sweet Williams, bleeding hearts, bachelors' b.u.t.tons, Jacob's ladder and many others of which Patty did not even know the names. Tall hollyhocks, both single and double, grew against the wall, and a hop vine hung in green profusion.

Every flower bed was of exact shape, and looked as if not a leaf or a stem would dare to grow otherwise than straight and true.

"What a lovely old garden," said Patty, sniffing at a sprig of lemon verbena which she had picked.

"Yes, it's wonderful," said Bertha. "I mean to ask Miss Bender if I mayn't bring my camera over, and get a picture of it, and if they're good, I'll give you one."

"Do," said Patty, "and take some pictures inside the house too. I'd like to show them to Nan."

"Tell me about Nan," said Bertha. "She's your stepmother, isn't she?"

"Yes," said Patty, "but she's only six years older than I am, so that the stepmother part of it seems ridiculous. We're more like sisters, and she's perfectly crazy over old china and old furniture. She'd love Miss Bender's things."

"Perhaps she'll come up while you're here," said Bertha. "I'll ask mother to write for her."

"Thank you," said Patty, "but I'm afraid she won't. My father can't leave for his vacation until July, and then we're all going away together, but I don't know where."

Just then Elise came flying out to them, with the announcement that supper was ready, and they were to come right in, quick.

The table was spread in the large room which Patty had thought was the kitchen.