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Patty Fairfield

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PATTY FAIRFIELD

By

CAROLYN WELLS




To My Little Friend

MARION AMES TAGGART




Contents

CHAP.

I. Her Father's Plan
II. Traveling North
III. New Friends
IV. Villa Rosa
V. A Minuet
VI. Purple and Fine Linen.
VII. A Sleigh-Ride
VIII. An Absent-Minded Cousin
IX. The Flemings
X. Patty's Pranks
XI. The Book Party
XII. The Hurly-Burly
XIII. Home-Made Music
XIV. A Funny Family
XV. The Lawn-Party
XVI. Unbounded Hospitality
XVII. A Hurly-Burly Fire
XVIII. At Vernondale
XIX. A Picnic
XX. The Rescue
XXI. A Reading-Club
XXII. A Welcome Guest




Patty Fairfield




CHAPTER I


HER FATHER'S PLAN

"How old are you, Patty?" asked her father, abruptly.

"Fourteen, papa,--why?"

"My conscience! what a great girl you're getting to be. Stand up and let me
look at you."

Patty Fairfield, with two twists and a spring, brought herself to her feet,
and stood awaiting her father's inspection.

He saw a slender, graceful girl, a Southern blonde of the purest type. Her
pretty golden hair would gladly have hung in curly masses, but it was only
allowed to have its own sweet will around her temples and at the end of a
long thick braid. Her eyes were blue, deep and twinkly, and the rest of her
face was as pretty and sweet as soft girlish contours and a perfect
complexion could make it.

But best of all was the gentle expression and frank, good-natured smile
which so often broke into mischievous dimples.

It did on this occasion, and Patty laughed merrily at her father's grave
consideration of her.

"What is it, papa?" she asked. "Did you think I was still an infant, and
were you going to buy me a new dolls' house? Or were you going to take me
to the circus? I'm not a bit too old for the circus."

"Aren't you? Then I will take you, but what is on my mind at present is a
much more serious matter. Sit down again, Puss, and I'll tell you all about
it.

"You know for years I've looked forward to the time when you should grow up
to be old enough to keep house for me. And I thought then we'd go back
North and settle down among my people and your mother's relatives. I
haven't been North since your mother died, but now I want to go, and I want
you to spend the rest of your life there. In many ways it will be better
for you than Virginia. You will have more advantages; your life will be
broader and more varied. Now I can't be ready to leave here for good in
less than a year; I want to sell out my lumber interests and settle up my
business affairs.

"But I am continually receiving letters from your aunts,--you have lots of
aunts, Patty,--and they are apparently all anxious that you shall visit
them. So, if you consent, this is my plan. You've never traveled any, have
you, Puss?"

"Never been out of Virginia in my life, papa."

"No? Well, you ought to see a little of how the rest of the world lives and
moves. So I think I'll let you visit in the North for a year,--say three
months with each of your four aunts,--and then next fall I'll be ready to
join you, and we'll buy a house and you shall be mistress of it."

"A home of our own? Oh, papa, I'd like that lots!"

"Yes, so would I. As we have always lived in boarding-houses since your
mother's death, you've had no opportunity to learn the details of
housekeeping, and these four visits will show you four very distinct types
of families."

"Why, are my aunts all so different, papa?"

"Indeed they are, and though I hope you can make yourself happy with each
one, yet you will find life very different in the various homes."

"Tell me about them, papa," said Patty, contentedly settling herself back
among the cushions of the couch, for she dearly loved a long talk with her
father.

"Well, you will go first to the St. Clairs. You remember Uncle Robert, your
mother's brother, who was here four or five years ago, don't you?"

"Indeed I do; he brought me a French doll nearly as big as I was then
myself,--and a whole five-pound box of candy. He is a lovely man. But I've
never seen Aunt Isabel or the children,--only their photographs."

"Your Aunt Isabel is,--but no,--I won't tell you anything about your
relatives. You may discover their faults and virtues for yourself. Most of
all, my child, you will need to cultivate your sense of proportion. Do you
know what proportion means?"

"Oh, yes, papa, I studied 'ratio and proportion' in arithmetic."

"Not that kind," said her father, smiling; "I mean a proportion of human
interests, of amusements or occupations. I wonder if you _are_ too young to
understand."

"No, I'm not too young to understand _anything_," said Patty, fairly
blinking in her endeavor to look as wise as an owl.

"Well, then, listen while I put it this way. Suppose you were to make a
cake, an ordinary sized cake, you know, how much yeast would you put in
it?"

"Not any, papa," said Patty, laughing merrily. "I know enough housekeeping
not to put yeast in a cake. I'd use baking-powder."

"Yes," said her father, quite undisturbed, "that is what I
meant,--baking-powder. Now how much of it would you use?"

"Well, about two teaspoonfuls," said Patty, feeling very important and
housewifely.

"Yes. Now suppose instead of two teaspoonfuls you put in two cupfuls."

"Why then I wouldn't have any cake at all! I reckon it would rise right up
the chimney and run down on the roof outside."

"Well, that shows just what I mean. There'd be a too great proportion of
baking-powder, wouldn't there?"

"Indeed there would," assented Patty, much interested in the conversation,
but a little bewildered.

"To try again," her father continued, "suppose your frock was so covered by
trimming that the material could scarcely be seen at all."

"Then," said Patty, who was rapidly learning her lesson, "then there'd be
too great a proportion of trimming for the frock."

"Ah," said her father, "you begin to see my drift, do you? And if you had
all tables in your house, and no chairs or bedsteads or bureaus, there'd be
too great a proportion of tables, wouldn't there?"

"Yes; and I perceive," said Patty, slowly and with mock gravity, "that
proportion means to have too many of one thing, when you'd better have a
lot of others."

"No, you're all wrong! That is a lack of proportion. Proportion is to have
exactly the right amount of each ingredient."

"Yes,--and what has all this to do with Aunt Isabel? Does she put too much
baking-powder in her cake, or has she nothing but tables in her house?"

"Those, my dear, were only figures of speech. But if you're going to make a
home for your old father next year, I want you to learn from observation
what are the principal ingredients to put into it, and then learn to adjust
the proportions."

"Papa, I believe I do know what you mean, but it's all out of proportion
when you call yourself 'my old father,' for you're not old a bit. You're a
beautiful young man, and I'm sure any one who didn't know us would take you
for my brother."

"Come, come, Puss, you mustn't be so flattering, or I'll keep you here, and
not let you go North at all; and I do believe you're just dying to go."

"I'd like it lots if you were going too. But to be away from you a whole
year is no fun at all. Can't I wait until next fall and we'll go together?"

"No, Patsie; your aunts are urging me to let you visit them and I think the
experiences will do you good. And beside, my plans for the next year are
very uncertain. I may have to go to Bermuda to see about my plantation
there,--and all things considered, I think you would be better off in the
North. I shall miss you, of course, but a year soon slips away, you know,
and it will fly very quickly for you, as you will be highly entertained
with your new experiences."

Now, Patty Fairfield was a philosophic little girl, so when she found that
her father's mind was made up she accepted the situation and offered no
objections of any kind. And, indeed the new plan was not without its charm.
Although she knew none of her aunts, she knew a great deal about them, and
their Northern homes seemed attractive to her in many ways.

"What about school, papa?" she said, finally.

"That will be left to the judgment of each aunt in turn. I think Aunt
Isabel has a governess for her children, and Aunt Hester will probably
teach you herself. But you will learn enough, and if not, you can consider
it a year's vacation, and I'll put you back in school when I am with you
again."

"Well," said Patty, meditatively, "I think it will be very nice, and I'll
like it, but I'll be awful lonesome for you," and with a spring she jumped
into her father's arms.

"Yes, of course, my baby, we'll be homesick for each other, but we'll be
brave, and when we feel _very_ lonesome, we'll sit down and write each
other nice long letters."

"Oh, that will be fun, I love letters; and here comes Clara, may I tell her
about it?"

"Yes, and tell her she must come to see me once in a while, and cheer me
after I lose my own little girl."

Clara Hayden was Patty's intimate friend and both the girls' hearts grew
sad at the thought of parting.

"But," said Patty, who was determined to look on the bright side, "after a
year, papa and I will have a house of our own, and then you can come and
make us a long, long visit. And we can write letters, Clara, and you must
tell me all about the girls, and about school and about the Magnolia Club."

"Yes, I will; and you write to me about all you do at your aunts' houses.
Where do they live, Patty?"

"Well, I shall go first to Aunt Isabel's, and she lives in Elmbridge.
That's in New Jersey, but it's quite near New York. Next I'm going to Aunt
Hester's; she lives in Boston. Then I'm going to visit Aunt Grace. They
live in Philadelphia, but I'll be with them in the summertime, and then
they're at their country place somewhere on Long Island, wherever that may
be. And the last one is Aunt Alice, and I forget the name of the town where
she lives. Isn't it nice, Clara, to have so many aunts?"

"Yes, lovely! I suppose you'll go to New York often."

"I don't know; I think I'm afraid of New York. They say it's an awful
dangerous place."

"Yes, it is. People get killed there all the time."

"Fiddlesticks! I don't believe they do. Well, I reckon I won't get killed.
Uncle Robert will take better care of me than that."




CHAPTER II


TRAVELING NORTH

As a result of many letters back and forth between Mr. Fairfield and the
Northern aunts, Patty stood one morning on the platform of the railway
station, all ready to depart for her new homes.

It was the first week in December, and the little girl shivered as she
thought of the arctic cold to which she imagined herself going.

"Of course they'll meet me in a sleigh, won't they, papa?" she said.

"Perhaps so, but I doubt it," he replied. "They don't have such snowstorms
in Jersey now as they used to when I was a boy. Last winter they had no
sleighing at all. But here comes Miss Powers; let us go to greet her." Miss
Powers was a sharp-faced lady who came marching along the platform with a
firm step.

Patty was to travel in her care, not because she was an especially
desirable traveling companion, but because she was the only acquaintance of
the Fairfields who chanced to be going North at that time.

"Good-morning," she cried, "are you here already? I was certain you'd be
late and miss the train. Not a very pleasant day, is it? I wish we had
planned to go to-morrow instead. Why, Patty, you are wearing your best hat!
You'll spoil it, I'm sure. Have you your trunk check? Give it to me, you'll
certainly lose it else."

"Here it is, Miss Powers," said Mr. Fairfield, pleasantly, "and I dare say
you will prove more responsible than my rattle-pated daughter."

He squeezed Patty's hand affectionately as he said this, and a great wave
of homesickness came over the child's heart. She caught her father round
the neck, and vainly trying to keep the tears back, she whispered,

"Oh, papa, dear, let me stay with you. I don't want to go to Aunt
Isabel's,--I know she's horrid, and I just want you, you, _you_!"

Miss Powers was shocked at this exhibition of emotion, and said with
asperity:

"Come, come, it's too late to talk like that now. And a big girl like you
ought to be ashamed to act so babyish."

But Mr. Fairfield kissed Patty tenderly and said: "Dear, we're going to be
very brave, you know,--and besides, you're only going for a visit. All
people go visiting at some time in their lives, and next December I'll be
shaking the dust of Richmond off of my feet and coming after you,
pell-mell." Patty smiled through her tears, and then the train came tooting
along and they all climbed aboard.

As the train waited for ten minutes, Mr. Fairfield had ample time to find
the seats engaged for the travelers, and to arrange their hand-luggage in
the racks provided for it. Then he bade Miss Powers good-bye, and, turning
to Patty, clasped her in his arms as he said:

"Pattykins, good-bye. The year will soon pass away, and then we'll have a
jolly little home together. Be brave and gentle always, and as a parting
gift I give you this little box which contains a talisman to help you bear
any troubles or difficulties that may come to you."

As he spoke, he put into Patty's hand a small parcel sealed at each end
with red sealing-wax.

"Don't open it now," he continued. "Keep it just as it is until you reach
Aunt Isabel's. Then after you have gone to your room on the first night of
your stay with her, open the box and see what is in it."

Then the warning whistle blew, and with a final embrace of his little
daughter, Mr. Fairfield left the car.

The train started, and for a moment Patty saw her father waving his
handkerchief, and then he was lost to her sight. She felt just like
indulging in a good cry, but Miss Powers would have none of that.

The worthy spinster was already opening her bag and preparing to make
herself comfortable for her journey.

"Now, Patty," she said, but not unkindly, "you've left your pa behind, and
you're going away from him to stay a year. You've got to go, you can't help
yourself, so you might just as well make the best of it, and be cheerful
instead of miserable. So now that's settled, and you'd better get out your
books and games or whatever you brought along to amuse yourself with."

Miss Powers had taken off her hat and gloves and arranged a small balsam
pillow behind her head. She put on her glasses, and opened a book in which
she at once became absorbed.

Patty, being thus left to her own devices, became much interested in the
novelty of her surroundings. It was great fun to lean back against the
high-cushioned seat and look out of the window at the trees and plantations
and towns as they flew by. This kept her amused until noontime, when a
waiter came through the car banging a gong.

Miss Powers shut her book with a snap, and announced that they would go to
the dining-car for their lunch.

This was even more fun, for it seemed so queer to Patty to sit at a table
and eat, while at the same time she was flying through the country at such
break-neck speed.

"It's like the enchanted carpet, isn't it, Miss Powers?" she said, as they
slid through a thick grove and then out into the sunshine again.

"What is? what carpet?" asked Miss Powers, looking down at the floor of the
car.

"Oh, not a real carpet," said Patty, politely repressing a smile at the
elder lady's ignorance of fairy-lore. "I mean, for us to go scooting along
so fast is like the travelers on the magicians" carpet. Don't you know, the
carpet would move of itself wherever he told it to."

"H'm," commented Miss Powers, "that would be a good kind of a carpet to
have at housecleaning time, wouldn't it?"

This prosaic disposition of the magic carpet quite shocked Patty, but she
adapted herself to the idea, and said, "Yes, indeed; you could just say,
'Carpet, get up and go out and hang yourself on the clothes-line, and then
shake yourself well and come back again,'--oh, that would be convenient."

Miss Powers smiled in an absent-minded sort of way, and Patty chattered on,
half to herself and half to her companion.

"But suppose the carpet should be naughty and refuse to go,--that wouldn't
be so pleasant."

"Or suppose it should run away and never come back?"

This latter remark was made by a strange voice, and Patty looked up quickly
to see the man who was seated opposite, smiling in a very friendly way.

He was an elderly gentleman with white hair and beard, and it seemed to
Patty's vivid imagination that he looked like Noah, or some other of the
ancient patriarchs.

"That would be a great joke on the housekeeper," Patty answered, feeling
already well acquainted with the pleasant old gentleman, "and I suppose she
would have to get a new carpet."

"Or have a hard-wood floor laid in her room," he responded.

"Or live on a bare floor," said Miss Powers. "I think it would be a very
slack housekeeper who would let her carpets shake themselves, and she would
probably be too lazy or too poor to replace the ones that ran away."

Mr. Noah, as Patty called the old man in her mind, laughed heartily at
this, and during the rest of the luncheon hour proved himself a genial and
entertaining companion.

The day passed quickly, and at bedtime Patty was quite tired enough to
welcome the thought of tucking herself away in one of those queer-looking
bunks that the porter was arranging.

"I'll sleep on the top shelf," she said, gleefully, "may I, Miss Powers?"

"I'll be very glad if you will, child,--I've no desire to climb up there.
Ugh, I don't think I can sleep anywhere on this bobbety-bobble train."

Then the porter brought a small step-ladder, and this delighted Patty
beyond measure.

"Ho!" said she, "now I'm 'Jack and the Beanstalk.' 'A-hitchet, a-hatchet,
a-up I go'!" and with two jumps and a spring she landed in the upper berth.

"Now," she said to herself, "I know how Alice felt when she grew so large
that she filled up the whole room. Let me see, what did she do? She put one
arm out the window and one foot up the chimney. Well, I can't do that, and
I don't see any little cakes to eat, as she did, that will make me grow
smaller, so I s'pose I'll just have to scrounch around till I'm ready for
bed, and then slide in. I'm sure I shan't sleep, it's all so noisy and
exciting."

But when she finally straightened herself out on the coarse,
cinder-sprinkled linen of the Pullman, the chink-a-chunk of the train
changed to a lullaby, and in about two minutes Patty was sound asleep.




CHAPTER III


NEW FRIENDS

It was about four o'clock the next afternoon when the train came puffing
into the great train-shed in Jersey City.

It had passed through Elmbridge about an hour before, but being an express
train, it made no stop at such small places.

So Mr. St. Clair had arranged to meet Patty at Jersey City and take her
back home with him.

Patty recognized her uncle as soon as he entered the car, and ran to greet
him.

"Howdy, Uncle Robert," she said, in her pretty southern way, "are you
looking for me?"

"I am, if you're little Patty Fairfield. But you've grown so since I saw
you that I think I shall have to ask for your credentials."

Patty laughed, and answered: "My credentials are that I remember the doll
and the candy you brought me five years ago, and I just _know_ you're my
Uncle Robert."

"I am indeed, and I've come to carry you off to a lot of other admiring
relatives."

Then Patty introduced Miss Powers, and after gathering up the various wraps
and bags they all left the train. Miss Powers was to cross the ferry to New
York, so Patty and Uncle Robert escorted her to the ferry-boat and bade her
good-bye, with many thanks for her kind care of the little girl during the
journey.

Then Uncle Robert said: "Now we'll go out to Elmbridge as quick as we can
skip, but first we must pick up Ethelyn, whom I left in the waiting-room."

"Oh, is Ethelyn here?" cried Patty. "I am so glad, I'm just crazy to see
her."

Apparently Ethelyn was crazy too, for she flew at her cousin as soon as she
entered the door.

"You dear thing!" she exclaimed, "I'm so delighted to see you. Oh, how
pretty you are! We'll be awfully good chums, won't we?"

"I'm sure we shall," replied Patty, who was just a wee bit frightened by
this dashing young cousin.

Ethelyn was about Patty's age, but somewhat shorter and decidedly less
slender. Her yellow hair was not long, indeed it was cut evenly round just
above her shoulders, but it was crinkled and fluffed out until her head had
the contour of a yellow pumpkin.

A huge black hat with a wide rolling brim was perched on top of the yellow
mop, and ornamented with feathers and shining buckles.

Both the girls wore dark blue suits trimmed with fur, but Ethelyn's was
resplendent with wide lace-trimmed collars, and she wore clattering bangles
on her wrists, and a fancy little muff hung round her neck by a silver
chain.

Her skirts were as short as Patty's, and she seemed like a little girl, and
yet she had a wise, grown-up air, and she began to patronize her cousin at
once.

"Your frock is nice," she said, "but it has no style to it. Well, I suppose
you couldn't get much in the way of dressmakers where you lived, but Madame
Marsala will soon turn you out all right. Mamma says she'll just enjoy
ordering new clothes for you, and your papa told her to get whatever she
chose. Oh, won't we have fun! We always go to New York for our things, and
the shops are just lovely."

"Come, come, children," said Uncle Robert, who had been looking after
Patty's trunks, "the train is made up, let us get aboard."

They went through one of a whole row of little gates in an iron fence, and
Patty wondered at the numerous trains and the crowds of people moving
swiftly towards them.

She wondered if everything at the North were conducted on such a wholesale
and such a hurrying plan. They hurried along the platform and hurried into
a car, then Uncle Robert put the two children into a seat together, while
he sat behind them and devoted himself to his evening paper.

The girls chatted gaily and Patty learned much about the home she was going
to, and began to think of it as a very beautiful and attractive place.

The train stopped at Elmbridge, and without waiting for her father, Ethelyn
piloted Patty off the car.

"Here's our carriage," she said, as a handsome pair of horses with jingling
chains came prancing up. A footman in livery handed the young ladies in,
and Patty felt as if she had come among very grand people indeed.

While they waited for Mr. St. Clair, who was giving the checks to the
baggage-master, Patty admired the pretty little station of rough gray
stone, and the neatly kept grounds and paths all about it.

"Yes, they are pretty," assented Ethelyn, "but just wait till you see our
grounds. We have the finest place in Elmbridge. In summer it's just
lovely."

Then Mr. St. Clair came, and giving the coachman the order "Home," he
seated himself opposite the two girls.

"Well, Patty, how do you like it, so far?" he asked, genially, of his
niece.

"Oh, Uncle Robert, I think it's beautiful, but I hoped we'd have a
sleigh-ride. I've never been in a sleigh."

"Bless you, child, we don't have much sleighing. However, perhaps we can
scare up a sleigh-ride before the winter is over. We have a pretty fine
sleigh, eh, Ethelyn?"

"Yes, indeed, we have a beautiful great big one, and I have a little
cutter, all my own. I'll take you sleighing, Patty, if we get half a
chance."

Soon they reached the St. Clair home and drove up the long winding avenue
to the house.

Patty saw a brilliantly lighted mansion, and as they drew near it, she
heard the most piercing shrieks and yells, as of a human being in desperate
straits of some kind.

Patty wondered if she were about to enter a Bluebeard's castle, but deeming
it polite to take no notice of the uproar, she tried to appear unheeding
though the shrieks increased in violence as they came up to the house and
the carriage stopped at the front door.




CHAPTER IV


VILLA ROSA

"Here we are, chickens," said Uncle Robert, as the footman threw open the
carriage door, "here's your new home, Patty, and you're very welcome to
your Uncle Robert's house."

It was almost dark and Patty could distinguish only the outlines of a
magnificent house, so large that it seemed like a palace.

They went up massive stone steps between great stone lions, to a wonderful
veranda bright with electric lights, and lights streamed from every window
and from the wide front doors which flew open as they reached them.

But though all this beauty and elegance impressed Patty like a dream of
Fairyland, she paid little heed to it, for she was so shocked and disturbed
by the shrieks from within, which were now distinctly audible as those of a
child.

"Goodness me!" exclaimed Ethelyn, just as Patty could stand it no longer
and was about to ask what it meant, "what can be the matter with Florelle
this time? I hope you enjoy squealing, Patty, for you'll hear plenty of it
in this house. Don't mind it; little sister has a fearful temper, and we
have to let her squeal it out."

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