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Patty Fairfield

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As Nan said, after the party was over, "It was just perfect, except that we
couldn't invite the ones that lived at any distance."

But Uncle Ted said, "Never mind, we'll have another party, and invite them;
and I'll see to mailing the invitations myself."

"Oh, ho," laughed Nan, "then we needn't even get ready for the party, for
you'll never remember to post them."

At which Uncle Ted called her a saucy minx, and sent them all to bed.




CHAPTER XVI


UNBOUNDED HOSPITALITY

Although life at the Hurly-Burly was full of irritating incidents and even
serious disappointments which were caused by the general forgetfulness and
careless habits of the family, yet there were also many pleasures, and
Patty enjoyed the summer very much and became warmly attached to her
happy-go-lucky relatives.

Uncle Ted was kindness itself, and Aunt Grace was very loving and
affectionate towards her motherless niece. Bob and Bumble were trumps, and
Nan was so irresistibly funny that she made merry jokes of what would
otherwise have been real troubles.

The days flew by and Patty thought she had never known a summer to pass so
rapidly.

She almost lived out of doors, for Uncle Ted said he was determined to
transform the little Boston bluestocking into a wild Indian; and so Patty
had become browned by the sun, and her rowing and swimming had developed a
fine amount of muscle. But as we are always more or less influenced by the
character of those about us, Patty had also imbibed much of the spirit of
the Hurly-Burly family and lived as if the pleasure of the present moment
were the only thing to be considered.

"Be careful, my Patty," her father wrote to her, "you do not send me
letters as regularly as you used to, and what you tell me sometimes sounds
as if you thought it no harm to break a promise or to fail to keep an
engagement you have made. You know I want you to _learn_ by your
experiences, and imitate only the best qualities of those about you. I'm
not going to have my house run on any Hurly-Burly plan, Miss Pattikins, so
if you expect to secure the position of housekeeper, you must be prepared
to keep things right up to the mark. We will have an exact proportion of
methodical regularity, without having so much of it that it will be a
bugbear. Oh, I tell you, my lady, our home is going to be a veritable
Paradise on earth, and I am impatient to get it started You have only one
more visit to make, and then I will come and kidnap my own daughter and
carry her off with me for a Christmas present."

"What a dear, wise father I've got," mused Patty, after reading this
letter, "and how he understands everything, even without my telling him. I
_will_ try not to grow heedless and rattle-pated, though it's hard to be
any other way in this house."

One morning in August, Mrs. Barlow said to her husband, "Ted, you know the
Carletons are coming this afternoon to stay several days, and I want you to
go over to the three o'clock train to meet them. Don't forget it, will you?
And you'll have to engage a stage to bring them over, for there'll be Mr.
and Mrs. Carleton and four children, and perhaps a nurse. I don't know
where we're going to put them all to sleep, but we must stow them away
somehow. Patty, would you mind giving up your room for a time?"

"Not a bit, Aunt Grace. Put me wherever you like."

"That's a good girl. Well, suppose you sleep with Bumble. She has only a
three-quarter bed, but if you don't quarrel you won't fall out."

"All right," said Patty. "I'll move my things at once."

"Very well, my dear; then we can give your room to Mr. and Mrs. Carleton,
and Gertrude will have to room with Nan, and the other children must go up
in the third story; no,--Harry can sleep with Bob. I declare I didn't think
it would crowd us so, when I invited the whole family. But it will be only
for a week, and we'll get along somehow."

"Many hands make light work," and with much flurrying and scurrying the
rooms were made ready for the expected guests.

About noon the expressman came, bringing two trunks.

"'Coming events cast their shadows before,'" said Uncle Ted; "here come the
wardrobes of the Carleton family."

"They must have sent them by express yesterday," said Aunt Grace; "dear me,
how forehanded some people are. I wish I had been born that way. But when I
go anywhere I take my trunk with me, and then I always leave it behind."

They all laughed at this paradoxical statement, and Uncle Ted said, "That's
where you differ from an elephant." Then as the trunks were set out on the
veranda, he exclaimed, "Good gracious, my dear, these aren't the Carleton's
trunks. They're marked "'F. M. T.,'--both of them."

"'F.M.T.,'" echoed Mrs. Barlow, "why, who can that be?"

"The Carletons have borrowed other people's trunks to come with," suggested
Nan.

"Not they," returned Aunt Grace; "they're the most particular people on the
face of the earth. Why Kate Carleton would as soon think of borrowing a
house as a trunk. No, these belong to somebody else. And I know who it is!
It's Fanny Todd. Before I left home I asked her to come down here the first
week in August, and I never thought of it again from that day to this. But
I should think she would have written."

"Why, mamma," said Bumble, "there was a letter came for you from
Philadelphia a day or two ago. Didn't you get it? I saw it on the hall
table."

"No, I didn't get it. Run and look for it, child."

But the letter couldn't be found. So Mrs. Barlow assumed that it was from
her friend, Miss Todd, and concluded that that lady would shortly arrive.

"Where _can_ we put her to sleep?" she queried, "every room is already
filled."

"She can have my room," said Bob, "and Harry Carleton and I will sleep out
in the tent. He's a good fellow and he won't mind."

"But his mother will," said Mrs. Barlow; "she's so fussy about such things.
Still, I can't see anything else to do. If it doesn't rain, I suppose
you'll be all right."

The Carletons came first, and Mrs. Barlow welcomed them with a gracious
hospitality which gave no hint of the flurried turmoil of preparation that
had been going on all day.

Gertrude Carleton, the eldest daughter, was one of those spick-and-span
beings who look as if they ought always to be kept in a bandbox. She had a
languishing die-away sort of air, and after a few moments' conversation
with her, Bumble excused herself and slyly nudged Patty to come outside
with her. She took her cousin up-stairs and said, "Patsy, I'm sure that
blown-glass girl won't like to room with Nan. She looks as if she always
had a whole suite of rooms to herself, parlor and all. I can imagine her
fainting away when Nan takes off her wig. Now, how would it do to give Miss
Gertrude our room, and you and I go in with Nan? I'll bunk on the sofa; I
don't mind a bit."

"Neither do I," declared Patty. "Yes, let's give your room to the Lady
Gertrude, and never mind asking Nan about it, either."

So the girls changed things around in short order, and then went
down-stairs and conducted Gertrude to her room.

Aunt Grace gave a little surprised smile, but with her usual tact, said
nothing.

Harry Carleton seemed to be a very nice boy, and he went off to the tent
with Bob, in great glee, while the two little Carleton children and their
nurse were installed in rooms on the third floor.

Before the guests had reappeared down-stairs, a carriage drove up to the
veranda, and a lady and gentleman got out.

"Oh," thought Mrs. Barlow, as she went to greet them, "who _has_ Fanny
brought with her?"

"How do you do, Grace?" cried sprightly Miss Todd, "I've come, you see,
though I didn't get the telegram I asked you to send me. And I brought Mr.
Harris, as I said I would. I know you'll welcome him gladly after what I
told you."

"Fanny," said Mrs. Barlow, deeming it best to make a clean breast of the
matter, "I didn't get your letter. At least, they say it came, but somehow
it was lost before I read it, and it can't be found. However, it doesn't
matter, and I am very glad to welcome Mr. Harris in any capacity."

"Then greet me as Miss Todd's future husband," said Mr. Harris, smiling,
and Mrs. Barlow gave him a hearty welcome and congratulations at the same
time.

But Mr. Harris was a new problem. Although he intended to remain only one
night, yet a room must be provided for him, and poor Mrs. Barlow was at her
wits' end.

But it was at her wits' end that the good lady oftenest found a way out of
her difficulties, and after a glance into Mr. Harris' merry blue eyes, she
felt sure she could ask him to sleep on the couch in the music-room without
offending his dignity in the least. And so it turned out that the
Hurly-Burly was filled with guests, and it goes without saying that they
all had a merry time.

Uncle Ted was in his element, and he provided fun for the children and
entertainment for the older guests, until even languid Gertrude was stirred
to enthusiasm.

It was late when they all retired, and after Mrs. Barlow had insured the
comfort of her guests and her children, she lay down to rest and fell
asleep at once.




CHAPTER XVII


A HURLY-BURLY FIRE

Although Mr. Harris had expressed himself satisfied with his couch in the
music-room, yet as it was hard and narrow, his slumbers were not very
profound, and at two o'clock in the morning he awoke from a light doze, and
began to sniff in the darkness.

"I believe I smell fire," he said to himself.

He jumped up and ran into the hall, where he found the whole staircase was
a charred and smouldering mass ready to break into flame at any moment.

Mr. Harris was a man of quick action, but he paused a moment to consider.

He couldn't go up the stairs, they were ready to give way at a touch. He
dared not open the front door, or, indeed, any door that might create a
draught which would fan the stairs into a flame.

So he decided he must rouse the sleepers up-stairs, and then jump out of
the music-room window and run to the tent to get the assistance of the two
boys who were sleeping there.

Being a stranger in the house, he knew of no other stairway, and knew
nothing of the servants or where they might be.

"Mr. Barlow,--fire! Mr. Barlow!" he screamed. "Fire! Mr. Carleton, Fanny!"
but no one answered.

At last Patty was wakened by his voice and ran out in the upper hall. The
draught of her opening door started the flames a little, and when she
looked over the banister, it was into a well of fire.

Before she could say a word, Mr. Harris called up to her. "Patty," he said,
"keep your senses, and help all you can. I think the fire is only in the
staircase, and if so, we can get everybody safely out of their own windows.
Tell this to your uncle, and then tell the others. I'm going after Bob."

Mr. Harris disappeared, and Patty bravely resisted her inclination to
scream; instead, she ran into her uncle's room and shook him awake, saying,
"Uncle Ted, the stairs are all burnt up, but it doesn't matter, you can get
out of the windows."

Then she ran back and wakened Bumble and Nan, saying, "Girls, the house is
on fire, but let's be real sensible and not get burned up. Put on your
dressing-gowns, and then we must go and tell the ethers."

As she talked Patty was slipping on her dressing-gown, and then she caught
up her mother's picture and wrapped it in a bath-towel, and with the little
bundle in her hand she ran back to the hall where she met Uncle Ted.

"Which room are the Carletons in, Patty?" She told him, and then Bob
shouted up from below, "We've got the old Babcock extinguisher, dad, and
we're making it tell on the fire. Can't you throw on some water up there?
And tell all the people to go out on the balconies and we'll take 'em down
all right. And I say, Patty, get my camera out of my room, will you? I
don't want anything to happen to that."

"All right," said Patty, and she ran for the camera. In Bob's room she
found Miss Todd just waking up.

"Get up, Miss Todd," she cried; "the house is on fire and your Mr. Harris
is putting it out, and he says for you to jump out of the window."

"Oh," screamed Miss Fanny, hopping out of bed and rushing wildly around the
room, "which window?"

"Any window," said Patty, who was hunting in the closet for the camera.

So Miss Todd, half unconscious of what she was doing, but with a blind
intention of obeying the orders of her fiancé, climbed over a window sill
and jumped out.

As a veranda ran all around the second-story of the Hurly-Burly, she found
herself standing just outside her window on a very substantial balcony and
feeling decidedly chilly in the night air.

"Here are some clothes," said Patty, grabbing up whatever came handy, and
putting them out the window to Miss Todd. "Is there anything you want saved
particularly?"

For Patty had taken a pillow-case from its pillow, and in it had placed the
bundle containing her mother's picture, and Bob's camera.

"Yes," said Miss Todd; "that book of poems,--it was Jim's first gift to
me,--oh, and my hat."

"All right," said Patty, and she put the book in her pillow-case bag, but
the hat, being large and feathery she put on her head.

Then Patty went to Gertrude Carleton's room. She found that fragile bit of
humanity sleeping peacefully, and she hated to startle her.

But the excitement was growing greater. People were running about in all
directions, and the flames, though still confined to the staircase, were
liable to spread further at any moment. So Patty decided to break the news
gently to the frail Gertrude, and she touched her softly on the shoulder.

"Gertrude, dear," she said, "if the house _should_ get on fire, what would
you want to save most?"

"My shoes," said Gertrude, promptly, awake and alert in an instant. "Here
they are."

She reached over the side of the bed, and grasped her dainty little
patent-leather boots, which she gave to Patty.

"Very well," said Patty, putting them in her bag, "and now you'd better get
up and dress, for the house may get on fire to-night. Come, I'll help you,
for I smell smoke now."

"Where are you going with your hat on?" asked Gertrude, much bewildered,
but still making an expeditious toilette.

"Nowhere," said Patty. "I'm collecting valuables; this is Miss Todd's hat.
I must go now. When you're ready, step out of your window on to the
balcony, and they'll take you down by ladders or something, I guess."

Patty went out into the hall, and found that the fire was partly under
control. Uncle Ted and Mr. Carleton were pouring buckets of water on it,
which they brought from the bathroom where Bumble was helping fill the
buckets.

Down-stairs, Mr. Harris and the two boys were using hand grenades, an old
fire extinguisher, and sundry other patented means of putting out fires.
There was much yelling of orders going on, but very little obeying of the
same, and each man seemed to be working with a will in his own way.

Patty went into her Aunt Grace's room, and found that lady dressed in her
best attire.

"I thought I'd put on this gown," she said. "Ted says we'll all be saved;
but then you never can tell how a fire may break out somewhere else and
burn up all your wardrobe. So I'll have this, anyway, and it's my best
gown. Ted told me to stay in this room and not move until he came after me.
Is the fire burning the hall carpet much?"

"Yes, quite a good deal; but they've spilled so much water on it that it's
all wet, and I reckon that will spoil it more than the fire. But, Aunt
Grace, what do you want to save? The house may all burn up, you know, and
I'm trying to save the most valuable things. I've this pillow-case nearly
full, now."

"Oh, what a good idea! Well, I wish you'd put in that photograph album, and
my set of coral jewelry, and my eye-glasses; and please get the box of old
letters that's on the highest shelf in that cupboard. Oh, and here's Uncle
Ted's bank-book, we must save that."

"Now, Grace," said Uncle Ted, himself, appearing in the doorway, "the fire
is pretty well under control; that Harris is a good fellow, and no mistake.
But as the flames may break out again, I mean to put you out of harm's way
at once. Come out on the balcony."

Uncle Ted had a great coil of rope in his arms, and he stepped through the
long French window onto the balcony, and Aunt Grace and Patty followed.
There they discovered quite a party already assembled, and such costumes as
they wore!

Mrs. Carleton had on Turkish bedroom slippers, and she wore a black veil
tied over her face for fear of smoke. She had wrapped herself in a large
eider-down quilt and somebody had tied it round with a wide sash, so that
she looked like a queer foreign personage of some sort.

Nan, in her hurry, had fastened her wig on insecurely, and had since lost
it. Her attire was an old ulster of Uncle Ted's, which she had found in the
third story hall when she ran up to alarm the Carleton children and their
nurse.

The nurse in great fright had pulled down portières, and wrapped them round
herself and the children, while old Hopalong had shuffled down from her
room in a mackintosh and sun-bonnet.

To this motley crowd came Aunt Grace in her handsome party gown, and Patty
with her bag of treasures.

"Hello, there," cried Uncle Ted, cheerily, "the danger is over, I think,
but we have no stairs left to descend upon. The boys are bringing ladders,
however, and I think, with care, we can all get down safely. But as my
wife's sprained ankle is scarcely sound enough as yet to trust her on a
ladder, I am going to try to swing her down in this hammock. Patty, I think
I'll send you down first, for practice."

"All right, Uncle Ted," said Patty, and still clasping her bag of
valuables, and wearing Miss Todd's Paris hat, she seated herself in the
hammock, exactly according to Uncle Ted's directions, and he and Mr.
Carleton carefully let her down by the long ropes which had been fastened
at each end of the novel elevator.

Mr. Harris was waiting for her, and he landed her safely on the steps of
the lower veranda.

Next Aunt Grace was lowered, and after that another hammock was rigged, and
all of the ladies were taken down that way, as they preferred it to the
ladders.

The men came down the ladders and brought the little children in their
arms, and then the queer-looking crowd gathered in the sitting-room to
discuss the situation. The men concluded that the fire was occasioned by a
mouse having nibbled at some matches which were kept in the closet under
the stairs.

As the shelves and walls and most of the contents of the closet were
charred, it was assumed that the fire had been smouldering for some hours,
and if Mr. Harris had not discovered it as soon as he did, it would
doubtless have been followed by more disastrous consequences.

The stairs from the first to the second floor were entirely burned away,
and except that the walls and carpets of both halls were smoked and
discolored, no other harm was done.

But as that staircase was the only one connecting the first and second
floors, the victims of the fire found themselves in the peculiar position
of not being able to go up-stairs.

"How perfectly ridiculous," exclaimed Aunt Grace, "to build a house with no
back stairs. I always said that was the greatest flaw about this house.
What _can_ we do?"

"As it is nearly five o'clock," said Uncle Ted, "I propose that we have
breakfast, and consider that the day has begun. Then perhaps I can get
somebody to build stairs or steps of some kind by night"

"But we must go up-stairs," said Nan, who had covered her wigless head with
a bandanna kerchief, bound round like a turban; "we want to dress properly
before we breakfast."

"And we want to finish our sleep," said Gertrude Carleton. "I'm not going
to get up at five o'clock and stay up."

So the ladders were brought in from outside and put up in the stair-well,
and with some difficulty everybody was brought safely up-stairs again.

With the procrastination which was characteristic of the Barlow household,
the new stairs failed to get built that day or the next either; indeed it
was nearly a week before a staircase was put in place, and as it was meant
to be only temporary it was made of plain unpainted wood.

But you will not be surprised to learn that it was not replaced by a more
sightly affair until after the Barlows had returned to their city home.

As the end of her visit at the Hurly-Burly drew near, Patty felt great
regret at the thought of leaving the merry, careless crowd. She invited
them, one and all, to visit her when she should be established in her own
home, and she promised to correspond regularly with both Bumble and Nan.

"Where is it you're going?" said Bumble, "I never can remember."

"To Vernondale," answered Patty, "a town in New Jersey. But it's nowhere
near Elmbridge, where I visited the St. Clairs. I believe it is on another
railroad. I've had a lovely letter from Aunt Alice Elliott, and she wants
me to come the first week in September. She says Uncle Charlie will meet me
in New York, or come over here after me, whichever I say. But I think I'd
better meet him in New York."

So when the day came Uncle Ted took Patty over to New York, and Bob and
Bumble and Nan went too, and it was a group of very long-faced young people
who met Mr. Elliott at the appointed time and place. But Bob said:

"Brace up, girls, we're not losing our Patty forever. She'll spend next
summer with us at the Hurly-Burly, and by that time well have beautiful new
fire-proof stairs."

"Yes," said Bumble, "and she can visit us in Philadelphia in the winter
too."

Then after many fond good-byes, the Barlows went away, and Patty was left
with her Uncle Charlie.




CHAPTER XVIII


AT VERNONDALE

After the Barlows had left them Mr. Elliott put Patty in a cab to go across
New York to the New Jersey ferry, and seating himself beside her, he said:

"Well, my little maid, I am very glad to get you at last; and as there is a
whole houseful of people out at Vernondale who are eagerly watching for
your arrival, I am going to get you there as soon as possible."

"Yes, do," said Patty; "I am so anxious to see Marian and all the rest.
Tell me something about them, Uncle Charlie. I am getting accustomed to
meeting new relatives, but I like to hear about them beforehand, too."

"Well," said Uncle Charlie, "to begin with, your Aunt Alice is the
loveliest woman on the face of the earth."

"I am sure she is," said Patty, heartily, "for she has written me such
beautiful letters about my coming, and I feel as if I already know her. And
then, of course, she is papa's sister, so she must be nice."

"Then there is Grandma Elliott," her uncle went on; "she is my mother, and
a dearer old lady never breathed. You'll love her at first sight."

"Oh, I know I shall," said Patty; "there hasn't been a single grandmother
in all my other visits, and as I have none of my own, I shall just adopt
yours, if she'll let me."

"Try it, and see," said her uncle, smiling. "As to your cousins, they are
four specimens of young America who must be seen to be appreciated. Frank
is seventeen and Marian is about your own age. Edith is ten, and little
Gilbert is six. They are all moderately good and moderately pretty, but on
the whole, I think you'll like them."

The travelers crossed the ferry to New Jersey, and after riding nearly an
hour in the cars they reached Vernondale.

Mr. Elliott's carriage met them at the railway station, and a short drive
brought Patty to her new home. The house was a large one, surrounded by
beautiful grounds with fine trees, carefully kept lawns and beds of bright
flowers.

The whole family had assembled on the veranda to greet Patty, and as the
carriage came up the driveway there was a great waving of handkerchiefs and
clapping of hands and shouts of "Here she comes," "Here's our cousin!"

As Uncle Charlie helped Patty out of the carriage, Aunt Alice was the first
to clasp her in her arms, and it was with such a warm loving embrace that
Patty felt the motherliness of it, and loved her Aunt Alice at once.

Next she was introduced to Grandma Elliott and the dear old lady beamed
through her spectacles at pretty Patty, and willingly agreed to adopt her
as a really, truly granddaughter.

Cousin Frank proved to be a big, stalwart lad, with merry eyes and a boyish
smile, and he welcomed Patty with hearty good-will.

Marian was a beautiful girl with fun and intelligence written all over her
bright face, and when she said, "Oh, Patty, I'm _so_ glad you've come,"
Patty felt sure they would be not only warm friends but congenial chums.
Ten-year old Edith clasped Patty's hand in both her own and held it for a
long while, looking up in her cousin's face with an occasional smile of
happy confidence.

Last came little Gilbert, the pet of the household, and a lovely boy he
was. Short dark curls clustered all over his head and his great brown eyes
gazed at Patty in rapt contemplation.

"I'm glad you've come," he said, finally, "and I love you, and I'll try to
be good all the time you're here."

"That's right, my boy," said Uncle Charlie, catching Gilbert up in his arms
and setting him on his shoulder, "and after Patty is gone, what then?"

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