Patty's Perversities

"You told me you was a Methodist," she said reproachfully; "but either you lied, or you're fallen from grace. You'd better let me read a chapter: it may arouse your conscience."

"Read, then, if you want to," he said one day, too feeble to resist.

"Where shall I read?" she asked delightedly, giving her Bible a preparatory scrub with her apron.

"Oh!" he answered weakly, "read about David and Goliath: that's as lively a chapter as any I know of."

"Peter Mixon!" cried Bathalina, "don't be blasphemous on your death-bed! But it is a just reward for my sinful pride that I should be the widow of an unbeliever."

Both Patty and Flossy were frequent in their visits to the sick man. He seemed grateful, in his rough way, for their kindness, and would brighten up as they entered the chamber. Particularly he seemed pleased to have Patty about him, and would take from her hand the medicine which no persuasions of his wife could induce him to swallow.

"He takes to you wonderful," Bathalina said: "I don't think he's so bad at heart."

"I noticed the other day," Mrs. Sanford remarked, overhearing her, "that he has a mole on the left side of his chin, and that's a sure sign of goodness. Not so good as on the right side; but I don't doubt he's right-hearted in the main."

Patty occupied herself more with the invalid, because of her mental uneasiness. There is no refuge for unhappiness but labor. Hazard Breck had returned to college; and, before leaving, he called to bid her good-by.

"I perhaps ought not to speak of it," he said hesitatingly, as he rose to go; "but you look very unhappy nowadays, Patty."

"Do I? It must be your fancy. I don't have a mournful thought from one year's end to another. Sentimentalizing isn't in my line."

"I fear it is in mine," he said. "The summer has been a very bitter-sweet one to me. I am glad it is done."

"It is you who are sad," she said, bravely smiling. "You look at me through colored glasses. I am gay as a lark."

"I wish I believed it," he returned.

The pain of a boy's first love, although less fleeting than the bliss, is fortunately also transient. His love and regret were very real to Hazard. He was conscious that Patty did not love him; but he believed that his boyish passion would be eternal, and life for him henceforth only desolation. That we shall some day smile at a fancy makes the present pain none the less poignant.

"You will come back at Christmas, won't you?" Patty said, wishing to divert the conversation.

"No, I think not; but, if I do, I hope you won't look as solemn as you do now."

"Solemn? Nonsense! I'm as merry as a cricket. Where is your brother to-day?"

"He rode over to Samoset with uncle Tom this morning. They won't be back till evening."

After her caller had gone, Patty turned back into the parlor, and looked at her face in the glass.

"I do look like Death's second wife," she soliloquized. "If I could only have a tremendous cry, and get over it, I might feel better, I suppose; but I can't: so there's an end of it. I'll go and see that wretched old Peter instead. I think I shall eventually go as a missionary, and nurse sick cannibals until they get well enough to cook and eat me. Heigh-ho! What a wretched old Peter it is, to be sure! At least I'm thankful to him for giving me something to do. Poor Hazard, I wish I were half as good as he is! Patty Sanford, you are a fool! Go and see that dilapidated Mixon this minute!"

Her shortest way to the house of Mrs. Brown was through the Putnam fields; and to-day, being sure that the lawyer was absent, she started in this direction. Meanwhile a whimsical fate had conducted to the Castle in Air another woman. This visitor came slowly over the brown fields, passing along the bank of the brook, stopping now and then to bite into a rose-hip, or chew the bark from some tender twig. It was Mrs. Smithers, the woman who had summoned Putnam to Samoset, and who had lately come to live in the stone cottage. This woman, who among people had a restless, constrained manner, here moved with a free, elastic step and bearing. Her childhood had been passed in the neighborhood of Montfield; and Hannah Clemens had grown up as lovely as a wild rose. Her sister Bathalina seemed to have absorbed all the ugliness of the family, and to have gone on her half-witted way honestly and contentedly, leaving to the elder her fatal dowry of beauty, wit, and unhappiness. In an evil day Mr. Mullen saw the beautiful, ambitious girl; and to his wealth she yielded only too readily. Never loving him, she had yet the art to fascinate him, until, after the death of his wife, he had been ready to marry her. Her own infatuation for a new lover, the father of the Breck boys, had made her refuse the hand of Mr. Mullen. Outliving both her lovers, who died nearly at the same time, Mrs. Smithers, as, with a slight concession to morality, she called herself, wandered about the country, seldom content to remain for long in one place. Her natural restlessness was increased by her habitual use of opium; and a habit of morose sullenness had grown upon her. Shunned by all her kindred, it was perhaps strange that she should have chosen to return to her native village. She went out chiefly at night; and, having discovered that from the Castle in Air could be seen the tower of Mullen House, often came on moonlight evenings to view the mansion she steadily persisted in calling her own. To-day, having seen Putnam drive away, she ventured to come by daylight; and she descended the ladders just as Patty had crossed the bridge on her way to Mrs. Brown's. The latter walked on composedly, until, at the foot of the elm, Mrs. Smithers blocked her path.

"Well," Mrs. Smithers said, after examining the face of the other a moment in silence, "what do you want? You'll know me another time, I hope."

"Will you let me pass, please," Patty replied coldly.

"So! No: I won't let you pass till I'm ready. I'd like to look at you a while. I've seen you before."

She placed her arms akimbo as she spoke, and stared at Patty, who stood quiet.

"So!" she said at last. "What are you on these premises for? What do you want? Are you after your rights too?"

There was no further motive in the woman's actions at the moment than a wild desire to vent her rage upon any one who offered. As Patty changed color, however, a sudden devilish inspiration darted like the whisper of an evil spirit through Mrs. Smithers's opiumized brain. Completely ignorant of the relations between Patty and Putnam, she understood that her words had been misconceived. By chance she had hit between the joints of the harness. Patty had refused to listen to the insinuations of her mother and Mrs. Brown, who coupled what was known of the character of the new tenant of the stone cottage and her mysterious relations with the lawyer, much to the discredit of that gentleman. Now this woman seemed herself to confirm the slander; and it was no wonder that Patty grew pale.

"So!" Mrs. Smithers said again, seizing the chance to calumniate the man she hated none the less because he had remained unmoved by her fascinations. "So! We know what we know of Tom Putnam. Humph!"

"Will you stand out of my way?" Patty said.

This calmness enraged the woman before her as no violence could have done. She caught Patty forcibly by the wrists.

"So!" she screamed. "You'll hear nothing! I've seen them has held their heads as high as you, and been brought low enough, after all. Do you think, miss, I'm to be ordered out of your way like a dog, when, if I had my rights, there's nobody in this d – d town'd dare queen it over me! So! I'll" —

But Patty wrenched herself free, and ran swiftly towards the street. The other did not follow, but stood cursing, until a turn hid the girl from her sight.

CHAPTER XXXVII

THANKSGIVING

It was raining, and raining with a will. It was sure to rain all day: there was no question about that. As Patty looked from her window Thanksgiving morning, and saw the leafless trees and faded grass on Boston Common, soaked in the cold November storm, it seemed to her that she had never gazed upon a drearier scene. She crossed her arms upon the window-sill, resting her chin on them, and fell into a fit of bitter musing.

Flossy, announcing her decision to remain in Montfield through the winter, had coupled with it her intention of spending Thanksgiving week at home.

"I must go and see father once in a while," she remarked. "That's only respectable. And I must have something to wear, you know, even in Montfield. Patty is going with me to bring me back safe."

"I going with you?" her cousin returned. "I had not heard of that before."

"Didn't I tell you? I supposed you'd know. As father would say, 'There are some things which even this Court may be supposed to understand.'"

Patty was secretly glad to get away. To escape from Montfield seemed like an escape from herself. She was restless and dissatisfied, and even the remonstrances of the family at her being away upon Thanksgiving Day fell upon heedless ears. Once the plan was proposed, she felt a feverish desire for its accomplishment until she was actually in the train moving towards Boston. At first she experienced a feeling of relief, as if she had left care and trouble behind; but scarcely had the hills of Montfield faded from sight than she longed to turn back. At home she at least was where she might see her lover, even if it were but to quarrel with him. At home she could sit brooding at her window, looking towards the Putnam place, and imagining the life and the thoughts of its master. Hardly could she restrain the tears which pressed to her eyes as the train bore her farther and farther from home; but with angry pride she controlled herself, and laughed gayly at all Flossy's nonsense.

Mr. Plant had received her kindly; and, in the distractions of pleasure-seeking and of shopping, Patty had forgotten or overcome her sentimental woes until this morning.

Now, with this cheerless rain steadily falling, and Flossy closeted with her father, to whom she now first disclosed her engagement, Patience found herself homesick and miserable.

"There is one thing certain," she mused. "I have been a fool to care for Tom as I have – and I have. He's a man, after all; and all men are alike, I suppose, – self-contained and self-indulgent. Not that he's as bad as most of them; but he's a man; and – I'm a woman. Either there must be some men different, or a woman could never be happy with any of them. There! Who'd suppose I could be such a fool? I have been very fond of Tom, – very, very fond: I'm not sure I didn't love him just a little bit. He must have cared for me something, or he never could have kissed my hand so. Oh, dear! it's all over now. There comes Floss. I wonder what uncle Chris said."

"I've done it," Flossy remarked coolly, entering, and seating herself with a nimble spring upon the dressing-table. "The paternal astonishment is extreme, not to say alarming."

"I think it likely," Patty answered.

"Papa didn't seem very enthusiastic over my marrying a farmer," her cousin went on in the same abstracted way. "But, as I told him, it isn't as if he'd got to have the farm here in the way."

"Still a farm would be convenient to have in the house," said Patty, laughing.

"Do you know," the other continued, "it was only my profound sagacity that brought him round."

"Then he has come round?"

"Come round? Bless you, Pitsy-Patsy! he has but one wish, – a desire to embrace Burleigh."

"I'd like to see the embrace," laughed Patty. "With the size of the two, it would be a spectacle. How did you accomplish it?"

"Oh, I spoke of the milk and the butter and the cheese – the lovely cream-cheese – and the honey. I wonder," she interrupted herself, "that bees don't keep a cow, cream is so ravishing with honey. And, when papa's mouth began to water, I heaved a sigh, and so sighing I rolled up my eyes, and ejaculated how happy we'd be. And what do you suppose he said?"

"Something very profane, I'm afraid," answered Patty.

"No," Floss said. "He didn't. If you'll believe it, he only smacked his lips, and asked if Burleigh raised early vegetables."

"Is that what you cried for?" asked the other, looking at her cousin's swollen eyes.

Instead of answering, Floss sprang from her perch, ran to her friend, and threw her arms about her neck, bursting into tears. The two foolish creatures wept together, and then kissed each other, and doubtless felt better for the demonstration.

The truth was, that the interview between Mr. Plant and his daughter had been a painful one. He cared little for Flossy's society, and the sympathy between them was not of the closest. But he could not, without difficulty, reconcile himself to have his only child, city born and bred, bury herself in the country, and unite herself to a man so far below his idea of a desirable match. He had received the announcement with unaffected amazement, appearing more deeply moved by it than Flossy had ever seen him. It was only after a long and trying scene that he yielded to his daughter's entreaties and his own desire for peace, and gave a grudging consent.

"I think that is enough of a weep," Patty said, giving her cousin a hug. "I'm sure I don't know what we should cry about."

"Now I'll tell you. He's here," said Flossy impressively.

"Who's here?"

"Burleigh."

"Here? In the house? Have you hidden him in a closet?"

"Oh, dear, no! In Boston, I mean. He's coming to dine to-day. I told father."

"Of all schemers!" Patty laughed. "Really, Floss, uncle Chris will frighten Burleigh to death. They won't know how to take each other."

"No," was the answer. "But they needn't take each other. I'm the one to be taken."

"O Dandelion, Floss-head!" Patience cried, catching her cousin's face between her hands, and looking deep into her eyes. "Are you happy, Floss? Is being in love so delightful?"

"That depends upon who is in love," the little witch answered. "Some people in that predicament devote all their energies to making themselves uncomfortable. Let me go: there's the postman."

Out of the room she darted, leaving Patty, with cheeks aflame, to wonder how far her secret had been divined.

The postman brought no letter for Flossy; but at the same hour, in another part of the city, an epistle was delivered bearing the Montfield postmark. Miss Sturtevant tore it open in her cheerless room, and read as follows: —

Montfield, Nov. 26.

Dear Flora, – Peter Mixon is getting worse, instead of better, every day. I have tried my best to get what I want; but there's always a crew of women about him, and he's as obstinate as a mule. If you could come down, you'd be in the house with him, and you might do something. Of course, if you get the paper I would make it a good thing for you. Can't you come this week? Patty Sanford is always round him when she is here; but she is in Boston now, and you'd have a better chance before she gets back. At all events, come as soon as you can.

Yours truly,Frank Breck.

"Uncle Jacob," Flora said to herself, refolding the letter, "I shall go to Montfield to-night. Don't you hope I may give you those papers when I get them?"

CHAPTER XXXVIII

A TEST OF CIVILIZATION

"Now we shall see," Mr. Plant remarked to his niece as he led her down to dinner, "what stuff Mr. Blood is made of. There is no more crucial test of a man's civilization than the way in which he dines."

"Poor Burleigh!" Patty said to herself. "Little do you dream of the ordeal before you."

But Burleigh had received sundry very minute instructions from a city cousin who had taken it upon herself to prepare him a little for this important visit; and, although he eyed his turtle-soup doubtfully, he got through the first courses well enough. His diffidence was not wholly to his disadvantage, since he was so thoroughly in awe of his host as to treat him with a respect which Mr. Plant found very flattering. All went smoothly until what Flossy called the crisis of the dinner came.

Dining was with Mr. Plant the chief business of life. Other employments were in his eyes simply artifices to kill the time which nature demanded for getting up a proper appetite. He came to this solemn culmination of the day with a mind prepared to hold in reserve his judgment of the success or failure of twenty-four hours of life until he had dined.

"Father begins dinner," Flossy once said, "in good nature, because he thinks what a fine time he is going to have. By the time he is half way through, he has found enough things wrong to make him ready to be cross. Then he makes a curry, or a salad; and, if that succeeds, he comes out as happy and as gentle as a kitten."

To-day it was unluckily a curry upon which the epicure expended his energies; and having compounded a dish which might have warmed the soul and the liver of an old East-Indian, Mr. Plant sent a portion to his guest with the complacent comment that Mr. Blood would certainly find it the most delicious curry he had ever tasted.

Burleigh was just then talking to Patty.

"I forgot to tell you," he said, "that Tom Putnam came on the train with me."

"Tom Putnam!" exclaimed Patty.

"What is he in Boston for?" inquired Flossy.

"He is looking after that Smithers girl that ran off," Burleigh answered, absently conveying a generous portion of Mr. Plant's fiery preparation to his mouth. "Joe Brown's cousin, you know" —

He left his sentence unfinished, and caught wildly at a glass of water. The curry had suddenly asserted itself; and the general impression of the unsophisticated Burleigh was that he had taken a mouthful of live coals. He gasped and strangled, growing very red in the face, setting his lips together with a firm determination to swallow the scorching viand, or perish in the attempt.

"Isn't it delicious?" demanded the unconscious host, smacking his lips in unfeigned admiration. "What the devil!" he added, looking up, and catching a glimpse of the agonized face of his guest.

"Papa!" exclaimed Flossy.

"If Burleigh liked curry," Patty said, coming quickly to the rescue, "he would forfeit my good opinion forever. I think it is the most diabolical compound that it has ever entered into the heart of man to invent."

"Besides," her cousin put in, "I won't have you spoiling Mr. Blood's digestion with any of your monstrous mixtures. Think to what a condition you've reduced your own suffering family!"

"Very well," Mr. Plant said, with the air of one who has cast his pearls before swine. "Just as you like."

"But about this Smithers girl," Patty said indifferently. "What does he want of her?"

"He came to get her home again, if he can find her. Somebody saw her on the street in Boston. But her mother says she won't take her back."

"What does Mr. Putnam care about her?" queried Flossy.

"I'm sure I don't know," Burleigh answered.

"Some old flame," volunteered Mr. Plant a little spitefully. "I always thought Putnam couldn't be so quiet for nothing. He's a sly old boy. So he's after a runaway young woman, is he?"

A sudden and entire silence fell upon the party at this unlucky outburst; but Patty quickly broke it.

"I forgot to ask, Burleigh, when you are going home."

"I must go on the first train to-morrow," he answered. "I have to be at home to-morrow night."

"How nice!" Patty said. "I am going then. I am glad to have company."

"Patty Sanford!" cried her cousin. "You won't go a step before Monday."

But remonstrances were vain. Nothing could shake Patty's sudden determination to get away from Boston, now that her lover had come thither. Her conversation with Mrs. Smithers was indelibly imprinted upon her memory; and this new proof of his intimate relations with the woman or her daughter came to Patience like a stab in an old wound. She made a strong effort to hide her bitter sadness, but an irresistible impulse drove her homeward.

They were all together in the parlor when Mr. Putnam's card was handed to Patty.

"I will not see him!" she said excitedly, starting up from her chair.

"See whom?" asked Floss; while Burleigh's face betrayed his astonishment at this sudden outburst.

"Show him up here," Patty said to the servant, recovering her self-command. In another moment she was bowing to Tom Putnam, and giving him her fingers with an indifference which would not have discredited a society belle.

"We were speaking of your being in the city at dinner," she said presently; "but we thought your business so important we should hardly have the pleasure of seeing you."

"Important is merely a relative term," he answered. "I could not deny myself the pleasure of calling. I see Mr. Plant at Montfield so seldom, that I am glad of any excuse to get sight of him."

"You surely need no excuse for calling," that gentleman said graciously. "I am always glad to see you."

"But Mr. Putnam must have come to the city to see friends who are so much more interesting," Patty remarked, with her most dazzling smile, "that we are indeed flattered at his remembrance."

The girl scarcely knew herself, so strange and unnatural was the part she was playing. A spell seemed to constrain her to go on wounding her lover, even though the blow rebounded upon herself. Inwardly she was saying to herself, "How dare he come from pursuing that woman, and call on me?"

She nerved herself to the task; and, under a show of the utmost cordiality, she lashed Tom Putnam with all the scorn and sarcasm of which she was mistress. He received with dignity her attacks, or parried them adroitly; but he did not make his call a long one.

"God forgive us!" Mr. Plant said as soon as the lawyer had taken leave. "What had that poor devil done, Patty, that you baited him so? And he took it like a hero. If he didn't deserve it, you ought to be bastinadoed; and, if he did, he's brazen-faced enough. Anyway he's plucky. You treated him like a dog."

The company were decidedly out of spirits. Flossy was angry with her cousin's treatment of Putnam, and Burleigh was confused and uncomfortable by the state of the mental atmosphere. As for Mr. Plant, he was annoyed at his niece, at Mr. Blood, at the disturbances which hindered the usual slow and placid digestion of his dinner. He had resolutely avoided giving Burleigh an opportunity of seeing him alone; and now the poor suitor, lacking courage to ask for an interview, found himself obliged to speak out, or leave his errand undone.

"Mr. Plant," he blurted out after a period of perfect silence, in which he had been screwing his courage to the sticking-point, "I want to marry your daughter."

His host started as if a bomb had dropped at his feet.

"I like your impudence," he said.

"Sir?" stammered poor Burleigh, starting to his feet.

"Who are you?" Mr. Plant continued, his impatience finding vent at last, and pouring upon the head of the bewildered suitor. "Does Flossy look as if she'd make a good farmer's wife? Can you give her any thing to compensate for what she must sacrifice in marrying so far outside her circle? I repeat, I like your impudence!"

"I know she would be sacrificing," began Burleigh; but the irate father, whose annoyance had been increasing all day, interrupted.

"Sacrificing!" he said, "of course she is sacrificing. God save us! You'd be an idiot if you didn't know she was sacrificing a thousand times more than you can even understand. What right had you" —

"Papa," Flossy said, very pale, stepping up to her lover, and clasping her hands about his brawny arm, – "you forget, papa, that this is the man I am going to marry."

"Mr. Plant," Burleigh said, lifting his head proudly, and drawing his tiny betrothed close to him, "I never pretended to be worthy of your daughter, and never hoped to be; but she could not find one who would love her better, or be more honest in trying to make her life happy."

"Uncle Chris," whispered Patty, taking his arm, "come into the library."

"God save us!" he ejaculated, looking at her. "What are you crying for? – There, Mr. Blood, shake hands. Good-night, both of you. – Come, Patty."

CHAPTER XXXIX

THE NIGHT-WATCH

"I think, Patty," her mother said as the last word of a long and vain argument, "that you'll end by bringing my gray hairs to a grave in a lunatic-asylum. You are crazy to think of sitting up with Peter to-night. You are tired out with your ride from Boston anyway."