When Patty Went to College

Jean Webster

When Patty Went to College

I

Peters the Susceptible

"GAPER-WEIGHTS," observed Patty, sucking an injured thumb, "were evidently not made for driving in tacks. I wish I had a hammer."

This remark called forth no response, and Patty peered down from the top of the step-ladder at her room-mate, who was sitting on the floor dragging sofa-pillows and curtains from a dry-goods box.

"Priscilla," she begged, "you aren't doing anything useful. Go down and ask Peters for a hammer."

Priscilla rose reluctantly. "I dare say fifty girls have already been after a hammer."

"Oh, he has a private one in his back pocket. Borrow that. And, Pris,"—Patty called after her over the transom,—"just tell him to send up a man to take that closet door off its hinges."

Patty, in the interval, sat down on the top step and surveyed the chaos beneath her. An Oriental rush chair, very much out at the elbows, several miscellaneous chairs, two desks, a divan, a table, and two dry-goods boxes radiated from the center of the room. The floor, as it showed through the interstices, was covered with a grass-green carpet, while the curtains and hangings were of a not very subdued crimson.

"One would scarcely," Patty remarked to the furniture in general, "call it a symphony in color."

A knock sounded on the door.

"Come in," she called.

A girl in a blue linen sailor-suit reaching to her ankles, and with a braid of hair hanging down her back, appeared in the doorway. Patty examined her in silence. The girl's eyes traveled around the room in some surprise, and finally reached the top of the ladder.

"I—I'm a freshman," she began.

"My dear," murmured Patty, in a deprecatory tone, "I should have taken you for a senior; but"—with a wave of her hand toward the nearest dry-goods box—"come in and sit down. I need your advice. Now, there are shades of green," she went on, as if continuing a conversation, "which are not so bad with red; but I ask you frankly if that shade of green would go with anything?"

The freshman looked at Patty, and looked at the carpet, and smiled dubiously. "No," she admitted; "I don't believe it would."

"I knew you would say that!" exclaimed Patty, in a tone of relief. "Now what would you advise us to do with the carpet?"

The freshman looked blank. "I—I don't know, unless you take it up," she stammered.

"The very thing!" said Patty. "I wonder we hadn't thought of it before."

Priscilla reappeared at this point with the announcement, "Peters is the most suspicious man I ever knew!" But she stopped uncertainly as she caught sight of the freshman.

"Priscilla," said Patty, severely, "I hope you didn't divulge the fact that we are hanging the walls with tapestry"—this with a wave of her hand toward the printed cotton cloth dangling from the molding.

"I tried not to," said Priscilla, guiltily, "but he read 'tapestry' in my eyes. He had no sooner looked at me than he said, 'See here, miss; you know it's against the rules to hang curtains on the walls, and you mustn't put nails in the plastering, and I don't believe you need a hammer anyway.'"

"Disgusting creature!" said Patty.

"But," continued Priscilla, hastily, "I stopped and borrowed Georgie Merriles's hammer on my way back. Oh, I forgot," she added; "he says we can't take the closet door off its hinges—that as soon as we get ours off five hundred other young ladies will be wanting theirs off, and that it would take half a dozen men all summer to put them back again."

A portentous frown was gathering on Patty's brow, and the freshman, wishing to avert a possible domestic tragedy, inquired timidly, "Who is Peters?"

"Peters," said Priscilla, "is a short, bow-legged gentleman with a red Vandyke beard, whose technical title is janitor, but who is really dictator. Every one is afraid of him—even Prexy."

"I'm not," said Patty; "and," she added firmly, "that door is coming down whether he says so or not, so I suppose we shall have to do it ourselves." Her eyes wandered back to the carpet and her face brightened. "Oh, Pris, we've got a beautiful new scheme. My friend here says she doesn't like the carpet at all, and suggests that we take it up, get some black paint, and put it on the floor ourselves. I agree," she added, "that a Flemish oak floor covered with rugs would be a great improvement."

Priscilla glanced uncertainly from the freshman to the floor. "Do you think they'd let us do it?"

"It would never do to ask them," said Patty.

The freshman rose uneasily. "I came," she said hesitatingly, "to find out—that is, I understand that the girls rent their old books, and I thought, if you wouldn't mind—"

"Mind!" said Patty, reassuringly. "We'd rent our souls for fifty cents a semester."

"It—it was a Latin dictionary I wanted," said the freshman, "and the girls next door said perhaps you had one."

"A beautiful one," said Patty.

"No," interrupted Priscilla; "hers is lost from O to R, and it's all torn; but mine,"—she dived down into one of the boxes and hauled out a chunky volume without any covers,—"while it is not so beautiful as it was once, it is still as useful."

"Mine's annotated," said Patty, "and illustrated. I'll show you what a superior book it is," and she began descending the ladder; but Priscilla charged upon her and she retreated to the top again. "Why," she wailed to the terrified freshman, "did you not say you wanted a dictionary before she came back? Let me give you some advice at the beginning of your college career," she added warningly. "Never choose a room-mate bigger than yourself. They're dangerous."

The freshman was backing precipitously toward the door, when it opened and revealed an attractive-looking girl with fluffy reddish hair.

"Pris, you wretch, you walked off with my hammer!"

"Oh, Georgie, we need it worse than you do! Come in and help tack."

"Hello, Georgie," called Patty, from the ladder. "Isn't this room going to be beautiful when it's finished?"

Georgie looked about. "You are more sanguine than I should be," she laughed.

"You can't tell yet," Patty returned. "We're going to cover the wall-paper with this red stuff, and paint the floor black, and have dark furniture, and red hangings, and soft lights. It will look just like the Oriental Room in the Waldorf."

"How in the world," Georgie demanded, "do you ever make them let you do all these things? I stuck in three innocent little thumb-tacks to-day, and Peters descended upon me bristling with wrath, and said he'd report me if I didn't pull them out."

"We never ask," explained Patty. "It's the only way."

"You've got enough to do if you expect to get settled by Monday," Georgie remarked.

"C'est vrai," agreed Patty, descending the ladder with a sudden access of energy; "and you've got to stay and help us. We have to get all this furniture moved into the bedrooms and the carpet up before we even begin to paint." She regarded the freshman tentatively. "Are you awfully busy?"

"Not very. My room-mate hasn't come yet, so I can't settle."

"That's nice; then you can help us move furniture."

"Patty!" said Priscilla, "I think you are too bad."

"I should really love to stay and help, if you'll let me."

"Certainly," said Patty, obligingly. "I forgot to ask your name," she continued, "and I don't suppose you like to be called 'Freshman'; it's not specific enough."

"My name is Genevieve Ainslee Randolph."

"Genevieve Ains—dear me! I can't remember anything like that. Do you mind if I call you Lady Clara Vere de Vere for short?"

The freshman looked doubtful, and Patty proceeded: "Lady Clara, allow me to present my room-mate Miss Priscilla Pond—no relation to the extract. She's athletic and wins hundred-yard dashes and hurdle races, and gets her name in the paper to a really gratifying extent. And my dear friend Miss Georgie Merriles, one of the oldest families in Dakota. Miss Merriles is very talented—sings in the glee club, plays on the comb—"

"And," interrupted Georgie, "let me present Miss Patty Wyatt, who—"

"Has no specialty," said Patty, modestly, "but is merely good and beautiful and bright."

A knock sounded on the door, which opened without waiting for a response. "Miss Theodora Bartlet," continued Patty, "commonly known as the Twin, Miss Vere de Vere."

The Twin looked dazed, murmured, "Miss Vere de Vere," and dropped down on a dry-goods box.

"The term 'Twin,'" explained Patty, "is used in a merely allegorical sense. There is really only one of her. The title was conferred in her freshman year, and the reason has been lost in the dim dawn of antiquity."

The freshman looked at the Twin and opened her mouth, but shut it again without saying anything.

"My favorite maxim," said Patty, "has always been, 'Silence is golden.' I observe that we are kindred spirits."

"Patty," said Priscilla, "do stop bothering that poor child and get to work."

"Bothering?" said Patty. "I am not bothering her; we are just getting acquainted. However, I dare say it is not the time for hollow civilities. Do you want to borrow anything?" she added, turning to the Twin, "or did you just drop in to pay a social call?"

"Just a social call; but I think I'll come in again when there's no furniture to move."

"You don't happen to be going into town this afternoon?"

"Yes," said the Twin. "But," she added guardedly, "if it's a curtain-pole, I refuse to bring it out. I offered to bring one out for Lucille Carter last night, because she was in a hurry to give a house-warming, and I speared the conductor with it getting into the car; and while I was apologizing to him I knocked Mrs. Prexy's hat off with the other end."

"We have all the curtain-poles we need," said Patty. "It's just some paint—five cans of black paint, and three brushes at the ten-cent store, and thank you very much. Good-by. Now," she continued, "the first thing is to get that door down, and I will wrest a screw-driver from the unwilling Peters while you remove tacks from the carpet."

"He won't give you one," said Priscilla.

"You'll see," said Patty.

Five minutes later she returned waving above her head an unmistakable screw-driver. "Voilà, mes amies! Peters's own private screw-driver, for which I am to be personally responsible."

"How did you get it?" inquired Priscilla, suspiciously.

"You act," said Patty, "as if you thought I knocked him down in some dark corner and robbed him. I merely asked him for it politely, and he asked me what I wanted to do with it. I told him I wanted to take out screws, and the reason impressed him so that he handed it over without a word. Peters," she added, "is a dear; only he's like every other man—you have to use diplomacy."

By ten o'clock that night the study carpet of 399 was neatly folded and deposited at the end of the corridor above, whence its origin would be difficult to trace. The entire region was steeped in an odor of turpentine, and the study floor of 399 was a shining black, except for four or five unpainted spots which Patty designated as "stepping-stones," and which were to be treated later. Every caller that had dropped in during the afternoon or evening had had a brush thrust into her hand and had been made to go down upon her knees and paint. Besides the floor, three bookcases and a chair had been transferred from mahogany to Flemish oak, and there was still half a can of paint left which Patty was anxiously trying to dispose of.

The next morning, in spite of the difficulty of getting about, the step-ladder had been reërected, and the business of tapestry-hanging was going forward with enthusiasm, when a knock suddenly interrupted the work.

Patty, all unconscious of impending doom, cheerily called, "Come in!"

The door opened, and the figure of Peters appeared on the threshold; and Priscilla basely fled, leaving her room-mate stranded on the ladder.

"Are you the young lady who borrowed my screw—" Peters stopped and looked at the floor, and his jaw dropped in astonishment. "Where is that there carpet?" he demanded, in a tone which seemed to imply that he thought it was under the paint.

"It's out in the hall," said Patty, pleasantly. "Please be careful and don't step on the paint. It's a great improvement, don't you think?"

"You oughter got permission—" he began, but his eye fell on the tapestry and he stopped again.

"Yes," said Patty; "but we knew you couldn't spare a man just now to paint it for us, so we didn't like to trouble you."

"It's against the rules to hang curtains on the walls."

"I have heard that it was," said Patty, affably, "and I think ordinarily it's a very good rule. But just look at the color of that wall-paper. It's pea-green. You have had enough experience with wall-paper, Mr. Peters, to know that that is impossible, especially when our window-curtains and portières are red."

Peters's eyes had traveled to the closet, bereft of its door. "Are you the young lady," he demanded gruffly, "who asked me to have that door taken off its hinges?"

"No," said Patty; "I think that must have been my room-mate. It was very heavy," she continued plaintively, "and we had a great deal of trouble getting it down, but of course we realized that you were awfully busy, and that it really wasn't your fault. That's what I wanted the screw-driver for," she added. "I'm sorry that I didn't get it back last night, but I was very tired, and I forgot."

Peters merely grunted. He was examining a corner cabinet hanging on the wall. "Didn't you know," he asked severely, "that it's against the rules to put nails in the plaster?"

"Those aren't nails," expostulated Patty. "They're hooks. I remembered that you didn't like holes, so I only put in two, though I am really afraid that three are necessary. What do you think, Mr. Peters? Does it seem solid?"

Peters shook it. "It's solid enough," he said sulkily. As he turned, his eye fell on the table in Priscilla's bedroom. "Is that a gas-stove in there?" he demanded.

Patty shrugged her shoulders. "An apology for one—be careful, Mr. Peters! Don't get against that bookcase. It's just painted."

Peters jumped aside, and stood like the Colossus of Rhodes, with one foot on one stepping-stone, and the other on another three feet away. It is hard for even a janitor to be dignified in such a position, and while he was gathering his scattered impressions Patty looked longingly around the room for some one to enjoy the spectacle with her. She felt that the silence was becoming ominous, however, and she hastened to interrupt it.

"There's something wrong with that stove; it won't burn a bit. I am afraid we didn't put it together just right. I shouldn't be surprised if you might be able to tell what's the matter with it, Mr. Peters." She smiled sweetly. "Men know such a lot about such things! Would you mind looking at it?"

Peters grunted again; but he approached the stove.

Five minutes later, when Priscilla stuck her head in to find out if, by chance, anything remained of Patty, she saw Peters on his knees on the floor of her bedroom, with the dismembered stove scattered about him, and heard him saying, "I don't know as I have any call to report you, for I s'pose, since they're up, they might as well stay"; and Patty's voice returning: "You're very kind, Mr. Peters. Of course if we'd known—" Priscilla shut the door softly, and retired around the corner to await Peters's departure.

"How in the world did you manage him?" she asked, bursting in as soon as the sound of his footsteps had died away down the corridor. "I expected to sing a requiem over your remains, and I found Peters on his knees, engaged in amicable conversation."

Patty smiled inscrutably. "You must remember," she said, "that Peters is not only a janitor: he is also a man."

II

An Early Fright

"I'LL make the tea to-day," said Patty, graciously.

"As you please," said Priscilla, with a skeptical shrug.

Patty bustled about amid a rattle of china. "The cups are rather dusty," she observed dubiously.

"You'd better wash them," Priscilla returned.

"No," said Patty; "it's too much trouble. Just close the blinds, please, and we'll light the candles, and that will do as well. Come in," she called in answer to a knock.

Georgie Merriles, Lucille Carter, and the Bartlet Twin appeared in the doorway.

"Did I hear the two P's were going to serve tea this afternoon?" inquired the Twin.

"Yes; come in. I'm going to make it myself," answered Patty, "and you'll see how much more attentive a hostess I am than Priscilla. Here, Twin," she added, "you take the kettle out and fill it with water; and, Lucille, please go and borrow some alcohol from the freshmen at the end of the corridor; our bottle's empty. I'd do it myself, only I've borrowed such a lot lately, and they don't know you, you see. And—oh, Georgie, you're an obliging dear; just run down-stairs to the store and get some sugar. I think I saw some money in that silver inkstand on Priscilla's desk."

"We've got some sugar," objected Priscilla. "I bought a whole pound yesterday."

"No, my lamb; we haven't got it any more. I lent it to Bonnie Connaught last night. Just hunt around for the spoons," she added. "I think I saw them on the bottom shelf of the bookcase, behind Kipling."

"And what, may I ask, are you going to do?" inquired Priscilla.

"I?" said Patty. "Oh, I am going to sit in the arm-chair and preside."

Ten minutes later, the company being disposed about the room on cushions, and the party well under way, it was discovered that there were no lemons.

"Are you sure?" asked Patty, anxiously.

"Not one," said Priscilla, peering into the stein where the lemons were kept.

"I," said Georgie, "refuse to go to the store again."

"No matter," said Patty, graciously; "we can do very well without them." (She did not take lemon herself.) "The object of tea is not for the sake of the tea, but for the conversation which accompanies it, and one must not let accidents annoy him. You see, young ladies," she went on, in the tone of an instructor giving a lecture, "though I have just spilled the alcohol over the sugar, I appear not to notice it, but keep up an easy flow of conversation to divert my guests. A repose of manner is above all things to be cultivated." Patty leaned languidly back in her chair. "To-morrow is Founder's Day," she resumed in a conversational tone. "I wonder if many—"

"That reminds me," interrupted the Twin. "You girls needn't save any dances for my brother. I got a letter from him this morning saying he couldn't come."

"He hasn't broken anything, has he?" Patty asked sympathetically.

"Broken anything?"

"Ah—an arm, or a leg, or a neck. Accidents are so prevalent about Founder's time."

"No; he was called out of town on important business."

"Important business!" Patty laughed. "Dear man! why couldn't he have thought of something new?"

"I think myself it was just an excuse," the Twin acknowledged. "He seemed to have an idea that he would be the only man here, and that, alone and unaided, he would have to dance with all six hundred girls."

Patty shook her head sadly. "They're all alike. Founder's wouldn't be Founder's if half the guests didn't develop serious illness or important business or dead relations the last minute. The only safe way is to invite three men and make out one program."

"I simply can't realize that to-morrow is Founder's," said Priscilla. "It doesn't seem a week since we unpacked our trunks after vacation, and before we know it we shall be packing them again for Christmas."

"Yes; and before we know it we'll be unpacking them again, with examinations three weeks ahead," said Georgie the pessimist.

"Oh, for the matter of that," returned Patty the optimist, "before we know it we'll be walking up one side of the platform for our diplomas and coming down the other side blooming alumnæ."

"And then," sighed Georgie, "before we even have time to decide on a career, we'll be old ladies, telling our grandchildren to stand up straight and remember their rubbers."

"And," said Priscilla, "before any of us get any tea we'll be in our graves, if you don't stop talking and watch that kettle."

"It's boiling," said Patty.

"Yes," said Priscilla; "it's been boiling for ten minutes."

"It's hot," said Patty.

"I should think it might be," said Priscilla.

"And now the problem is, how to get it off without burning one's self."

"You're presiding to-day; you must solve your own problems."

"'Tis an easy matter," and Patty hooked it off on the end of a golf-club. "Young ladies," she said, with a wave of the kettle, "there is nothing like a college education to teach you a way out of every difficulty. If, when you are out in the wide, wide world—"

"Where, oh, where are the grave old seniors?"

chanted the Twin.

"Where, oh, where are they?"

The rest took it up, and Patty waited patiently.

"They've gone out of Cairnsley's ethics,They've gone out of Cairnsley's ethics,They've gone out of Cairnsley's ethics,Into the wide, wide w-o-r-l-d."

"If you have finished your ovation, young ladies, I will proceed with my lecture. When, as I say, you are out in the wide, wide world, making five-o'clock tea some afternoon for one of the young men popularly supposed to be there, who have dropped in to make an afternoon call—Do you follow me, young ladies, or do I speak too fast? If, while you are engaged in conversation, the kettle should become too hot, do not put your finger in your mouth and shriek 'Ouch!' and coquettishly say to the young man, 'You take it off,' as might a young woman who has not enjoyed your advantages; but, rather, rise to the emergency; say to him calmly, 'This kettle has become over-heated; may I trouble you to go into the hall and bring an umbrella?' and when he returns you can hook it off gracefully and expeditiously as you have seen me do, young ladies, and the young—"

"Patty, take care!" This from Priscilla.

"O-u-c-h!" in a long-drawn wail. This from Georgie.

Patty hastily set the kettle down on the floor. "I'm awfully sorry, Georgie. Does it hurt?"

"Not in the least. It's really a pleasant sensation to have boiling water poured over you."

The Bartlet Twin sniffed. "I smell burning rug."

Patty groaned. "I resign, Pris; I resign. Here, you preside. I'll never ask to make it again."

"I should like," observed the Twin, "to see Patty entertaining a young man."

"It's not such an unprecedented event," said Patty, with some warmth. "You can watch me to-morrow night if it will give you so much pleasure."

"To-morrow night? Are you going to have a man for the Prom?"

"That," said Patty, "is my intention."

"And you haven't asked me for a dance!" This in an aggrieved chorus from the entire room.

"I haven't asked any one," said Patty, with dignity.

"Do you mean you're going to have all of the twenty dances with him yourself?"

"Oh, no; I don't expect to dance more than ten with him myself—I haven't made out his card yet," she added.

"Why not?"

"I never do."

"Has he been here before, then?"

"No; that's the reason."

"The reason for what?"

"Well," Patty deigned to explain, "I've invited him for every party since freshman year."

"And did he decline?"

"No; he accepted, but he never came."

"Why not?"

"He was scared."

"Scared? Of the girls?"

"Yes," said Patty, "partly—but mostly of the faculty."

"The faculty wouldn't hurt him."

"Of course not; but he couldn't understand that. You see, he had a fright when he was young."

"A fright? What was it?"

"Well," said Patty, "it happened this way: It was while I was at boarding-school. He was at Andover then, and his home was in the South; and one time when he went through Washington he stopped off to call on me. As it happened, the butler had left two days before, and had taken with him all the knives and forks, and all the money he could find, and Nancy Lee's gold watch and two hat-pins, and my silver hair-brush, and a bottle of brandy, and a pie," she enumerated with a conscientious regard for details; "and Mrs. Trent—that's the principal—had advertised for a new butler."