Carolyn Wells - Patty—Bride

“That’s true, Patty. What are you doing, that I can help you with? Any sort of work where you could use a pair of willing hands?”

“But you’re going off aviating – ”

“Haven’t gone yet! Dunno when I will go. In the mean time let me help you. What’s your newest plan?”

“Well, for one thing, I’m going to help entertain the boys in khaki. A committee has asked me to, and if Nan agrees, I mean to devote one evening a week to it. Say we ask a few to dinner, and some more to come in the evening, and have some music and games and make it pleasant for them.”

“Count me in. I’ll gladly help out with such a program. Even after I go to Wilmington, I can get up here once a fortnight at least, – maybe, oftener.”

“All right. Now, what I’m thinking out, is how to make it pleasant for the boys we invite. I’d like to give them some real pleasure, not only some music and silly chatter.”

“Such as what? I mean, what have you in mind?”

“Well, I thought of getting some interesting lecturer – ”

“Cut it out, Patty. They don’t want lectures, – of all things!”

“What do they want?”

“I think the most of them want just a home atmosphere, and a few hours of pleasant company, without much reference in the chat to war conditions.”

“Do you think so?”

“I’m sure of it. If you ask half a dozen soldiers and have your father and Mrs. Fairfield here, and a few girl friends of yours, if you like, I’ll guarantee your visitors will be better entertained than if you had the finest lecturer that ever droned out a lot of platitudes.”

“All right, Philip, you help me to get up such a party, and try it, – will you?”

“I sure will, and that with much quickness. Shall we say a week from tonight?”

“Yes that will be fine. I’ll ask Elise and – ”

“Don’t go too fast. I’ll find the khaki boys first, and then you get the rest.”

“All right,” agreed Patty.

“Hello! Patty Popinjay! Where are you?”

As a matter of fact, Patty was curled up in a big armchair near the library fire, waiting for that very voice.

“Here I am!” she cried in return and jumped up to be grabbed in the arms of a handsome, jolly-looking girl who came flying into the room. “Oh, Bumble, I’m so glad to see you!”

The newcomer laughed.

“Bumble!” she exclaimed; “I haven’t heard that name for years. Let me look at you, Patty. My! you’re prettier than ever! Well, I just had to come. I couldn’t resist, when I heard of your engagement. Where’s the man? Show him to me at once!”

“Oh, he isn’t here, for the moment. But you’ll see him soon. I’m only afraid you’ll cut me out. Why, Bumble, – Helen, I mean, you’re utterly changed from the little girl I remember.”

“Of course I am – in appearance, – but no other way.”

“Are you still the happy-go-lucky, hit-or-miss little rascal you used to be?”

“Of course I am. Oh, Patty, doesn’t it seem long ago that you spent that summer with us? And to think I’ve scarcely seen you since! Not since Nan’s wedding, anyway.”

“No; and you only in Philadelphia! It’s ridiculous. But, I’ve tried to get you over here time and again.”

“I know it. But I went out West to Stanford, and I was there so long, I almost lost track of all my Eastern people. Your Best Beloved is Western, isn’t he? Oh, Patty, tell me all, – everything about him.”

“All in good time, Helen, honey. For now, I’ll just say that he’s the dearest and best man in the whole world, and that you’ll agree to that when you see him. Now, come up to your room, and fix yourself up. You look as if you’d been through a whirlwind!”

“I always look like that,” and Helen Barlow laughed.

She was Patty’s cousin, and had come to New York for a visit. She had often been invited and several times had planned to come, but something had prevented her, and as the Barlow family were of a most undependable sort in the matter of keeping engagements or appointments, it surprised nobody that Helen had not carried out her plans. Indeed the surprise was that she was really here at last, and Patty stared at her hard to reassure herself that her guest had positively appeared.

Helen Barlow was a pretty girl, about Patty’s own age. Her soft brown hair was curled round her ears, in the prevailing mode, but it showed various wisps out of place, and needed certain pats and adjustments before a mirror. Her hat, a brown velvet toque, was a little askew, – even more so than she meant it to be, – and the long fur stole, over her arm, dragged on the floor.

Without being positively unkempt, Helen was untidy, and Patty well remembered that as a child she had been far more so.

The two girls went up to the room prepared for Helen, and soon her outer garments went flying. The hat was tossed on the bed, upside down; the stole slipped to the floor as the long cloth coat was wrenched open and one button pulled off by an impatient twitch.

“Never mind,” Helen said, “that old button was loose, anyway. Oh, Patty, how trim and tidy you look!”

It was second nature to Patty to be well groomed, and she would have been sadly uncomfortable with a button missing or a ribbon awry, unless intentionally so. For Patty was no prim young person, but she was by no means untidy.

She laughed at her cousin’s impetuous ways, and picked up the scattered garments, as fast as Helen flung them down.

“Don’t you have a maid, Patty? I supposed of course you did.”

“Oh, we have Jane. She maids Nan and me both, when we want her. But she does a lot of other things, too. We don’t have as many servants as we used to. Patriotism has struck this house, you know, and we’ve cut out more or less of the luxuries.”

“Good for you! I’m patriotic, too. Do you knit?”

“Of course; who doesn’t? Now, Bumble, – oh, yes, I’m going to call you by the old name if I want to, – do try to make yourself look tidy! Take down your hair and do it over. Your hair is lovely, – if you’d take a little more pains with it.”

“To be sure! Anything to please!” and Helen shook down her short curly mop. “Let me see his picture,” she demanded as she brushed vigorously away. “Quick! quick! I can’t wait a minute!”

Patty ran out of the room, laughing, and returned with a photograph of Farnsworth.

“Stunning!” cried Helen, “he’s simply great! Wherever did you catch him? Are there any more at home like him? ’Deed I will steal him away from you, if I possibly can. Oh, Patty, do you remember Chester Wilde? Well, he wants me to marry him, but I can’t see it! That’s one reason I ran away from home, to escape his persistence.”

“I do believe you’re a belle, Bumble! You’re fascinating, I see. Mercy goodness, you’ll cut poor little me out with everybody!”

“As if you cared! Now that you’re wooed and won!”

“Of course I don’t care. You can have all the others, – and there are plenty, – only, so many of them are going or gone to war.”

“I know, all my best ones have, too. But you couldn’t like a man who doesn’t want to fight!”

“I should say nixy !”

“What’s your Bill do? Is he in camp?”

“Oh, no. You know, he’s an expert mining engineer, and he’s used, – I mean, his services are used by the government. I can’t tell you all about it, because I don’t know all myself; and what I do know, I’m not allowed to tell, in detail. So don’t ask, Helen; just know my little Billee is doing his full duty, – and then some!”

“Little! Is he little? He doesn’t look so, from this picture.”