Jean Webster - Just Patty

"Oh, yes, he would," Patty assured her with doubtful comfort. "You haven't changed a bit in four years."

"And he wouldn't like me if he did know me. I'm not pretty, and my clothes are never nice, and—" Harriet was off again.

Patty regarded her for a moment of thoughtful silence, then she decided on a new tack. She stretched out a hand and shook her vigorously.

"For goodness' sake, stop crying! That's what's the matter with your father. No man can stand having tears dripped down his neck all the time."

Harriet arrested her sobs to stare.

"If you could see the way you look when you cry! Sort of streaked. Come here!" She took her by the shoulder and faced her before the mirror. "Did you ever see such a fright? And I was just thinking, before you began, about how pretty you looked. I was, honestly. You could be as pretty as any of the rest of us, if you'd only make up your mind—"

"No, I couldn't! I'm just as ugly as I can be. Nobody likes me and—"

"It's your own fault!" said Patty sharply. "If you were fat, like Irene McCullough, or if you didn't have any chin like Evalina Smith, there might be some reason, but there isn't anything on earth the matter with you, except that you're so damp! You cry all the time, and it gets tiresome to be forever sympathizing. I'm telling you the truth because I'm beginning to like you. There's never any use bothering to tell people the truth when you don't like them. The reason Conny and Pris and I get on so well together, is because we always tell each other the exact truth about our faults. Then we have a chance to correct them—that's what makes us so nice," she added modestly.

Harriet sat with her mouth open, too surprised to cry.

"And your clothes are awful," pursued Patty interestedly. "You ought not to let Miss Sallie pick 'em out. Miss Sallie's nice; I like her a lot, but she doesn't know any more than a rabbit about clothes; you can tell that by the way she dresses herself. And then, too, you'd be a lot nicer if you wouldn't be so stiff. If you'd just laugh the way the rest of us do—"

"How can I laugh when I don't think things are funny? The jokes the girls make are awfully silly—"

Speech was no longer possible, for Kid McCoy came stampeding down the corridor with as much racket as a cavalcade of horses. She was decked in a fur scarf and a necklace set with pearls, she wore a muff on her head, drum-major fashion; a lace handkerchief and a carved ivory fan protruded from the pocket of her blouse and a pink chiffon scarf floated from her shoulders; her wrist was adorned with an Oriental bracelet and she was lugging in her arms a silver-mounted Mexican saddle, of a type that might be suited to the plains of Texas, but never to the respectable country lanes adjacent to St. Ursula's.

"Bully for Guardie!" she shouted as she descended upon them. "He's a daisy; he's a ducky; he's a lamb. Did you ever see such a perfectly corking saddle?"

She plumped it over a chair, transformed the pink chiffon scarf into a bridle, and proceeded to mount and canter off.

"Get up! Whoa! Hi, there! Clear the road."

Harriet jumped aside to avoid being bumped, while Patty snatched her pink frock from the path of the runaway. They were shrieking with laughter, even Harriet, the tearful.

"Now you see!" said Patty, suddenly interrupting her mirth. "It's perfectly easy to laugh if you just let yourself go. Kid isn't really funny. She's just as silly as she can be."

Kid brought her horse to a stand.

"Well I like that!"

"Excuse me for telling the truth," said Patty politely, "I'm just using you for an illustration—Heavens! There's the bell!"

She commenced unlacing her blouse with one hand, while she pushed her guests to the door with the other.

"Hurry and dress, and come back to button me up. It would be a very delicate attention for us to be on time to-night. We've been late for every meal since vacation began."

The girls spent Christmas morning coasting. They were on time for luncheon—and with appetites!

The meal was half over when Osaki appeared with a telegram, which he handed to the Dowager. She read it with agitated surprise and passed it to Miss Sallie, who raised her eyebrows and handed it to Miss Wadsworth, who was thrown into a very visible flutter.

"What on earth can it be?" Kid wondered.

"Lordy's eloped, and they've got to hunt for a new Latin teacher," was Patty's interpretation.

As the three girls left the table, the Dowager waylaid Harriet.

"Step into my study a moment. A telegram has just come—"

Patty and Kid climbed the stairs in wide-eyed wonder.

"It can't be bad news, for Miss Sallie was smiling—" meditated Patty. "And I can't think of any good news that can be happening to Harriet."

Ten minutes later there was the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and Harriet burst into Patty's room wild with excitement.

"He's coming!"

"Who?"

"My father."

"When?"

"Right now—this afternoon—He's been in New York on business, and is coming to see me for Christmas."

"I'm so glad!" said Patty heartily. "Now, you see the reason he hasn't come before is because he has been away off in Mexico."

Harriet shook her head, with a sudden drop in her animation.

"I suppose he thinks he ought."

"Nonsense!"

"It's so. He doesn't care for me—really. He likes girls to be jolly and pretty and clever like you."

"Well, then— be jolly and pretty and clever like me."

Harriet's eyes sought the mirror, and filled with tears.

"You're a perfect idiot!" said Patty, despairingly.

"I'm an awful fright in my green dress," said Harriet.

"Yes," Patty grudgingly conceded. "You are."

"The skirt is too short, and the waist is too long."

"And the sleeves are sort of queer," said Patty.

Faced by these dispiriting facts, she felt her enthusiasm ebbing.

"What time is he coming?" she asked.

"Four o'clock."

"That gives us two hours," Patty rallied her forces. "One can do an awful lot in two hours. If you were only nearer my size, you could wear my new pink dress—but I'm afraid—" She regarded Harriet's long legs dubiously. "I'll tell you!" she added, in a rush of generosity. "We'll take out the tucks and let down the hem."

"Oh, Patty!" Harriet was tearfully afraid of spoiling the gown. But when Patty's zeal in any cause was roused, all other considerations were swept aside. The new frock was fetched from the closet, and the ripping began.

"And you can wear Kid's new pearl necklace and pink scarf, and my silk stockings and slippers—if you can get 'em on—and I think Conny left a lace petticoat that came back from the laundry too late to pack—and—Here's Kid now!"

Miss McCoy's sympathies were enlisted and in fifteen minutes the task of transforming a remonstrating, excited, and occasionally tearful Harriet into the school beauty, was going gaily forward. Kid McCoy was supposed to be an irreclaimable tomboy, but in this crucial moment the eternal feminine came triumphantly to the fore. She sat herself down, with Patty's manicure scissors, and for three-quarters of an hour painstakingly ripped out tucks.

Patty meanwhile addressed her attention to Harriet's hair.

"Don't strain it back so tight," she ordered. "It looks as though you'd done it with a monkey-wrench. Here! Give me the comb."

She pushed Harriet into a chair, tied a towel about her neck, and accomplished the coifing by force.

"How's that?" she demanded of Kid.

"Bully!" Kid mumbled, her mouth full of pins.

Harriet's hair was rippled loosely about her face, and tied with a pink ribbon bow. The ribbon belonged to Conny Wilder, and had heretofore figured as a belt; but individual property rights were forced to bow before the cause.