Jean Webster - Just Patty

Miss Sallie was the Dowager's daughter. She managed the practical end of the establishment—provided for the table, ruled the servants, and ran off, with the utmost ease, the two hundred acres of the school farm. Between the details of horseshoeing and haying and butter-making, she lent her abilities wherever they were needed. She never taught; but she disciplined. The school was noted for unusual punishments, and most of them originated in Miss Sallie's brain. Her title of "Dragonette" was bestowed in respectful admiration of her mental qualities.

The next day was Tuesday, Miss Sallie's regular time for inspecting the farm. As she came downstairs after luncheon drawing on her driving gloves, she just escaped stepping on Conny Wilder and Patty Wyatt who, flat on their stomachs, were trying to poke out a golf ball from under the hat-rack.

"Hello, girls!" was her cheerful greeting. "Wouldn't you like a little drive to the farm? Run and tell Miss Wadsworth that you are excused from afternoon study. You may stay away from Current Events this evening, and make it up."

The two scrambled into hats and coats in excited delight. A visit to Round Hill Farm with Miss Sallie, was the greatest good that St. Ursula's had to offer. For Miss Sallie—out of bounds—was the funniest, most companionable person in the world. After an exhilarating five-mile drive through a brown and yellow October landscape, they spent a couple of hours romping over the farm, had milk and ginger cookies in Mrs. Spence's kitchen; and started back, wedged in between cabbages and eggs and butter. They chatted gaily on a dozen different themes—the Thanksgiving masquerade, a possible play, the coming game with Highland Hall, and the lamentable new rule that made them read the editorials in the daily papers. Finally, when conversation flagged for a moment, Miss Sallie dropped the casual inquiry:

"By the way, girls, what has got into Mae Van Arsdale? She droops about in corners and looks as dismal as a molting chicken."

Patty and Conny exchanged a glance.

"Of course," Miss Sallie continued cheerfully, "it's perfectly evident what the trouble is. I haven't been connected with a boarding-school for ten years for nothing. The little idiot is posing as the object of an unhappy affection. You know that I never favor talebearing, but, just as a matter of curiosity, is it the young man who passes the plate in church, or the one who sells ribbon in Marsh and Elkins's?"

"Neither." Patty grinned. "It's an English nobleman."

"What?" Miss Sallie stared.

"And Mae's father hates English noblemen," Conny explained, "and has forbidden him ever to see her again."

"Her heart is broken," said Patty sadly. "She's going into a decline."

"And the violets?" inquired Miss Sallie.

"He promised not to send her any letters, but violets weren't mentioned."

"H'm, I see!" said Miss Sallie; and, after a moment of thought, "Girls, I am going to leave this matter in your hands. I want it stopped."

"In our hands?"

"The school can't be stirred up any longer; but the matter's too silly to warrant the teachers taking any notice of it. This is a thing that ought to be regulated by public opinion. Suppose you see what you can do—I will appoint you a committee to bring the school back to a solid basis of common sense. I know that I can trust you not to talk."

"I don't exactly see what we can do," said Patty, dubiously.

"You are usually not without resourcefulness," Miss Sallie returned with a flickering smile. "You may have a carte blanche to choose your own methods."

"And may we tell Priscilla?" Conny asked. "We must tell her because we three—"

"Hunt together?" Miss Sallie nodded. "Tell Priscilla, and let it stop at that."

The next afternoon, when Martin drove into the village to accomplish the daily errands, he dropped Patty and Priscilla at the florists, empowered by the school to purchase flowers for the rector's wife and new baby. They turned inside, their minds entirely occupied with the rival merits of red and white roses. They ordered their flowers, inscribed the card, and then waited aimlessly till Martin should return to pick them up. Passing down the counter, they came upon a bill-sticker, the topmost item being, "Violets every Saturday to Miss Mae Van Arsdale, St. Ursula's School."

They stopped and stared for a thoughtful moment. The florist followed their gaze.

"Do you happen to know the young lady who ordered them vi'lets?" he inquired. "She didn't leave any name, and I'd like to know if she wants me to keep on sending 'em. She only paid up to the first, and the price is going up."

"No, I don't know who it was," said Patty, with well-assumed indifference. "What did she look like?"

"She—she had on a blue coat," he suggested. As all sixty-four of the St. Ursula girls wore blue coats, his description was not helpful.

"Oh," Patty prompted, "was she quite tall with a lot of yellow hair and—"

"That's her!"

He recognized the type with some assurance.

"It's Mae herself!" Priscilla whispered excitedly.

Patty nodded and commanded silence.

"We'll tell her," she promised. "And by the way," she added to Priscilla, "I think it would be nice for us to send some flowers to Mae, from our—er—secret society. But I'm afraid the treasury is pretty low just now. They'll have to be cheaper than violets. What are your cheapest flowers?" she inquired of the man.

"There's a kind of small sunflower that some people likes for decoration. 'Cut-and-come-again' they're called. I can give you a good-sized bunch for fifty cents. They make quite a show."

"Just the thing! Send a bunch of sunflowers to Miss Van Arsdale with this card." Patty drew a blank card toward her, and in an upright back hand traced the inscription, "Your disconsolate C. St. J."

She sealed it in an envelope, then regarded the florist sternly.

"Are you a Mason?" she asked, her eye on the crescent in his buttonhole.

"Y—yes," he acknowledged.

"Then you understand the nature of an oath of secrecy? You are not to divulge to anyone the sender of these flowers. The tall young lady with the yellow hair will come in here and try to make you tell who sent them. You are not to remember. It may even have been a man. You don't know anything about it. This secret society at Saint Ursula's is so very much more secret than the Masonic Society, that it is even a secret that it exists. Do you understand?"

"I—yes, ma'am," he grinned.

"If it becomes known," she added darkly, "I shall not be responsible for your life."

She and Priscilla each contributed a quarter for the flowers.

"It's going to be expensive," Patty sighed. "I think we'll have to ask Miss Sallie for an extra allowance while this committee is in session."

Mae was in her room, surrounded by an assemblage of her special followers, when the flowers arrived. She received the box in some bewilderment.

"He's sending flowers on Wednesdays as well as Saturdays!" her room-mate cried. "He must be getting desperate."

Mae opened the box amid an excited hush.

"How perfectly lovely!" they cried in chorus, though with a slightly perfunctory undertone. They would have preferred crimson roses.

Mae regarded the offering for a moment of stupefied amazement. She had been pretending so long, that by now she almost believed in Cuthbert herself. The circle was waiting, and she rallied her powers to meet this unexpected crisis.

"I wonder what sunflowers mean?" she asked softly. "They must convey some message. Does anybody know the language of flowers?"

Nobody did know the language of flowers; but they were relieved at the suggestion.

"Here's a card!" Evalina Smith plucked it from among the bristling leaves.

Mae made a motion to examine it in private, but she had been so generous with her confidences heretofore, that she was not allowed to withdraw them at this interesting point. They leaned over her shoulder and read it aloud.