Patricia | Page 9

P'tricia, I'd shore say you was onery. I's going be 'bliged to disport you to your pa, if you continues such disbehavior."
Patricia scrambled to her feet, and came slowly over to the edge of the lawn. Then, lifting her apron, she asked quietly: "Is my frock torn, Sarah, or isn't it?"
"You knows it is, Miss P'tricia!"
Patricia stretched out one slender leg. "Is my stocking torn, or isn't it?"
Sarah groaned.
Wheeling suddenly round, and still holding up her apron, Patricia demanded: "Is my frock dirty, or isn't it?"
"Miss P'tricia, you's shore possessed to-day!"
"Aunt Julia said yesterday morning, that the very next time I got myself torn or dirty, needlessly, I must put a clean gingham apron on and go that way for the rest of the day."
"But, honey--you know Miss Julia never 'tended you to come to your own party in any such fixings! A gingham apron at a party! You come 'long upstairs with me, Miss P'tricia; I'll resume all the 'sponsibility."
"Aunt Julia said 'the very next time'; this is the very next time."
"She done lay out your dress 'fore she went, honey--so crisp and nice and all the pretty pink ribbons," Sarah spoke coaxingly.
"Aunt Julia didn't know--I hadn't tumbled out of the apple tree then."
"I'se going phonegraph your aunt right off!" Sarah declared.
Patricia caught her breath. Then she remembered. "But they haven't any 'phone at Gar's Hollow!"
Sarah wrung her hands. "And all them little ladies in white dresses, and the hostess o' the 'casion looking like 'straction!"
"I always feel like distraction when I'm all stiff and starchy and uncomfortable," Patricia said; "I'd rather look it than feel it."
"Oh, I ain't overlooking that you're powerful reconciled to going to your own party dressed like you is now, Miss P'tricia! Anyhow, you're going to have a good wash-up and your hair combed; Miss Julia ain't laid down no commands against that."
"W-well," Patricia slowly conceded, "only I'll see to it myself, Sarah."
Patricia's thick mop of brown curls was of the tangly order; and when things had gone wrong, Sarah's touch was not always of the gentlest.
An hour later, Sarah, from her post of vantage on the side porch, saw six little girls coming up the path. There were no boys invited. Miss Kirby thought it so much nicer for little girls to play quietly by themselves.
A moment, Sarah stared at them in amazement; then her fat sides shook with laughter. "I shore might've knowed it! So that's what she was so busy phonegraphing 'bout! That chile shore weren't born yesterday. Gingham aprons, every last one o' them!"
Some of the six wore sunbonnets, the rest plain garden hats; and all wore stout serviceable shoes and stockings. Never had those six little girls gone to a party before in such unparty-like costumes.
Patricia came dancing to meet them, bareheaded as usual. "Let's go down to the barn right off," she proposed. "Goodness, how funny you do look!" she giggled.
"So do you," Nell Hardy retorted; then the seven stood still a moment to survey one another.
"Oh!" Mable Lane cried, "whatever put such an idea into your head, Pat?"
"I--I happened to think of it, that was all," Patricia answered vaguely. "Come on--we'll play hide and seek, and no going out of the barn."
"Are--are there any horses there?" Susy asked.
Patricia shook her head. "Not today; Daddy's got Sam and Dick's gone to pasture."
They played hide and seek all over the delightful big dusty old barn; until Patricia, trying to reach goal by a short cut down from the loft, came to an abrupt halt in her descent, caught on a projecting beam.
"Go back!" Ruth Martin advised; but Patricia, wriggling herself free, dropped in a laughing heap on the barn floor.
"But you've torn your apron, Pat!" Nell exclaimed.
Patricia glanced up at the bit of blue gingham hanging from a nail in the beam.
"Look's like this was my busy day," she observed; "I'll go put another on."
"I put it on over the first," she explained, on her return. "You see, Aunt Julia said--I mean, I thought it would be--fun; and, anyhow, it saved time, it takes a lot of time to unbutton these aprons. Let's go down to the brook and wade." She glanced at Susy, who was looking rather doubtful. "Aren't you allowed to wade in brooks?"
"I--don't know," Susy began, then her mild little face took on a look of sudden resolution, "but I'm going to."
Patricia smiled in prompt friendliness. "Mostly, when I'm not sure I just take the chance," she encouraged.
Sitting on the edge of the brook, the seven took off shoes and stockings. "It's the queerest, nicest party," Bessy Martin declared.
It was a gay little brook, running between a broad, sunny meadow and the old Kirby apple orchard, broad enough in places to make the crossing of it on stepping stones delightfully uncertain, and again narrowing to a