Patty at Home | Page 6

I
can dust and fly 'round; and that's about all there is to housekeeping,
anyway."
"Oh, Patty," said Aunt Alice, "my lessons must have fallen on stony
ground if you think that's all there is to housekeeping."
"That's merely a figure of speech, Aunt Alice," replied Patty. "You well
know I am a thoroughly capable and experienced housekeeper; honest,
steady, good-tempered, and with a fine reference from my last place."
"You're certainly a clever little housekeeper for your age," said her aunt,
"but I'm not sure you could keep house successfully, and go to school,
and practice your music, and attend to your club all at the same time."
"But I wouldn't do them all at the same time, Aunt Alice. I'd have a
time for everything, and everything in it place. I would go to school,
and practise, and housekeep, and club; all in their proper proportions--"
Here Patty glanced at her father. "You see, if I had the proportions right,
all would go well."
"Well, perhaps," said Mr. Fairfield, "if we had a competent cook and a
tidy little waitress, we could get along without a professional
housekeeper. I admit I had hoped to have Patty keep house for me and
preside at my table, and at any rate, it would do no harm to try it as an
experiment; then, if it failed, we could make some other arrangement."
"I guess I do want to sit at the head of our table, papa," said Patty; "I'd
just like to see a housekeeper there! A prim, sour-faced old lady with a
black silk dress and dangling ear-rings! No, I thank you. If I have my

way I will keep that house myself, and when I get into any trouble, I
will fly to Aunt Alice for rest and refreshment."
"We'll all help," said Marian; "I'll make lovely sofa-pillows for you,
and I'm sure grandma will knit you an afghan."
"That isn't much towards housekeeping," said Frank. "I'll come over
next summer and swing your hammock for you, and put up your
tennis-net."
"And meantime," said Uncle Charley, "until the house is bought and
furnished, the Fairfield family will be the welcome guests of the
Elliotts. It's almost the middle of December now, and I don't think,
Miss Patty Fairfield, that you'll get your home settled in time to make a
visit in New York this winter; and now, you rattle-pated youngsters,
run to bed, while I discuss some plans sensibly with my brother-in-law
and fellow townsman."
CHAPTER III
THE TEA CLUB
"Well I should think you'd better stay in Vernondale, Patty Fairfield, if
you know what's good for yourself! Why, if you had attempted to leave
this town, we would have mobbed you with tar and feathers, or
whatever those dreadful things are that they do to the most awful
criminals."
"Oh, if I had gone, Polly, I should have taken this club with me, of
course. I'm so used to it now, I'm sure I couldn't live a day, and know
that we should meet no more, as the Arab remarked to his beautiful
horse."
"It would be rather fun to be transported bodily to New York as a club,
but I'd want to be transported home again after the meeting," said Helen
Preston.
"Why shouldn't we do that?" cried Florence Douglass. "It would be lots

of fun for the whole club to go to New York some day together."
"I'm so glad Patty is going to stay with us, I don't care what we do,"
said Ethel Holmes, who was drawing pictures on Patty's white
shirt-waist cuffs as a mark of affection.
"I'm glad, too," said Patty; "and, Ethel, your kittens are perfectly lovely,
but this is my last clean shirt-waist, and those pencil-marks are awfully
hard to wash out."
"I don't mean them to be washed out," said Ethel, calmly going on with
her art work; "they're not wash drawings, they're permanent decorations
for your cuffs, and are offered as a token of deep regard and esteem."
The Tea Club was holding a Saturday afternoon meeting at Polly
Stevens's house, and the conversation, as yet, had not strayed far from
the all-engrossing subject of Patty's future plans.
The Tea Club had begun its existence with lofty and noble aims in a
literary direction, to be supplemented and assisted by an occasional
social cup of tea. But if you have had any experience with merry,
healthy young girls of about sixteen, you will not be surprised to learn
that the literary element had softly and suddenly vanished away, much
after the manner of a Boojum. Then, somehow, the social interest grew
stronger, and the tea element held its own, and the result was a most
satisfactory club, if not an instructive one.
"But," as Polly Stevens had said,