Racketty-Packetty House | Page 7

make a fuss over trouble and put
it to bed and nurse it and give it beef tea and gruel, you can never get
rid of it.
Their great delight now was Lady Patsy. They thought she was prettier
than any of the other Tidy Castle dolls. She neither turned her nose up,
nor looked down the bridge of it, nor laughed mockingly. She had
dimples in the corners of her mouth and long curly lashes and her nose
was saucy and her eyes were bright and full of laughs.
[Transcriber's Note: See picture house.jpg]
"She's the clever one of the family," said Peter Piper. "I am sure of
that."
She was treated as an invalid at first, of course, and kept in her room;
but they could see her sitting up in her frilled nightgown. After a few
days she was carried to a soft chair lay the window and there she used
to sit and look out; and the Racketty-Packetty House dolls crowded
round their window and adored her.
After a few days, they noticed that Peter Piper was often missing and
one morning Ridiklis went up into the attic and found him sitting at a
window all by himself and staring and staring.
"Oh! Duke," she said (you see they always tried to remember each
other's titles). "Dear me, Duke, what are you doing here?"
"I am looking at her," he answered. "I'm in love. I fell in love with her
the minute Cynthia took her out of her box. I am going to marry her."
"But she's a lady of high degree," said Ridiklis quite alarmed.
"That's why she'll have me," said Peter Piper in his most cheerful
manner. "Ladies of high degree always marry the good looking ones in
rags and tatters. If I had a whole suit of clothes on, she wouldn't look at
me. I'm very good-looking, you know," and he turned round and
winked at Ridiklis in such a delightful saucy way that she suddenly felt
as if he was very good-looking, though she had not thought of it before.

"Hello," he said all at once. "I've just thought of something to attract
her attention. Where's the ball of string?"
Cynthia's kitten had made them a present of a ball of string which had
been most useful. Ridiklis ran and got it, and all the others came
running upstairs to see what Peter Piper was going to do. They all were
delighted to hear he had fallen in love with the lovely, funny Lady
Patsy. They found him standing in the middle of the attic unrolling the
ball of string.
"What are you going to do, Duke?" they all shouted.
"Just you watch," he said, and he began to make the string into a rope
ladder--as fast as lightning. When he had finished it, he fastened one
end of it to a beam and swung the other end out of the window.
"From her window," he said, "she can see Racketty-Packetty House and
I'll tell you something. She's always looking at it. She watches us as
much as we watch her, and I have seen her giggling and giggling when
we were having fun. Yesterday when I chased Lady Meg and Lady Peg
and Lady Kilmanskeg round and round the front of the house and
turned summersaults every five steps, she laughed until she had to stuff
her handkerchief into her mouth. When we joined hands and danced
and laughed until we fell in heaps I thought she was going to have a
kind of rosy-dimpled, lovely little fit, she giggled so. If I run down the
side of the house on this rope ladder it will attract her attention and then
I shall begin to do things."
He ran down the ladder and that very minute they saw Lady Patsy at
her window give a start and lean forward to look. They all crowded
round their window and chuckled and chuckled as they watched him.
[Transcriber's Note: See picture chuckled.jpg]
He turned three stately summersaults and stood on his feet and made a
cheerful bow. The Racketty-Packettys saw Lady Patsy begin to giggle
that minute. Then he took an antimacassar out of his pocket and
fastened it round the edge of his torn trousers leg, as if it were lace
trimming and began to walk about like a Duke--with his arms folded on
his chest and his ragged old hat cocked on one side over his ear. Then
the Racketty-Packettys saw Lady Patsy begin to laugh. Then Peter
Piper stood on his head and kissed his hand and Lady Patsy covered her
face and rocked backwards and forwards in her chair laughing and
laughing.

Then he struck an attitude with his tattered leg put forward gracefully
and he pretended he had a guitar