Just Patty by Jean Webster (the little red hen read aloud .TXT) 📕

"Yes, she can," said Patty. "But she's too cocky. I'd just like to see that man come back, and show her her place!"

The masqueraders trooped in and the serious business of the day commenced. The school posed as a whole, then an infinity of smaller groups disentangled themselves and posed separately, while those who were not in the picture stood behind the camera and made the others laugh.

"Young ladies!" the exasperated photographer implored. "Will you kindly be quiet for just two seconds? You have made me spoil three plates. And will that monk on the end stop giggling? Now! All ready. Please keep your eyes on the stove-pipe hole, and hold your positions while I count three. One, two, three--thank you very much!"

He removed his plate with a flourish, and dove into the dark room.

It was Patty's and Conny's turn to be taken alone, but St. Ursula and her Eleven Thousand Virgins were clamoring for precedence on the ground of superior numbers, and they made such a turmoil that the two Gypsies politely stood aside.

Keren Hersey, as St. Ursula, and eleven little Junior A's--each playing the manifold part of a Thousand Virgins--made up the group. It was to be a symbolical picture, Keren explained.

When the Gypsies' turn came a second time, Patty had the misfortune to catch her dress on a nail and tear a three-cornered rent in the front. It was too large a hole for even a Gypsy to carry off with propriety; she retired to the dressing-room and fastened the edges together with white basting thread.

Finally, last of all, they presented themselves in their dirt and tatters. The photographer was an artist, and he received them with appreciative delight. The others had been patently masqueraders, but these were the real thing. He photographed them dancing, and wandering on a lonely moor with threatening canvas clouds behind them. He was about to take them in a forest, with a camp fire, and a boiling kettle slung from three sticks--when Conny suddenly became aware of a brooding quiet that had settled on the place.

"Where is everybody?"

She returned from a hasty excursion into the waiting-room, divided between consternation and laughter.

"Patty! The hearse has gone!--And the street-car people are waiting on the corner by Marsh and Elkins's."

"Oh, the beasts! They knew we were in here." Patty dropped her three sticks and rose precipitately. "Sorry!" she called to the photographer, who was busily dusting off the kettle. "We've got to run for it."

"And we haven't any coats!" wailed Conny. "Miss Wadsworth won't take us in the car in these clothes."

"She'll have to," said Patty simply. "She can't leave us on the corner."

They clattered downstairs, but wavered an instant in the friendly darkness of the doorway; there was no time, however, for maidenly hesitations, and taking their courage in both hands, they plunged into the Saturday afternoon crowd that thronged Main Street.

"Oh, Mama! Quick! Look at the Gypsies," a little boy squealed as the two pushed past.

"Heavens!" Conny whispered. "I feel like a circus parade."

"Hurry!" Patty panted, taking her by the hand and beginning to run. "The car's stopped and they're getting in--Wait! Wait!" She frenziedly waved the tambourine above her head.

An express wagon at the crossing blocked their progress. The last of the Eleven Thousand Virgins climbed aboard, without once glancing over her shoulder; and the car, unheeding, clanged away, and became a yellow spot in the distance. The two Gypsies stood on the corner and stared at one another in blank interrogation.

"I haven't a cent--have you?"

"Not one."

"How are we going to get home?"

"I haven't an idea."

Patty felt her elbow jostled. She turned to find young John Drew Dominick Murphy, a protégé of the school, and an intimate acquaintance of her own, regarding her with impish delight.

"Hey, youse! Give us a song and dance."

"At least our friends don't recognize us," said Conny, drawing what comfort she could from her incognito.

Quite a crowd had gathered by now, and it was rapidly growing larger. Pedestrians had to make a detour into the street in order to get past.

"It wouldn't take us long," said Patty, a spark of mischief breaking through the blankness of her face, "to earn money enough for a carriage--you thump the tambourine and I'll dance the sailor's hornpipe."

"Patty! Behave yourself." Conny for once brought a dampening supply of common sense to bear on her companion. "We're going to graduate in another week. For goodness' sake, don't let's get expelled first."

She grasped her by the elbow and shoved her insistently down a side street. John Drew Murphy and his friends followed for several blocks, but having gazed their fill, and perceiving that the Gypsies had no entertainment to offer, they gradually dropped away.

"Well, what shall we do?" asked Conny when they had finally shaken off the last of the small boys.

"I s'pose we could walk."

"Walk!" Conny exhibited her flapping sole. "You don't expect me to walk three miles in that shoe?"

"Very well," said Patty. "What shall we do?"

"We might go back to the photographer's and borrow some car-fare."

"No! I'm not going to parade myself the length of Main Street again with that hole in my stocking."

"Very well," Conny shrugged. "Think of something."

"I suppose we could go to the livery stable and--"

"It's on the other side of town--I can't flap all that distance. Every time I take a step, I have to lift my foot ten inches high."

"Very well." It was Patty's turn to shrug. "Perhaps you can think of something better?"

"I think the simplest way would be to take a car, and ask the conductor to charge it to us."

"Yes--and explain for the benefit of all the passengers that we belong at St. Ursula's School? It would be all over town by night, and the Dowager would be furious."

"Very well--what shall we do?"

They were standing at the moment before a comfortable frame house with three children romping on the veranda. The children left off their play to come to the top of the steps and stare.

"Come on!" Patty urged. "We'll sing the