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

'Gypsy Trail.'" (This was the latest song that had swept the school.) "I'll play an accompaniment on the tambourine, and you can flap your sole. Maybe they'll give us ten cents. It would be a beautiful lark to earn our car-fare home--I'm sure it's worth ten cents to hear me sing."

Conny glanced up and down the deserted street. No policeman was in sight. She grudgingly allowed herself to be drawn up the walk, and the music began. The children applauded loudly; and the two were just congratulating themselves on a very credible performance, when the door opened and a woman appeared--a first cousin to Miss Lord.

"Stop that noise immediately! There's somebody sick inside."

The tone also was reminiscent of Latin. They turned and ran as fast as Conny's flapping sole would take her. When they had put three good blocks between themselves and the Latin woman, they dropped down on a friendly stepping-stone, and leaned against each other's shoulders and laughed.

A man rounded the corner of the house before them, pushing a mowing machine.

"Here, you!" he ordered. "Move on."

They got up, meekly, and moved on several blocks further. They were going in exactly the opposite direction from St. Ursula's school, but they couldn't seem to hit on anything else to do, so they kept on moving mechanically. They had arrived in the outskirts of the village by now, and they presently found themselves face to face with a tall chimney and a group of low buildings set in a wide enclosure--the water-works and electric plant.

A light of hope dawned in Patty's eyes.

"I'll tell you! We'll go and ask Mr. Gilroy to take us home in his automobile."

"Do you know him?" Conny asked dubiously. She had received so many affronts that she was growing timid.

"Yes! I know him intimately. He was under foot every minute during the Christmas vacation. We had a snow fight one day. Come on! He'll love to run us out. It will give him an excuse to make up with Jelly."

They passed up a narrow tarred walk toward the brick building labeled "Office." Four clerks and a typewriter girl in the outer office interrupted their work to laugh as the two apparitions appeared in the door. The young man nearest them whirled his chair around in order to get a better view.

"Hello, girls!" he said with cheerful familiarity. "Where'd you spring from?"

The typewriter, meanwhile, was making audible comments upon the discrepancies in Patty's hosiery.

Patty's face flushed darkly under the coffee.

"We have called to see Mr. Gilroy," she said with dignity.

"This is Mr. Gilroy's busy day," the young man grinned. "Wouldn't you rather talk to me?"

Patty drew herself up haughtily.

"Please tell Mr. Gilroy--at once--that we are waiting to speak to him."

"Certainly! I beg your pardon." The young man sprang to his feet with an air of elaborate politeness. "Will you kindly give me your cards?"

"I don't happen to have a card with me to-day. Just say that two ladies wish to speak with him."

"Ah, yes. One moment, please--Won't you be seated?"

He offered his own chair to Patty, and bringing forward another, presented it to Conny with a Chesterfieldian bow. The clerks tittered delightedly at this bit of comedy acting, but the Gypsies did not condescend to think it funny. They accepted the chairs with a frigid, "Thank you," and sat stiffly upright staring at the wastebasket in their most distant society manner. While the deferential young man was conveying the message to the private office of his chief, public comment advanced from Patty's stockings to Conny's shoes. He returned presently, and with unruffled politeness invited them please to step this way. He ushered them in with a bow.

Mr. Gilroy was writing, and it was a second before he glanced up. His eyes widened with astonishment--the clerk had delivered the message verbatim. He leaned back in his chair and studied the ladies from head to foot, then emitted a curt:

"Well?"

There was not a trace of recognition in his glance.

Patty's only intention had been to announce their identity, and invite him to deliver them at St. Ursula's door, but Patty was incapable of approaching any matter by the direct route when a labyrinth was also available. She drew a deep breath, and to Conny's consternation, plunged into the labyrinth.

"You Mr. Laurence K. Gilroy?" she dropped a curtsy. "I come find-a you."

"So I see," said Mr. Laurence K. Gilroy, dryly. "And now that you've found me, what do you want?"

"I want tell-a your fortune," Patty glibly dropped into the lingo she and Conny had practised on the school the night before. "You cross-a my hand with silver--I tell-a your fortune."

This was no situation of Conny's choosing, but she was always staunchly game.

"Nice-a fortune," she backed Patty up. "Tall young lady. Ver' beautiful."

"Well, of all the nerve!"

Mr. Gilroy leaned back in his chair and regarded them severely, but with a gleam of amusement flickering through.

"Where did you get my name?" he demanded.

Patty waved her hand airily toward the open window and the distant horizon--as it showed between the coal sheds and the dynamo building.

"Gypsy peoples, dey learn signs," she explained lucidly. "Sky, wind, clouds--all talk--but you no understand. I get message for you--Mr. Laurence K. Gilroy--and we come from long-a way off to tell-a your fortune." With a pathetic little gesture, she indicated their damaged foot gear. "Ver' tired. We travel far."

Mr. Gilroy put his hand in his pocket and produced two silver half dollars.

"Here's your money. Now be honest! What sort of a bunco game is this? And where in thunder did you get my name?"

They pocketed the money, dropped two more curtsies, and evaded inconvenient questions.

"We tell-a your fortune," said Conny, with business-like directness. She brought out the pack of cards, plumped herself cross-legged on the floor, and dealt them out in a wide circle. Patty seized the gentleman's hand in her two coffee-stained little paws, and turned it palm up for inspection. He made an embarrassed effort to draw away, but she clung with the tenacious grip of a monkey.

"I