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

of it. This is a thing that ought to be regulated by public opinion. Suppose you see what you can do--I will appoint you a committee to bring the school back to a solid basis of common sense. I know that I can trust you not to talk."

"I don't exactly see what we can do," said Patty, dubiously.

"You are usually not without resourcefulness," Miss Sallie returned with a flickering smile. "You may have a carte blanche to choose your own methods."

"And may we tell Priscilla?" Conny asked. "We must tell her because we three--"

"Hunt together?" Miss Sallie nodded. "Tell Priscilla, and let it stop at that."

The next afternoon, when Martin drove into the village to accomplish the daily errands, he dropped Patty and Priscilla at the florists, empowered by the school to purchase flowers for the rector's wife and new baby. They turned inside, their minds entirely occupied with the rival merits of red and white roses. They ordered their flowers, inscribed the card, and then waited aimlessly till Martin should return to pick them up. Passing down the counter, they came upon a bill-sticker, the topmost item being, "Violets every Saturday to Miss Mae Van Arsdale, St. Ursula's School."

They stopped and stared for a thoughtful moment. The florist followed their gaze.

"Do you happen to know the young lady who ordered them vi'lets?" he inquired. "She didn't leave any name, and I'd like to know if she wants me to keep on sending 'em. She only paid up to the first, and the price is going up."

"No, I don't know who it was," said Patty, with well-assumed indifference. "What did she look like?"

"She--she had on a blue coat," he suggested. As all sixty-four of the St. Ursula girls wore blue coats, his description was not helpful.

"Oh," Patty prompted, "was she quite tall with a lot of yellow hair and--"

"That's her!"

He recognized the type with some assurance.

"It's Mae herself!" Priscilla whispered excitedly.

Patty nodded and commanded silence.

"We'll tell her," she promised. "And by the way," she added to Priscilla, "I think it would be nice for us to send some flowers to Mae, from our--er--secret society. But I'm afraid the treasury is pretty low just now. They'll have to be cheaper than violets. What are your cheapest flowers?" she inquired of the man.

"There's a kind of small sunflower that some people likes for decoration. 'Cut-and-come-again' they're called. I can give you a good-sized bunch for fifty cents. They make quite a show."

"Just the thing! Send a bunch of sunflowers to Miss Van Arsdale with this card." Patty drew a blank card toward her, and in an upright back hand traced the inscription, "Your disconsolate C. St. J."

She sealed it in an envelope, then regarded the florist sternly.

"Are you a Mason?" she asked, her eye on the crescent in his buttonhole.

"Y--yes," he acknowledged.

"Then you understand the nature of an oath of secrecy? You are not to divulge to anyone the sender of these flowers. The tall young lady with the yellow hair will come in here and try to make you tell who sent them. You are not to remember. It may even have been a man. You don't know anything about it. This secret society at Saint Ursula's is so very much more secret than the Masonic Society, that it is even a secret that it exists. Do you understand?"

"I--yes, ma'am," he grinned.

"If it becomes known," she added darkly, "I shall not be responsible for your life."

She and Priscilla each contributed a quarter for the flowers.

"It's going to be expensive," Patty sighed. "I think we'll have to ask Miss Sallie for an extra allowance while this committee is in session."

Mae was in her room, surrounded by an assemblage of her special followers, when the flowers arrived. She received the box in some bewilderment.

"He's sending flowers on Wednesdays as well as Saturdays!" her room-mate cried. "He must be getting desperate."

Mae opened the box amid an excited hush.

"How perfectly lovely!" they cried in chorus, though with a slightly perfunctory undertone. They would have preferred crimson roses.

Mae regarded the offering for a moment of stupefied amazement. She had been pretending so long, that by now she almost believed in Cuthbert herself. The circle was waiting, and she rallied her powers to meet this unexpected crisis.

"I wonder what sunflowers mean?" she asked softly. "They must convey some message. Does anybody know the language of flowers?"

Nobody did know the language of flowers; but they were relieved at the suggestion.

"Here's a card!" Evalina Smith plucked it from among the bristling leaves.

Mae made a motion to examine it in private, but she had been so generous with her confidences heretofore, that she was not allowed to withdraw them at this interesting point. They leaned over her shoulder and read it aloud.

"'Your disconsolate C. St. J.'--Oh, Mae, think how he must be suffering!"

"Poor man!"

"He simply couldn't remain silent any longer."

"He's the soul of honor," said Mae. "He wouldn't write a real letter because he promised not to, but I suppose--a little message like this--"

Patty Wyatt passing the door, sauntered in. The card was exhibited in spite of a feeble protest from Mae.

"That handwriting shows a lot of character," Patty commented.

This was considered a concession; for Patty, from the first, had held aloof from the cult of Cuthbert St. John. She was Rosalie's friend.

The days that followed, were filled with bewildering experiences for Mae Mertelle. Having accepted the first installment of sunflowers, she could not well refuse the second. Once having committed herself, she was lost. Candy and books followed the flowers in horrifying profusion. The candy was of an inexpensive variety--Patty had discovered the ten-cent store--but the boxes that contained it made up in decorativeness what the candy lacked; they were sprinkled with Cupids and roses in vivid profusion. A message in the same back hand accompanied each gift, signed sometimes with initials, and sometimes with a simple "Bertie." Parcels had never before been delivered with such unsuspicious promptitude. Miss Sallie was the one through whose hands they went. She