Patty in the City E-Book

Carolyn Wells

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Patty and her dad decide to spend part of the year in New York City. She moves to New York and enrolls in the Oliphant School. Then she starts to make friends, as she always does, and she even starts a club called the Grig. First appearance of the Farringtons. „Patty in the City „ (1905) is the third book of the Patty Fairfield collection, a total of 17 novels covering the life of this happy and cheerful American teenager of a century ago, as she matures and comes of age, and, in the meantime, living all kind of amazing adventures. Patty Fairfield is a pretty, well-mannered, graceful, thoughtful, smart, but not too smart 14 year old who will make us laugh and cry, and learn about life with her.

Leseprobe

Contents

CHAPTER I. PLANS

CHAPTER II. A LAST MEETING

CHAPTER III. A NEW HOME

CHAPTER IV. LORRAINE

CHAPTER V. A NEW SCHOOL

CHAPTER VI. THE REASON WHY

CHAPTER VII. SOME NEW FRIENDS

CHAPTER VIII. A TEA-PARTY

CHAPTER IX. HILDA

CHAPTER X. GRIGS

CHAPTER XI. EXPERIENCES

CHAPTER XII. A VISIT TO THE HOSPITAL

CHAPTER XIII. ELISE

CHAPTER XIV. THE CASINO

CHAPTER XV. A PLEASANT SATURDAY

CHAPTER XVI. A CAPABLE COOK

CHAPTER XVII. LORRAINE’S ENDEAVOUR

CHAPTER XVIII. THE CIRCUS PARTY

CHAPTER XIX. THEMES

CHAPTER XX. TWO CONFIDENTIAL INTERVIEWS

CHAPTER XXI. THE CINDERELLA PARTY

CHAPTER XXII. “IT”

CHAPTER XXIII. CHRISTMAS

CHAPTER I. PLANS

It was the third week in September when the Fairfields left the seashore and returned to their Vernondale home.

“Now, my child,” said Mr. Fairfield, as they sat on the veranda after dinner, “I will unfold to you my plans for the coming winter, and you may accept, or reject, or amend them as you please.”

“Proceed,” said Patty, settling herself comfortably in her wicker chair; “I feel in an amiable mood this evening, and will probably agree to anything you may suggest.”

“I’ve been thinking for some time,” went on her father, “that I don’t want to spend the coming winter in Vernondale. I would much rather be in New York.”

“Reason number one–Nan,” said Patty, checking it off on her forefinger and smiling at her father.

“Yes,” he responded, with an answering smile, “she is reason number one, but there are others.”

To readers who are unfamiliar with Patty’s earlier history we may say right here that her mother had died when Patty was but three years old. At present she lived with her father in their little home in Vernondale, an establishment of which Patty greatly prided herself on her management.

Recently Mr. Fairfield had become engaged to Miss Nan Allen, a young lady who lived in Philadelphia, and who was a dear friend of Patty’s.

“You know,” Mr. Fairfield went on, “this Vernondale house was only an experiment, and although it has proved successful in its own way, I want to try another experiment of a winter in the city. As you so wisely discern, it is partly for the sake of being nearer to Nan. The Allens will spend part of the winter in New York, and, too, Philadelphia is more easily accessible from there than from here. We shall not be married until spring, and so your absolute monarchy will extend through the winter, and you can then abdicate in favor of the new queen.”

“And I’ll be glad enough to do it,” cried Patty; “it isn’t abdication at all; or if it is, I’m glad of it. I’m perfectly delighted that you’re going to marry Nan, and though it does seem ridiculous to have one of my own friends for a stepmother, yet she’s six years older than I am, and if she wants to rule me with a rod of iron, she may.”

“I fancy there won’t be much stepmothering about it; I’m afraid you’ll be two refractory children, and I’ll have to take care of you both.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Patty, laughing. “You’ve become so absurdly young yourself of late that I think I shall have to take care of you two. But tell me some more about your New York plans. Shall we have a house of our own?”

“No; I think not–this winter. Although you are all that is admirable by way of a housekeeper, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s too much responsibility for you; and of course, would be much more so in the city. So I think we’ll take a suite of rooms in some nice apartment hotel. This, you see, will make it more convenient for me in regard to my business; for I’m quite ready to confess that I’m tired of enjoying a commuter’s privileges. From our city home I could probably reach my office in less than half an hour, while from here it takes me fully an hour and a half, besides the discomforts of the railroad and ferry trip.”

“That would be nice,” said Patty thoughtfully; “then we wouldn’t have to have breakfast so early, and I wouldn’t have to wait for you so long at night.”

“Another thing,” went on her father, “is your own education. I want you to have a year or two at some good school in the city, and I do not want you to go back and forth every day from here. And you ought to take singing lessons, and there are lots of things you ought to learn. During your rather migratory life of the past two years your education has really been neglected, and it won’t do. You’re growing up, to be sure, but you’re still a schoolgirl, and must remain one for a couple of years more at least. When we take Nan into the family she can look after the housekeeping, and so you will be free to attend to your studies; but this winter, as I say, you must not have household cares to interfere. And so a few rooms in some nice hotel will make a home for us that shall be cosey and pleasant, and yet not fill your life with the cares and duties of housekeeping.”

“All right, papa,” said Patty, “I think it will be lovely, and I’m ready to go, right straight off. Of course I’m sorry to leave the Vernondale girls, and they’ll be as mad as hops at me for going; but I do love the city, and I think we’ll have a beautiful time. When shall we start?”

“Not to-night,” said Mr. Fairfield, smiling at his impetuous daughter; “there are some trifling details to be settled first. You see, you’re a country girl, my child, and deplorably ignorant of city ways. Has it occurred to you that it would hardly do for you and me to live alone in a city hotel? For I must necessarily be down at my office all day, and, too, I shall probably make occasional trips to Philadelphia. At such times you would be alone in our apartment, which is, of course, out of the question. Have you anything to suggest?”

“I never thought of that. I thought we could live together there just the same as we do here. You’re always away all day.”

“Yes, but here there are the three servants to look after you. And, too, conventions are not quite the same in New York and Vernondale. I don’t want a governess for you, for I want you to have the experiences of school life.”

“I might have a maid,” said Patty, anxious to suggest something. “I might take Pansy.”

“No,” said her father, “that isn’t the kind of person you require. The third person in our home must be a lady who can look after you and advise you, and occasionally go about with you.”

“Well then, marry Nan right away, and let her do all this.”

“That would do admirably, but there is one obstacle. I laid that plan before Nan herself, and she positively refused to come and be one of us before next spring.”

“Well, what can we do?” asked Patty.

“Why, I think this the solution of the problem: Let us take Grandma Elliott to spend the winter with us.”

“Just the thing!” exclaimed Patty, clapping her hands; “she’s the very one! she loves to live in the city and she’s lived there so much she knows all about it, and I’m sure she’d be glad to go.”

“Yes, she would be just the right one; she’s a very wise lady, and although she’s perhaps sixty years old, she is as active and energetic as many much younger women. She is quite conversant with the proprieties, and would know even better than I just what you can and can’t do. For you must know, Patty girl, that your life in New York will be more restricted in many ways than it is here. There are certain rules that must be observed, and while I want you to have a good time and a happy time, yet you must realise that you are still only a schoolgirl, and must conduct yourself as such.”

“Can’t I go to anything except school, papa?” asked Patty, looking a little dismayed.

“Well, perhaps on nice afternoons I might take you for a walk around the block,” said her father, laughing at her anxious face. “But suppose we go over and see what Grandma Elliott has to say about it.”

“All right,” said Patty, “but you must protect me from Marian’s ferocity. She’ll be as mad as a raging lion.”

When the question of the Fairfields’ permanent residence was under discussion a year earlier, Grandma Elliott was perhaps the only one in favour of their living in New York. The younger Mrs. Elliott, who was Mr. Fairfield’s sister, had most decidedly been of the opinion that a home in the small town of Vernondale was in every way better adapted to Patty’s welfare.

Patty’s cousins had vociferously agreed to this, and the result was that Mr. Fairfield had taken a house in Vernondale for a year. Patty had proved a most satisfactory little housekeeper, for she had a real talent for household management, but even Aunt Alice had at last come to agree with Mr. Fairfield that the responsibilities were rather heavy for a schoolgirl.

As Patty had anticipated, the Elliott children, and especially Marian, received the news with expressions of emphatic disapproval.

“I knew you’d do it!” wailed Marian, “but I think it’s perfectly horrid, and I’ll never forgive you as long as I live! I don’t want you to go away from Vernondale, and you won’t like it a bit in New York, I know you won’t. You can’t do anything at all; you can’t go out into the street without a chaperon, and a maid, and two policemen! And whatever will the Tea Club do without you?”

“I’ll have all the Tea Club come in to a meeting at my house,” said Patty, anxious to pacify her cousin.

“We won’t come! we’ll none of us ever speak to you again! we’ll cross your name off the books and forget that you ever existed!”

It was so seldom that the gentle Marian became excited over anything that Patty felt really sorry, and tried her best to put the matter in its most attractive light.

“Don’t talk like that, Marian,” she said; “papa has decided that we are to go, and so there’s no use in discussing that part of it. Now the thing to do is to find the bright side and look on that.”

This was Patty Fairfield’s philosophy in a nutshell. All her life she had not only unquestioningly accepted the inevitable, but had immediately found its bright side and ignored all others. This was partly the cause and partly the effect of her bright sunshiny disposition and her uniformly happy and contented frame of mind.

“Just think, Marian,” she went on, “you can come to see me and we can have lots of fun. We’ll have all the girls come over while you’re there, and it will be jolly to have a Tea Club meeting in a hotel.”

“Yes, that will be fun,” assented Marian, “but after the meeting we’ll all have to come home and leave you there. I suppose I’m selfish, but I don’t care! I don’t want you to go away from Vernondale, Patty Fairfield, and I think you’re a mean old thing to go!”

It seemed impossible to do anything with Marian in her present mood, so Patty turned to Aunt Alice for sympathy.

“I feel quite as sorry to have you go as Marian does,” said Mrs. Elliott, looking lovingly at her niece, “though I don’t express myself in such violent language. But Brother Fred has been talking to me and he has convinced me that it is a good plan in many ways. So I am going to give you up bravely, and I think that after a while Marian will be able to face the matter more calmly.”

“I don’t think it’s half bad,” broke in Frank Elliott; “of course we shall miss Patty like the dickens, but I shall spend much of my time visiting her in New York.”

“Do,” said Patty, delighted at this unlooked-for support; “come just as often as you like and I’ll guarantee that you’ll have a good time.”

Then Mr. Fairfield proposed his plan of taking Grandma Elliott to spend the winter with them in the city.

Grandma’s eyes beamed with delight as she listened, for the old lady was urban in her tastes and had lived far the greater part of her life in New York.

Aunt Alice and Uncle Charlie heartily approved of this arrangement.

“We shall miss you dreadfully,” said Mr. Elliott to his mother, “but we shall let you go cheerfully, for I well know how much you will enjoy it.”

But Marian set up another howl.

“It’s bad enough to have Patty go,” she said, “but to have Grandma go, too, is terrible. I suppose you’ll take mother and little Gilbert, as well.”

“Marian, you’re a goose!” said Patty, laughing. “If you don’t stop talking like that, I’ll take you along and keep you there all winter.”

“I don’t want to do that,” said Marian, “but I don’t want you to go either. I know one thing, though–after you’ve been there a week you’ll be so disgusted you’ll come trailing back again.”

“And after you’ve visited me for a week you’ll be so enchanted that you won’t want to come trailing back,” said Patty, laughing at her cousin’s woe-begone expression.

“When are you going?” asked Marian in a tone of final resignation.

“Very soon,” said Mr. Fairfield, “for I want to get this ignorant daughter of mine into school as quickly as possible. Indeed, we shall go as soon as Grandma Elliott is ready to accompany us.”

“You won’t have to wait long for me,” said Grandma; “I shall be all ready by the time you have found your house.”

CHAPTER II. A LAST MEETING

Patty and her father looked at several apartments before they found one which seemed satisfactory in every way. It was necessary that it should be near the school Patty was to attend, and also conveniently located with a view to Mr. Fairfield’s daily trips downtown.

Besides this, Mr. Fairfield was particular about the atmosphere of the hotel. Some they looked into seemed to Patty like gorgeous glittering palaces, with decorations so rich and ornate as to be almost barbaric. These Mr. Fairfield came out of as rapidly as he went in, and more than once Patty cast a longing backward glance at the marble floors and gilded frescoes which her father seemed to scorn. On the other hand, Mr. Fairfield was equally ill-pleased with a house which was unattractive in appearance, or whose furnishings were not tasteful.

Patty almost began to think that her father was too fastidious, and would never be able to find a place that would exactly suit him.

However, the moment they stepped inside of a certain apartment hotel named The Wilberforce, Mr. Fairfield’s face showed an expression of satisfaction, which immediately convinced Patty that they had struck the right trail at last.

And so it proved, for after looking into several suites of rooms then vacant, Mr. Fairfield told Patty that if she could feel contented to take up her abode there, he thought he could.

Patty willingly agreed, for she, too, liked The Wilberforce from the first.

The hotel faced Central Park, and though not among the largest in the city, it was more attractively planned than any of the others they had looked at.

The apartment they liked best was a corner one with windows looking toward the east and south. The large corner room had a beautiful bay window, and was so light and sunny that Patty declared it should be their library.

“Library, sitting-room and general living-room,” said her father, laughing; “you know, Puss, you can’t have as many rooms at your disposal in the city as you have in Vernondale. But we’ll have all our books and favourite belongings in this room, and I’m sure we can make it very comfortable. Then this smaller room next will be a more formal reception room for casual callers.”

There were four bedrooms, and Mr. Fairfield insisted that the two sunniest and pleasantest ones should be assigned to Patty and Grandma Elliott. The other two, whose windows opened on an airshaft instead of on the street, were to be Mr. Fairfield’s bedroom and a guest-room.

The whole apartment was very prettily furnished in good taste, and entirely without that lavish use of bright colours which so often characterises a hotel.

The library was in green and the little reception-room in pale blue.

Patty’s own room was daintily done up in pink, and though perhaps not just the colour she would have chosen, it was so fresh and pretty that she expressed herself perfectly satisfied.

Of course, everything in the way of chairs and tables was amply provided, but the Fairfields proposed to bring in a quantity of their own furniture, rugs, pictures and books.

Having decided on the apartment, Mr. Fairfield drew a plan of it so that when they returned home they might better decide what pieces of furniture could be accommodated.

Patty flew around from room to room in great delight.

“I’m so used to changing my home,” she said, “that I really feel quite at home in this apartment already. This library is going to be the loveliest room in the world. You can have your desk there, and I can have my little desk here, and we’ll have our big library table in the middle, just as it is at home. Then we’ll have Grandma’s little work-table by this window. This big fireplace is perfectly fascinating and we can bring our brass andirons and fireset. They’re a lot prettier than these old black iron things. And we can bring a book-case or two, can’t we, papa?”

“You can bring whatever you like, Chicken; but I wouldn’t advise carting in many of those heavy things at first, until we’re sure we like the place well enough to stay all winter. It certainly looks attractive, and it has been highly recommended to me, but after all it may prove to have serious disadvantages. So at first we’ll just bring our desks, and some books and pictures, and a few little trinkets to prettify the rooms, and then later on, if we like it, we can run back to Vernondale for a few more things.”

“Yes, that is best, papa,” said Patty; “you always do know what is best. And now how soon do you suppose we can come in to stay?”

“I think we’ll move next Saturday. I can take a whole holiday that day, and get you and Grandma safely established here.”

So eager was Patty to select and pack up the things she wanted to take to the city that she could scarcely wait to get back to Vernondale. It had been a tiresome day, but as soon as she reached home she quite forgot her fatigue in the fun of making her selections. Her favourite pictures were taken from the walls and stood in the hall ready to be packed. All of her tea-things, a small selection of bric-a-bric, and a large box of books were added. Then Patty packed her own trunk and her father’s. Mr. Fairfield looked after the heavier matters, such as rugs and chairs and the two desks and Grandma’s little work-table.

Altogether, it seemed like a regular moving, and Marian, who came over in the midst of the excitement, sat down on the box of books and burst into tears.

“Marian,” said Patty, almost crying herself, “if you don’t stop acting like that I don’t know what I shall do. I’m rapidly growing homesicker and homesicker, and now if you commence to weep all over the place I shall just go to pieces entirely.”

“But you want to go away,” wailed Marian, between her sobs, “you just want to go, and that’s the worst of it! If you did cry you’d be nothing but an old hypocrite!”

“I do want to go, but I’m sorry to leave Vernondale, too. Don’t you suppose I’m fond of all you girls? Don’t you suppose I’ll miss you like sixty? And don’t you suppose it’s a heap worse for me to go away from you all than it is for you to have me go? Why, there’s lots of you to cheer each other up, and there’s only one of me. But what’s the use of acting like this, anyway? I’ve got to go, and I might as well go laughing as crying. If your father wanted you to go, you’d go, and I wouldn’t do all I could to make it harder for you by crying from morning to night.”

The logic of these remarks seemed to impress Marian, for she stopped crying, and said: “I suppose I am a horrid old thing to act so, and I am going to stop, at least until after you’re gone, and then I’m going to cry all I want to.”

“Do,” said Patty, “have a real good time and cry all day, and every day, if you like. But now come on and help me pack my photographs.”

Marian was as good as her word. She cried no more, and though her demeanour was not exactly hilarious, she ceased wearing a reproachful air, and went around helping Patty with a loving good-will.

The last few days before their departure Patty and Mr. Fairfield spent at the Elliotts’ home.

The trunks and boxes had all been sent away, and Boxley Hall was shut up and securely barred and fastened.

The servants had found other situations. Mancy was going to live at Miss Daggett’s, though the good-natured coloured woman was not all sure of her ability to stay with that sharp-tongued lady.

Pansy was to live with the Elliotts, and Mr. Fairfield had promised her that if under his sister’s tuition she became a competent waitress she should come the next year to live in the city house of the new Mrs. Fairfield. Pansy was delighted at this prospect, for she had become devotedly attached to the Fairfields, and, moreover, was a great admirer of the lovely Miss Allen.

The day before Patty was to leave Vernondale the Tea Club had a farewell meeting at Marian’s.

“You know, Patty,” said Elsie Morris, “that you’ll still have to be president of the Club. We utterly refuse to let anyone else have that position.”

“But that’s perfectly silly,” protested Patty; “it would be much more sensible for me to be an honourable or honorary ex-president, and you put in somebody else to rule the Club this winter.”

“Pooh,” said Ethel Holmes, “don’t flatter yourself you ruled this Club!”

“No,” said Patty, laughing, “or if I did rule them, they overruled me. You’re a fractious lot, and it’s far from being an easy task to be your president. However, as I want you to have somebody to keep you straight during my absence, I’m going to propose my cousin Marian for the office of president.”

This proposal was most favourably received, and Marian was unanimously elected president of the Tea Club, until such time as Patty should return to Vernondale. For the girls, one and all, refused to admit that Patty was going away permanently. They chose to assume that she was merely going to New York for the winter, and implicitly believed that the summer months would see her again established at Boxley Hall.

“And very likely we shall return,” said Patty. “Nobody can foretell what my father is going to do, and nobody can stop him when he once decides what he is going to do. I certainly never dreamed he was going to marry Nan, until he told me so himself.”

“Aren’t you glad about it?” asked Helen Preston.

“Yes, indeed,” exclaimed Patty; “I’m as happy as can be about it. I just love Nan, and it will be just like having a sister. I wish they’d get married right away, only then I suppose we wouldn’t have Grandma Elliott with us this winter, and I’d be sorry about that. Now remember, girls, just as soon as we get settled at The Wilberforce you’re all to come in some Saturday. Papa says not to come for tea, because it makes you so late getting home, but to come for luncheon, and he’ll take us all to the matinée afterward.”

There was a general chorus of glee at this, for the girls were well acquainted with the kind and genial Mr. Fairfield, and his invitation meant a delightful treat.

“I do think your father is lovely,” said Polly Stevens, “and I think you’re going to have beautiful times in the city this winter. I really quite envy you.”

“But I wish you weren’t going,” said Christine Converse; “I don’t see how the Tea Club can get along at all without you.”

“But I shall often come out to the Tea Club meetings,” said Patty; “of course I shall often come out to Marian’s to stay a day or two, and if I’m here on Saturday I can come to the Club, and whenever you have an evening entertainment I’ll come out for that.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Marian, brightening a little; “and you can come out to our house for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and New Year’s Day, and all the holidays, can’t you?”

“Yes,” said Patty, smiling; “except the ones you come in to spend with me.”

As this brighter outlook had greatly decreased Marian’s aspect of hopeless gloom, the girls all began to wax more merry, and soon they were all joking and laughing in true Tea Club style.

Each one had brought a parting gift for Patty and the presentations were made with jesting speeches.

Elsie Morris brought a well-filled court-plaster case, for, as she explained, Patty was sure to be knocked down and run over every day by automobiles and trolley cars, and the healing strips would prove beneficial.

Laura Russell brought her a tiny fern growing in a flower pot, in order that she might have some green thing to remind her of the country.