Patricia (13 page)

“Oh, he must have found the telegram here when he got back after he left Patricia at home. I didn't see him again, you know. We hadn't got back yet, and he had to catch the midnight train. But what did you want to see Thorny about? I hope he hasn't missed another lovely party or anything?”

“Oh no,” said Patricia's mother, “nothing as nice as that. I just called up to see if Thorny could remember what Patricia did with her new lunch basket. She seemed to think Thorny had it, but she's getting so forgetful and careless, I just know she must have laid it down and forgotten all about it. And I really didn't think I ought to let it go at that. I paid a lot for that basket, it was so pretty, and seemed quite durable and all. But I suppose in the confusion of getting away in the storm she must have left it somewhere in the woods, and it is likely ruined.”

“Oh, that's too bad! But I don't suppose Thorny would remember anything as useful as that. He has never been domestic in his tastes, you know. However, I'll write and ask him to put on his thinking cap, and will let you now as soon as I hear from him. Meantime, of course I'll look around. He might have brought it home absentmindedly, though I'm sure I would have noticed it if it had been here!”

“Oh, don't trouble. I'll just call up that place where they were dancing last night. He might have dropped it down there somewhere. Of course if you find it, let me know and I'll send Patricia over after it. Sorry your boy has gone again. I know how lonely you must feel without him. But then you must remember vacation will soon be here and there'll be lots of nice times ahead.”

The two mothers tore themselves apart at last, and each of them instituted a thorough search for the basket, which was even then lying wet and limp in a copse of sweet fern where Thorny had thrown it in the woods when he had finished the last delectable bit all by himself behind a big laurel bush. Thorny had always appreciated good food, even from his early youth. But for baskets he cared nothing at all.

So the little basket lay and wilted in the rain, while Thorny lay low out of the picture for the time being, and Patricia mourned neither of them. She felt as if she never wanted to see either again.

Eventually a child from the city slums at the annual country-week picnic found the basket and exclaimed over its bright colors; she did not mind that it was limp and slightly warped from the sharp, crisp lines it had worn on its first picnic. And so it turned out that Patricia never did see that basket again, for it went to gladden a dark little attic in a city slum and give joy to a little child who had no problems except how to get enough to eat.

But Patricia's mother went on worrying about how much money she had spent on that basket and nagging at her child to try and locate it, until sometimes Patricia grew fairly frantic about it.

Then suddenly she didn't care anymore, for commencement was at hand.

“I don't see why you care so much,” said her mother unpleasantly. “It isn't your commencement. I shouldn't think you'd want to go. I should think it would bore you.”

“Oh, I want to go!” said Patricia, with shining eyes.

Patricia went, and her father went with her.

“You're just encouraging her in all her whims and fancies,” said the mother with dissatisfaction.

“Yes,” said her father. “I like to. I like it myself. It makes me feel young again.”

And so Patricia sat by her father and watched it all. She saw John Worth take his place on the platform, filing in with the procession in cap and gown. How handsome he looked, and how manly. How he seemed to be head and shoulders above them all in every way.

And then she saw his father sitting over at one side in a sheltered corner by a door, sitting in a wheelchair. How nice that he could be there to see his boy graduate!

By and by John Worth's father saw her and twinkled his nice pleasant smile at her across the room. And she smiled back. Her father looked up and followed her glance with his eyes.

“That's John Worth's father,” she whispered, and her father looked again, for John Worth had just finished his valedictory address and had made a deep impression on his audience. “Yes, over in the corner, in a wheelchair.”

Patricia's father studied his face and then looked back at the boy on the platform who was receiving, with heightened color but with young dignity, the applause that was still filling the house with pleasant din. Then he looked back at the father again.

“I like his face!” said Mr. Prentiss. “I like both their faces!” And Patricia's heart sang. But only the light in her eyes and the smile she gave her father told him how pleased she was at what he had said.

Afterward Patricia took her father over to the corner where Mr. Worth had sat, hoping she might introduce them, but the wheelchair was gone. And John Worth had disappeared, too. He was carefully rolling that wheelchair down the village street and out toward the main road on the long trek home, hoping, praying, that this long ride and excitement might not be too much for the precious invalid. But Patricia did not know that and was disappointed.

And then the summer came and the Prentisses talked about going to the seashore. They talked about getting a cottage on the beach, and Mr. Prentiss said that maybe he could arrange to come down every evening and they would have a real time together.

“Lovely!” said Mrs. Prentiss. “Get a good big cottage so we can have guests. I want to have the Bellinghams down. It's high time I repaid some of the nice invitations I have had from them. Mrs. Bellingham has taken me five times to the theater and twice to the symphony concerts!”

There was a dead silence in the room for a minute, and a grayness seemed suddenly to descend upon Patricia's face. Her father saw it and looked up quickly.

“That settles it!” he said firmly. “If that female dreadnought is in danger of coming, nothing doing! Pat and I'll stay at home and take our vacation together.”

“Now, Mr. Prentiss!” protested his wife. “Why do you have to be so impossible! Don't you understand that you have a young daughter growing up and you've got to think about that? Patricia must have some nice boyfriends or she won't have a good time at all. She'll want to go sailing and swimming and fishing, and it will be so nice and safe to have a boy who is well mannered to take care of her. You might get a cottage that has a tennis court, too, perhaps, and not too far from a country club with a good golf course, you know. Then everybody could have a good time and we could feel perfectly safe about our child.”

“Not on your life!” said Father Prentiss with a quick look at the ghastly horror in his daughter's eyes. “I don't want any young chump like that Thorny lying around in the way all summer, and I don't believe Pat does either. Do you, girl?”

The young girl lifted expressive eyes to her father's.

“Mother knows I don't want him around, Daddy,” she said in a low tone.

“There!” said the mother indignantly. “Now I hope you see, Mr. Prentiss, just what you have done to your daughter, making her disagreeable and self-conscious and unable to have any friendships with nice boys. If she ever gets free from that dreadful school, I shall have a pretty time training her for her social life.”

“I don't see that she needs any training,” said her father, with a cheering smile and a wink. “I think she's a pretty nice kind of a girl now, myself.”

“Yes, that's just about as much as you know about social life,” said his wife. “You never had any yourself, you know.”

“Well, I've managed to rub along fairly well and get enough money to support you in ordinary comfort and a little over. But I draw the line at those Bellinghams. If you like them, all right. Go and see them all you want to, but don't ring Pat and me in on them, that's all I ask. And if you can't produce any more manly boys than that Bellingham irresponsible, I think Pat would be better off without any social contacts. Come on, Pat; if you want me to play tennis with you, now's your time before dark. Excuse us, won't you, Amelia?' And the two escaped from further discussion.

But that was not the last time the subject was brought up, for Mrs. Prentiss had no idea of giving up such a delightful thing as a cottage at the shore, and she kept on it from every angle until her husband said he guessed they would have to give up the plan for this time. He wouldn't be able to get away from his business very much, and he didn't want his family away from him.

That was before they heard that Thorny must attend summer school if he wished to pass his finals and go on to graduate the next year. When that was told at the table one day, Mr. Prentiss looked up with interest. And when two or three days later his wife announced in a grieved tone that her friend Mrs. Bellingham was going to the mountains for a month, he began once more to take an interest in a cottage at the shore. He said very little about it however, until one day he came home and announced that he had taken a nice little place right on the beach for a month, rented it furnished from a friend who was going abroad on business and wanted somebody to look after his house.

Mrs. Prentiss felt very dubious about it. A man, she told him, didn't know how to pick out a summer cottage. However, it was all picked out and she might take it or leave it, so she submitted, and Patricia had a glorious time with her father for playmate and no fear of running into Thorny anywhere. Her mother was fairly happy, too, for the house was charming and so near the sea, and the only trouble with it was that there was no guest room. However, Mrs. Bellingham was away, so she settled down really to enjoy her family for once. Of course, she did try to get Patricia off to a dance now and then at the hotels on the beach, but her father took her part, saying she needed to go to bed early and get well rested up for next winter's study. “The last year of high school is always the hardest, you know.”

“And thank goodness, that will be over at last!” said Patricia's mother.

So the summer was comparatively free from annoyances, and there was plenty of outdoor exercise and play; a boat, which she learned to row on the little lake nearby, good swimming, tennis, a pony she had the privilege of riding twice a week, and best of all a time to rest in the hammock in the wide wind-swept porch with a book in her hand and her eyes off to the sea, dreaming of the great things of life that were just beginning to touch her consciousness deeply, thinking of the future and what it might hold in store for her.

Sometimes as her eyes wandered to the far horizon, of an early evening, when the sea was pearly with its myriad lights and its silver ripples looked like a pathway to heaven, she got to thinking what heaven would be like; would she always be wanting to do things up there that her mother did not think were right for her?

Then one day her father flung his evening paper down and left it on his chair when he answered his wife's call to come into the house for something, and the paper slid down and began to blow across toward the hammock. Patricia reached down and caught it in its flight, and as she smoothed its pages down and tried to crease them more carefully her eye caught a name among the death notices. “Worth!”

She caught her breath and stared at the page.

WORTH—John Graham Worth died today after a lingering illness at his home, Braeburn Cottage, Briarwood Road, Waverly Township. Services Thursday at two o'clock, interment private.

Patricia's eyes filled with tears as she read swiftly and then searched the page for the rest. Yes, here it was.

Professor John Graham Worth, for ten years professor of Greek and Hebrew at Carrollton University, passed away in the fifty-eighth year of his life. He was a graduate of Oxford University, England, and took his degree at Edinburgh University, Scotland. After serving for a time as teacher of Hebrew and Greek in his native land, he accepted an urgent call to Carrollton University and was there until his failing health made it necessary for him to take an extended rest—

Patricia's head went down upon the paper and a soft sob came from her lips. She was seeing the fine sweet face of John Worth's father as he sat before the fire in his own cottage and talked with her. Seeing him seated at the table, laughing with his family over their bright repartee. Seeing his head bowed reverently as he prayed that earnest prayer, which included her. She was hearing again the kindly words he had spoken to her, hearing his voice as he read those words of scripture.

And now she could never talk with him again! He was gone! Up to God Himself, to whom he had talked so intimately in that notable prayer!

It seemed as if she had just discovered a great personal loss! Something that she had hoped was to have come into her life, that would never be hers now.

Oh, but there was eternity! Perhaps she could know him then, in heaven!

And it wasn't as if it were a loss that she could mourn openly. Her mother, perhaps even her father, would not understand her weeping for an utter stranger of whom they had never heard. Oh, later, when she was a little older and knew how to explain things better, she might be able to tell her father all about that storm and that wonderful day in Braeburn and the gentleman whom she would have liked to be her father's friend, but now, would he understand? Or was this one of those things that had to be experienced to be understood?

And her mother surely would think she was crazy to weep over a poor man who lived in a cottage among cabbages and lilies, even if he had been a notable scholar once. Her mother would never understand.

If she were only at home she might go to that service and show her sympathy to that dear family, the sweet lady who called him “feyther,” he who had gone Home and left them now. And the wise, courageous son! What would they do now? Oh, how her heart ached for them! How she longed to do something to show them her sympathy. How she wanted to go to that service. To get the feeling of that family who knew God so well and to see the radiance she would surely find in their faces in spite of their sorrow.

Her father would take her tomorrow perhaps, if she could manage to make him understand how much she wanted it. But her mother would make such a fuss about it, insisting on knowing every detail, how she came to know them, who John Worth was, and what school he attended. Patricia shrank in dread from the thought of the discussion she would bring upon herself if she tried to work that. And not only upon herself but upon her father also. No, she must not try that.

But couldn't she send some flowers? How could that be managed? She had enough money to pay for them, and flowers could be ordered by mail or telegram. Nobody need know anything about it.

People from the neighboring cottage had come in to visit. Her mother and father would be occupied for a little while. It wasn't far down the beach to the little drugstore where they had a telephone. She couldn't do it here in the cottage. Her mother would come rushing right out and demand to know who she was telephoning to, and what about. But couldn't she run down to the drugstore and telephone Mr. Mathison, the florist at home? He knew her and would know how to get the flowers to the right place.

She picked up the paper again, searched for the date. This was last night's paper. Yes, the services were tomorrow.

Quick as a flash her decision was made. She slipped softly up the stairs to her room without attracting the attention of anyone. They were sitting on the west porch away from the village end of the beach. Quickly she got her purse and noiselessly hurried downstairs and out the side door. Then she flew up the beach in the soft moonlight that was beginning to get brighter every minute. It wouldn't take long. She could buy a box of candy and take it back to pass to them all as an excuse for going if they found out.

So she hurried through the silver brightness with her heavy young heart full of a new kind of trouble she had never known before. Trouble for those dear new friends of hers who were friends of God and one of whom had gone home to Him.

Having done her errand and bought her candy, she came back quietly, watching the silver sea where it met the silver-blue sky, as if the gate of heaven were up there and might possibly open while she looked and let her glimpse in.

Back at the cottage again, she went to the porch where they all were sitting and passed her candy, then she slipped away to her room and, undressing in the darkness, knelt before her open window in her soft white robe and looked across the sea. Laying her head down on the windowsill she prayed.

Oh, God, dear heavenly Father, help them to bear it. Love them and keep them, and make me Your child just as they are. Let us all meet up in Your heaven. And please—if You don't mind worrying about a little thing, will You let my lilies that I sent tell that dear family how sorry I am for them and how much I care?

For Patricia had said to the florist: “Please, Mr. Mathison, if you have any, I'd like them to be lilies of the valley if possible. I know it's late for those, but couldn't you get them somewhere? It doesn't matter if they cost more, and send the bill to me, please, not to Father.”

So she prayed “lilies,” though the florist had only said he would try.

A long time she knelt there and prayed, and when at last she rose and lifted her eyes to the far silver sea where the sky came down and touched, she could seem to see bright angels dimly standing by an open gate to let a new soul go Home.

One day when Mrs. Prentiss had gone down to the city on some errands, a letter came to Patricia, forwarded from home.

Dear Patricia:

Mother and I thank you. Father would have been so pleased with the lilies. He liked you.

John

Patricia was so glad that it came while she was alone. Now she would not have to explain.

The days went on, golden with sunshine, and the silver nights, and Patricia felt as if she were growing up.

“She is really lovely,” said her mother to her father one night as they watched her walking down the sand ahead of them. “Too bad she has to spend another year in that silly school!”

But Patricia did not hear and walked sweetly on. She was studying her Bible daily now, and some of the words came gently to her on the wings of the wind as she watched that silver sea and sky: “The heavens declare the glory of God. . . . In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, which. . .as a bridegroom. . .rejoiceth—” The Hebrew professor would never tell her now on this earth what some of those wonderful words meant in their original setting, but somehow her heart was beginning to know, as if God's Spirit was teaching her. As if just because she had the will to accept them all even before she understood them, the Spirit was graciously leading her to a wider place where she could see farther into their meaning, making her sure that these words were of God.