"is this the patty-pans?" asked gretta, setting down the basket that held jeunesse dorée, the yellow kitten, and looking around the little dining-room with great interest. and she asked it with her voice up on "patty," and down on "pans," because she was a true pennsylvania country girl.
"this is our city residence, patty-pans-on-the-hudson," said happie scollard. "isn't it beautifully queer, the way we're glad to see anything again? we all were in the dolefullest dumps going to crestville last april, then we felt dumpy coming away this morning because we'd got so attached to the farm—and it was a risk taking gretta away from home for the first time! and now we're all as glad to see our dear little patty-pan flat as if we hadn't loved the farm, and in the spring we'll be perfectly crazy to see the farm again—and so it goes! sorry to leave one thing, and just jumping glad to see another!"
miss keren-happuch bradbury, the scollards' adopted aunt whose unlikely name happie bore, laughed. "your 'jumping gladness' is always more[12] in evidence than your regrets, happie," she said. "now, my annexed family, i am going home. you can get on without me in your own domain, and i want to see what has happened in mine during these long months of our exile. margery, happie, i will come down to-morrow and take you to see the room that i thought would answer for your proposed tea room. there's the bell! bob and laura with supplies from the delicatessen shop, likely. charlotte, go to bed early and rest well to prepare for to-morrow, if you want to resume responsibility. good-bye, my dears. i wonder how noah liked parting from his animals!"
she started down the tiny three-foot hall in her brisk way, but happie rushed after her and threw herself upon this "noah" into whose ark of refuge the scollards had been taken the previous spring. then the waters of affliction had threatened to submerge them, and their brave little "charlotte-mother" was in danger of slipping away altogether, broken down by her long struggle to support her six children, as well as to educate them herself.
the scollards had dubbed miss keren-happuch's farm "the ark," with good reason, for it had preserved them, and their dearest of mothers had come back from it fit to take up her burden again. to be sure, during the nine months they had spent in crestville the farm had proved to belong rightfully to gretta engel, the young girl with whom happie had[13] made such fast friends and who had now returned with them to share the experiences of a winter that promised to be interesting, but this did not alter nor lessen the scollards' debt to that fine old gentlewoman, their grandmother's eccentric friend, miss keren-happuch bradbury. she had been indeed their "noah" who had saved them from destruction, and happie ran after her at her hint of regret in leaving them, precipitating herself upon her in such wise that it was evident she had lost every bit of her former fear of her name donor. it was lucky that the little hall was but three feet wide, for miss keren staggered under the onslaught, though she kissed happie's glowing cheek as heartily as the girl kissed her pale one.
"i know how the animals felt when they saw noah walking off, dearest auntie keren!" she cried. "they felt like bleating, and as if shem and ham and japhet, and all their wives couldn't console them if noah hadn't promised to come often to see that they were fed, and to pat their heads and let them lick his hand! you dearest of auntie kerens!"
"i hope the original noah didn't have the bear as spokesman for the rest of the animals!" gasped miss keren. "happie, you are smothering me. there, my dear, let me go! i hear bob whistling up the stairs, and laura begging him to go slower. gretta owns the ark now. go and hug her!"
pretty margery came out of a room farther down the hall and opened the door to let miss keren out and[14] to let in bob, the one scollard boy, and laura, the third girl. she kissed miss keren with her gentle, sweet manner, conveying silently her sense of the blessed difference between the circumstances of their return to the flat which happie had dubbed "the patty-pans" and those under which they had closed that front door behind them in the spring to go to crestville, and her realization that the scollards owed this betterment to miss keren.
bob and laura came in with arms filled with packages, most of which had to be carried so perfectly right side up that laura's face was one pucker of solicitude.
penny—penelope, the baby,—had been vainly trying to unfasten the cords holding down the cover of jeunesse dorée's basket, stimulated by his imploring mews. polly had been conducting gretta through the flat, which struck the girl, for the first time entering a domicile other than the crestville farmhouses, as a sort of miracle for which previous descriptions had not prepared her mind.
"no wonder happie called it 'the patty-pans,'" said gretta, as they arrived at the parlor window through a series of telescopic rooms. "it goes on, one room after another, just for all the world like such sheets of baking tins! and are there many like this in this one house?"
polly felt delightfully experienced, at ten, beside tall gretta of fifteen, who did not know flats.
[15]
"there are two on each floor, and this house is six stories high; this is the fourth floor, east. the gordons—ralph and snigs, you know,—are just across from us, fourth floor, west. that makes twelve flats in one house," she explained carefully. "i guess they're all rented; they generally are in december, like this. they're the nicest flats for this rent mamma saw. you have to have ref'runces to get in, and mamma wouldn't like to leave us alone all day when she's gone to take charge of foreign letters for that firm down in town 'less we were in a house where they were strict about ref'runces." polly—mary, but no one called her that,—was a most reliable, painstaking, plump little person, and she intended to go on enlightening gretta as to the peculiarities of flats, when there came a horrible sound of ripping, tearing, pounding, thumping, that made gretta jump half way across the little room and then lean against the wall holding both hands to her throat, her pretty face utterly stripped of its rich color, her big eyes bigger and darker than ever as she panted: "wh-what's that?"
polly dropped into the nearest chair and laughed so hard that for a minute she could not speak. before she caught her breath happie came in and joined in polly's mirth as she saw gretta's face and heard the frightful racket which was keeping on as loud as ever.
"you thought we were going straight up through the roof, didn't you, gretta?" she cried. "i don't[16] blame you, but it's only the steam heat coming on. it has been turned off so long that the pipes were full of water, and when the pipes are cold it always goes on like that. it isn't half so nice as our fireplace and the logs up at crestville, is it? but it's safe. come out, both of you, and help get lunch first and then eat it. what do you think? dorée went right under the sink the minute he was let out, and looked for his pan of milk where it sat last winter! who would have supposed he would remember? he was nothing but a kitten when we went away."
she had wound her arm around gretta and had related dorée's proof of memory as they went down the hall. her telescopic home looked very pretty to happie and she could not help being glad to be back to her old life, but it was such a new life to gretta that she was afraid of her not liking it. she was most anxious that the girl whom she loved and who had never tasted happiness, should spend every day in new york in entire content.
margery and laura had the table set when happie and gretta arrived on the scene. bob saluted them waving a thin wooden dish with tinned corners from which he had just emptied the delicatessen-shop potato salad.
"you might run out to the pump and fetch some water, gretta," he suggested. but gretta shook her head.
"come now, i'm not as bad as that!" she cried.[17] "they have water running from spigots up in the mountain hotels, and i've seen it! and i shall not blow out the gas, either!"
"happie told you!" said bob. "don't you put on airs, gretta! mother, lady mother, come forth and regale yourself."
mrs. scollard hastened to accept this invitation. she patted penny's plump, country-browned little hand, as margery lifted her into the high chair at her mother's side. she was a pretty mother—margery was like her—and young still; it was no wonder that her children dropped into their old places around the table beaming with happiness at seeing her once more at its head, all her old look of weakness and weariness blown away somewhere beyond the crestville mountains.
the hastily prepared lunch tasted very good and everybody was doing full justice to it, when there came a pounding from the direction of the little kitchen, which made gretta drop her fork to cry: "what's that?" and sent bob flying towards it with a partly articulate exclamation of: "ralph and snigs!"
"they always pound with a stick from their dumb-waiter door on ours, and then we go to the door—the front door—and let them in," explained polly, in her rôle of instructress to gretta.
this time such informality was not to obtain, however. bob came back with a broad grin on his face and a note in his hand.
[18]
"they weren't there when i got there; they must have pounded, and then dropped on the floor when they heard me coming," he said to his family. "this note was pinned on our dumb-waiter door with a skewer."
he proceeded to unfold the note and read: "mr. ralph gordon, mr. charles (alias snigs) gordon, present their compliments to mrs. charlotte scollard, miss scollard, the misses keren-happuch, laura, mary and penelope scollard, miss gretta engel and mr. robert scollard, and request the pleasure of being allowed to call upon them at their earliest convenience. r. s. v. p."
considering that the gordon boys had been spending thanksgiving at the farm, and had come down from it with the scollards that very morning of the tuesday after thanksgiving, it really did not seem as if this formal note, nor even this pressing haste to see the family in the opposite flat, was necessary. bob crumpled up the note, thrust it into his pocket and dashed out into the hall, where he beat a lively tattoo on the door across from the patty-pans' entrance, forgetting all about the rule of consideration for people above and below them, and crying: "come on over now, you chumps! come on over!"
ralph and snigs appeared, dodged bob's affectionate blows, and came beaming into the dining-room where they shook hands all around with the scollards from whom they had parted hardly an hour before, when they had all arrived from the train.
[19]
"glad to see you back!" cried ralph heartily. "how well you're looking, all of you! i hear that you have been making a long summer of it up in madison county, pennsylvania, among the mountains. evidently it agreed with you. i mean to take a run up in that part of the country myself one of these days. is this miss engel, whose discovery of her grandmother's will, in the horse-hair trunk where her step-grandfather had hidden it, resulted in her snatching from miss bradbury the farm which you called the ark? very glad to see you, miss engel. i don't remember meeting an heiress before. you ought to have prevented your grandmother from marrying a scamp for a second husband. it's wrong to be reckless with grandmothers!"
"the farm isn't worth enough to call me an heiress, mr. gordon. i wish you could have come up to see us this summer," retorted gretta. which, considering how she and ralph had chased calves, made hay, and looked after don dolor, the horse, together, proved that gretta was learning how to talk nonsense with these new friends.
"gretta's grandmother married again before she was born, ralph," said polly, who always set everybody right.
"my souls and uppers, ralph, but you are long winded! you'd better take to the law where you can use your gift of gab!" exclaimed bob.
"say, it was fine being up there in the ark, but i'm mighty glad you're all back here again!" said snigs, looking aro[20]und the room and the scollard circle in profound satisfaction. "mother says if you could know how glad she was to get you back you'd be ashamed of having left her alone on the other side."
"no we wouldn't, because if we hadn't gone she wouldn't have been so happy now," cried happie. "where's whoop-la?"
"oh, cut back and fetch whoop-la!" ralph ordered his junior. and snigs hurried off, quickly returning with the gordon tiger cat, grown big, at whom dorée set up every hair inhospitably.
"aunt keren is coming to fetch us to see the future tea room to-morrow, ralph," said margery, bringing her mother a cup of hot tea and passing the crackers and cheese to the boys. "i am half afraid, now that the experiment is to be experimented."
"always heard tea was bad for the nerves," said ralph, deftly catching a bit of neuchâtel cheese which was about to drop, on the edge of the cracker which it was meant to supplement. "what are you afraid of? you'll have a tea room that would make a russian enlist in the japanese army, and you'll coin money—like a counterfeiter."
"counterfeit japanese?" suggested happie. "i'm not much afraid of the tea room—though i might be of the tea! as long as i don't have to drink it i won't be afraid of that either. but it does seem rather awesome to think of margery and me running a tea room, with[21] only gretta and laura to help, and mother down in town all day, superintending a foreign firm's big correspondence—i mean a big firm's foreign correspondence—and bob in mr. felton's office again, and you boys at school, and nobody to fall back on till night, no matter what happened!"
"it didn't seem possible," began laura in her pompous way, "that we could make our dream of the tea room a reality, until now. but with us back in town and aunt keren coming to-morrow to get our approval of the room it is almost un fait accompli."
"let's see, that means an accomplice of fate, doesn't it, laura?" inquired bob slyly. he never lost a chance of pricking the bubble of laura's vanity. "i've not a doubt that the tea room will prove an accomplice of fate." he jumped up and mounted a chair with no warning of his intentions. "my brethren, and also my sisteren," he preached in a sermonizing voice. "this is a world in which one thing leads to another. it has not been my lot to journey far in this round planet, nor has it been my lot to see that it is round. i have been limited to a flatness that extended as far as my eye could reach. but i know—because columbus proved it by smashing the end of an egg—that could my eye but go on and on it would soon roll over the declining edge of a rotund world. and so i know, although my sweet sixteen years have not carried me to the depths of human experience, that the world of each of us is also a round world, in which even[22]ts roll around and around, much like the careless kitten that flitteth in circles after its coy tail. and even, my brethren and sisteren, as the flitting of the kitten causes the tail it pursues to circle, so do we, unknowingly, cause the events which seem to chase us. i have no doubt that sister laura has spoken as truly as she has spoken beautifully when, in the language of the polite successors of the ancient gauls, she has said that the tea room would prove an accomplice of fate. even as the drops of tea flow from the noses of the small teapots of the future refreshment room, so shall the consequences of that room's existence flow through the lives of our beloved sisters margaret and keren-happuch, and possibly of others unknown to us."
gretta groaned, after the fashion of congregations assembled in the old-time camp meetings in the woods, which she had seen when she was very small. ralph and snigs were about to applaud, but happie checked them with a stern face as bob descended from his chair. "hush, you never applaud a sermon!" she whispered. "the congregation will join me in the hymn."
she began to sing, and margery joined with an alto and laura with a tenor, as if the "hymn" were already familiar. it was sung to the air which has been called, "tell aunt rhody," and its words ran thus:
[23]
"a word of wisdom, a word of wisdom, a word of wisdom
is of use.
this word is come, this word is come, this word is come
from a goose."
ralph and snigs shouted. "you are the greatest crowd!" exclaimed ralph admiringly. "you are always springing something new on us. i never heard this sermon racket before. if i ought to be a lawyer, you ought to preach, bob. and where did you catch the hymn?"
"bob used to preach when we were little, and we wanted a hymn to sing at his sermons. we didn't dare sing a real hymn, for fear it would be irreverent, so mother wrote the words of this one for us. we hope that it will be a benefit to you," said happie demurely.
polly came in from the kitchen looking guilty. "whoop-la jumped on the table and took the rest of the sardines," she said. "so i gave them, even half and half, to him and dorée. i didn't like to tell you for fear ralph would scold whoop-la. but it was good he stole—took them, for it made dorée stop growling at him. there was one tail, with a little piece above it, that didn't come out even after i divided, so i gave that to whoop-la because he was company. i hope you won't say anything to him about it."
polly was the champion of all animals, and she was ralph's great friend. the big boy put his arm around her affectionately. "i'll call sardines 'herrings' before whoop-la fr[24]om this very day, for fear of embarrassing him, sweet p.," he said.
the bell rang and snigs cried, "that's mother, i'll wager what you like."
penny ran to open the door, and mrs. gordon's voice called out: "i missed my boys and felt sure where to find them. may i come?"
mrs. scollard hastened out to meet her guest, and margery, happie and gretta fell to clearing the table and washing dishes as fast as they could.
"it's a good thing i lived with you in the country before we came in town, or i never should have got used to your ways. and even now you seem different here, though i can't tell how," gretta said to happie as they removed the crumbs from the table.
"of course; we're in a different state! isn't this new york and wasn't that pennsylvania?" inquired happie. "nonsense, gretta; we're just the same, only more so."
"don't you dread that tea room, honest?" asked gretta.
"just a wee bit, but don't you say i said so," returned happie. "if we can make it go and be useful it will be beautiful. the only thing i really dread about it is its failing."
it had been partly gretta's plan, at least she had suggested and added to margery and happie's idea of a tea room, in which they were to try to make a little of the money they needed that winter. kind miss keren-happuch br[25]adbury had promised to guarantee their rent and had found the room for the purpose. to-morrow she was going to show it to them. it did seem formidable, now that it was taking such definite shape, the plan of setting up the library and tea room which they had discussed in far-off crestville. but the mrs. stewart from whom they would rent the room was to be above them, with her dancing school, to chaperon them, and perhaps their youth would make the little enterprise go the better. at least it was not happie's way to be timorous.
"of course i'm not really afraid, gretta," she said, with the little toss of her bright red-brown hair which gretta knew and loved. and she led the way into the tiny kitchen of the flat like an amazon at the head of her warriors.
[26]
