Patricia Read online

  “Oh Mother!”

  “Now don’t ‘Oh-Mother’ me! I’m sure it’s enough that I’m willing for you to go to this terrible picnic, without your trying to force me into that obnoxious school. All right, wear a calico dress if you insist. I’m sure I hope none of my friends have to see you on the way. But you may as well have your own way for this once. Perhaps you’ll learn reason after a while. I’m sure I hope so.”

  So the days went by and there was no more discussion about the dress or the plans. The only thing that surprised Patricia was that her mother took such a deep interest in the lunch she was to carry. She even went to the city and bought a lovely new lunch basket. If Patricia had known who was expected to carry that basket, she would have been in utter despair.

  Patricia was just starting out the door when Thorny arrived. She gave a little gasp when she saw him.

  “Oh,” she said as he came smiling up the steps with his usual “Hello, Pitty-Pat!”

  “Oh, I’m sorry! But I have to go away today, Thorny.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Thorny indulgently. “I heard you had a picnic, and I got here just in time to carry your basket, didn’t I?” He reached over and took firm possession of the new basket.

  The girl gave a despairing look at it and hung on.

  “Oh, no thank you!” she said. “I’m carrying this myself. It’s not at all heavy. And of course I couldn’t take you with me anyway. This is a class event and positively no one else is invited.”

  “Oh, that won’t bother me a little bit,” said Thorny, holding on to the basket. “I’m great on crashing parties. Got it down fine. They never question me at all. You see, they’re always glad to get me, I’m so good-looking!” Thorny’s air was inimitable. Three of the high school girls who had stopped for Patricia giggled admiringly, but Patricia herself looked stricken. Besides, she hated his frank conceit. Even if it was a common joke with him that he was good-looking, it never seemed funny to her. She couldn’t bear to have him accept it as if he knew it and presume upon it. And she couldn’t have this one perfect day, the first really independent school frolic, spoiled by having Thorny along.

  “But really, Thorny, we voted not to have anyone outside the class along. Not even any seniors! You can’t go, Thorny! Positively!”

  “My dear, never say can’t to me!” said Thorny, shaking an impressive finger in her face. “Can’t is only a stimulus to my ego. I’m a crasher by nature, and I like nothing better than to crash in where I’m not wanted. But I’m not anticipating much trouble here. My native town. These hicks wouldn’t dare say me nay. Come along, Pitty-Pat, and we’ll paint the town red. That’s all right, Mrs. Prentiss. I’ll look out for your child. You don’t need to worry!”

  He waved a jovial hand to Mrs. Prentiss, who appeared suddenly at the door, smiling.

  “Oh, is that you, Thorny? How nice. I wasn’t sure you were home yet. Now I shall be relieved. I’m so glad you are going to the picnic. Now I shall not have to worry about Patricia. I always think there are so many dangers in the woods, things like snakes and tarantulas. It is so good to have a nice boy along!”

  She cast a withering glance toward the three high school girls.

  Patricia was almost in tears. Her day was spoiled! And what could she do? She walked with downcast eyes, ashamed before her school friends, hurrying out to the sidewalk where another group was gathered waiting for her to come. It was useless for her to try to get rid of Thorny while her mother was around. Oh, if only her father had not gone to the city that morning! He would have understood, and he would have done something to help her out of this dilemma! She tried to think rapidly what she could do. It wouldn’t do to set the other boys on Thorny; that would only precipitate a big fight, for the high school boys would delight to put Thorny in his place. Whatever she did must be done with as much courtesy as possible. But she waited until she was down the walk and out on the street before she attempted anything. Then, safely behind the sheltering hedge, she greeted her schoolmates as cheerfully as she could in her tense state of mind and, turning to Thorny who was walking by her side, she said pleasantly, “Now, I’ll take my basket, please, and thank you for bringing it down so far. Sorry we can’t invite you to go with us, but this is strictly a class event, you understand.”

  She reached a determined little hand toward her precious basket and there was a quick stillness in the group as they watched her, admiring her courage, for they all knew what Thorny was.

  But Thorny quickly swung the basket around behind him and laughingly shook his head.

  “Oh no!” he said. “You don’t get this basket away from me! I know there are too many good things inside it for me ever to be willing to give it up. Sorry about your exclusiveness, but it can’t be did this time. You’ll have to take me along, because, my lady Pitty-Pat, I’m going anyway, and you’ll find it a hard job to get rid of me, as the thistle said to the lady’s dress! I’m quite sure there isn’t a hick man present who would care to come to blows with me over it, is there?”

  He looked around on the glowering youths, who stood fully able to handle him, and taunted them with his handsome grin.

  One of the taller boys, a halfback from the football squad, spoke out, looking at Patricia.

  “Do you want us to handle him for you, Pat?” There was menace in his tone, and his glance went quickly, significantly around the group of his fellows.

  She gave the boy a quick rewarding smile.

  “Thank you, Bert, but I don’t think that’ll be necessary. The boys of our school are too courteous to do anything like that, of course, and I’m quite sure Thorny will understand and not bother us.”

  “Guess again, pretty-Pat!” sang out Thorny. “If you mean you think I’m going to give up and go home, you’ve got another guess coming. I’m sticking around.”

  Patricia gave him a look which ought to have made him see that he would get nowhere with her that way. Then she lifted her firm little chin a bit haughtily, looking very much as she had looked that day on the hillside when she stood alone against Thorny’s attack. Then she walked quickly on ahead with Charles and Helen Ayres, a brother and sister in her class who were rather shy and undemonstrative. And as she swept past Thorny, she said in a cool, clear voice that could be heard by the whole group, “Oh, all right. I can easily get along without that lunch basket, Thorny, if that’s what you want.”

  The rest of the group burst into rollicking appreciative laughter, but Patricia, with head held high, walked straight on.

  Thorny, with a grin and a sneer, sauntered along beside Della Bright, a girl who seldom had any notice at all and who was tremendously flattered by Thorny’s attention, even though she knew he was not popular among her classmates.

  The little procession paused several blocks farther on to gather up a group who were waiting there for them, and then they went on for another group before they turned across the meadow path and down the hill toward the woods.

  All this time Thorny walked placidly with Della Bright, ignoring Patricia, laughing and talking as if he had always been a part of the group, telling stories of his feats in school athletics and studies, talking so loud that those ahead could not miss it if they tried. Now and then he would ostentatiously open the clasp of the pretty basket he carried and poke an investigating finger inside, coming forth with a sandwich or a piece of chicken or a carefully wrapped bit of cake, which he generously divided with the half-frightened but giggling Della.

  Patricia, on ahead, ignored him utterly. If Thorny was determined to try and annoy her, she would not let him spoil her day. Let him have the lovely lunch. Everybody would understand and someone would share with her, she was sure. Or she could go without. She didn’t feel as if she would ever want any food anyway, she was so annoyed and angry that Thorny had crashed in and spoiled her perfect day. Would it always be so? Would every promise of a perfect day be spoiled by someone?

  And had her mother known that Thorny was coming? She put that thought resolutely
from her. She could not bear to think that her mother had deliberately planned to do that. Yet her mother was very determined to have her connected with Thorny. Why?

  Something cool and lovely met them as they entered the woods. It had always seemed to Patricia, when she thought about heaven, that there surely must be a wood there, because here it was so quiet and sweet and peaceful, like the entrance to great delight. It was only a childish fancy, she supposed, and she had never told anybody about it. Her mother would never have understood. Her mother was practical and liked fancy artificial places better. She had never approved of the woods for her child, there seemed too many dangers lurking there. It made Mrs. Prentiss shudder to think of worms and snakes and creeping things. It was too dark and cool for her taste, too. She felt it must be unhealthy. But her child loved it. Yet she had never had much of it. Her mother had generally managed to substitute a trip to the movies or a picture gallery or a store for any trip she tried herself to plan. So she could count only a very few times she had experienced that thrill of entering the cool, quiet depths, of seeing a quick twirl of a stealthy squirrel darting to a higher branch and looking down with questioning beadlike eyes, of hearing the high far note of a wood robin, of discovering hepaticas and wood anemones and jack-in-the-pulpits lurking under tall ferns with a drift of maidenhair fern not far away. It was to Patricia the most wonderful place in the world, and now as she entered the green shadows, trod on the velvet moss, and penetrated farther to a floor of pine needles, she forgot about Thorny. Even Thorny couldn’t spoil the long-anticipated day for her. There had always been a Thorny or his like in her life to spoil every lovely experience. She reflected that probably it was so with everyone’s nice times.

  So, basketless but happy, she entered her Eden and walked as if under an enchantment. And Thorny might rush ahead and pose as carrying on a flirtation with any of the other girls he chose, or shout out curses upon all woods in general and this one in particular when he happened to step into a hole and turn his ankle slightly, or he might take the center of the stage in the immediate foreground and tell in blatant boasting of his achievements at school. It could not dispel the beauty all around her, nor spoil Patricia’s joy in the day. It wasn’t pleasant, of course, to think that the rest of the class might be offended at her for bringing such an alien element into their festive day, but by this time most of them understood that it had been none of Patricia’s planning. They laid it all at her mother’s door. But neither did the girl enjoy that thought. She didn’t like to have her mother despised by her friends. She wished her mother wouldn’t do silly things and bring wrong elements together and misjudge nice, pleasant plain people, but she didn’t want others to blame her. She felt in her heart that if her mother had only had the privilege of attending a public school, all these discrepancies in her character might have been rectified. It was her mother’s misfortunate that she had not had the privilege of such a school in her childhood.

  So, offsetting the disadvantages of the day, Patricia felt that she had the full sympathy of her class. They liked her and admired her and were taking her into their heart of hearts today as they had never quite done before. She felt their new loyalty around her like a pleasant garment, and it filled her with a sweet elation she had never known. There had always been that little element of doubt in her mind before. But today the fact that she had deliberately left the pampered “prep school kid” and walked off with the stupidest and most unattractive brother and sister in their whole class had done a great deal to convince them that she was one of themselves. She knew now that they were her friends, and she was greatly glad over it. So in the light of that knowledge she trod the sacred precincts of the wooded aisles and was glad.

  Thorny was ahead there nibbling into that wonderful basket, discovering the choice tidbits that her mother had evidently put in for her to feed to Thorny, gobbling down a whole fruit cup that he had rooted out of a corner and smacking his lips over it. But what did she care? She had for the first time since she entered high school a sense that her class and she were one, and nothing else mattered.

  Chapter 8

  A committee of their class had selected the lace for them to gather for their games and for eating their lunch, and arriving there they surveyed the vaulted arches of towering forest trees above them with satisfaction, then stacked their baskets and coats under a convenient tree and drifted away in groups. Some of the boys went to gather wood for a fire on which coffee was to be brewed and marshmallows toasted, others to make arrangements for games that were to be a part of the program later in the day, some to set up the target for archery and to prepare a spot for quoits and other games. Everybody was on some committee. Patricia headed a small group to gather wild flowers and arrange them on the table, which another committee was to spread and set for lunch.

  “I shall have nothing but a bag of oranges and a box of candy to contribute to the lunch table,” said Patricia to her associates, with a bitter glance at the handsome Thorny grubbing in her basket.

  “Why don’t you let the other fellows go after him and get it away?” suggested Helen Ayres excitedly. “They could, easily. He’s eating it all up from you, Pat. I just saw him take out a whole handful of chicken salad. There won’t be anything left fit to eat. Charles could go and tell the boys to organize and get him before he knew it. They could easily get it away.”

  “No!” said Patricia. “I wouldn’t want it after he’s mauled it all over. Let him have it. There’ll be enough for everybody. I’m not very hungry myself, anyway. Let him have it. Let’s forget it. What are those blue flowers over there? Aren’t they hepaticas? And oh, see the spring beauties!”

  “I know where there is some birch bark,” contributed the somewhat diffident Charles. “I’ve got my knife. I could make a birch bark box and you girls could fill it with the flowers.”

  “Say, that would be great!” said Patricia, with sparkling eyes. “And we’ll lay some of those small lacy ferns around the bottom to look like green doilies. Come on, Helen. We’ll have to work fast, for they’ll begin to get hungry before twelve o’clock, I’m sure, and I want it to be the prettiest table ever!” cried Patricia, leading the way to the banks of flowers. Soon they were hard at work.

  But Thorny, and the basket, and Della Bright had drifted away to the top of the hill, and Patricia was glad for now she could more easily forget them.

  The tablecloth was charmingly decorated with a lovely mass of wild flowers in a birch bark container in the center, all wreathed about with a beautiful pattern of small ferns. In between there were substantial piles of sandwiches of all kinds and sizes—chicken, lamb, ham, corned beef, cheese, lettuce, watercress. It seemed as if there was no end to the different kinds of sandwiches that had been provided. Patricia, looking them over, rejoiced that her elaborate basket would not be missed, even if Thorny ate it all up.

  The three decorators surveyed their handiwork with satisfaction and then decided that it would be nice to have the dish of olives surrounded by a wreath of violets. So they hurried off to the place where they knew they were plentiful and began to pick, handling the lovely blossoms delicately with pleasure in their luscious growth.

  Suddenly, just behind them as they stopped was Thorny’s voice.

  “Hey, you two, Chick and Helen, aren’t those your names? They want you back there! Something about the arrangements. Quick! They’re in a hurry!”

  Charles straightened up with a troubled look toward Patricia, his mild, homely, pleasant face full of worry. And Helen gave him a look of hesitation. Then suddenly Thorny, scowling ominously at the two, stamped his foot and waved his arms at them.

  “Scram!” he said “I want to talk to Pat.” And they gave him a frightened look and scrammed.

  As they hurried away, Patricia suddenly sprang to her feet and took in the situation, then lifted her chin and looked haughtily at Thorny.

  “What’s the idea?” she said coldly.

  “The idea is that I’m about fed up being
treated like the dirt under your feet, Pat,” said Thorny indignantly. “I’d have you to understand that I came to this old picnic to take care of you, and I think it’s about time I had a little of your company. Come on over to that tree with the moss on it and let’s sit down and catch up on our acquaintance. You certainly don’t think I enjoy the company of the rest of this hick crowd, do you? Come on; let’s eat our lunch now!”

  “Oh,” said Patricia in a cool little voice, “haven’t you eaten it all up yet? Don’t let me hinder you. Just go over to the tree by yourself and eat it all. I assure you I don’t want any of it. I’m going to eat with the class!” And she made as if to pass him and walk high-headed back to the lunching place. But Thorny put out a hard young hand and caught her.

  “Not on your life you don’t get away!” he said fiercely. “Pat, you’re mine, and you might as well give up at once and acknowledge it. We’ve been pals ever since we were little kids, of course, but I’ll say you’ve even improved. I haven’t seen a girl since I’ve been away that can come up to you in looks, and that’s a fact. There! Will that please you? Say, those eyes are hot shot! And I’m aiming to take those lips and make them mine. Watch me!” And suddenly Thorny flung his arms around her unsuspecting young body and drew her close to him in a fierce bearlike embrace that nearly took her breath away. And then his hot lips found hers and poured passionate kisses upon them until she was almost strangled.

  Bewildered and frightened beyond anything she had ever felt in her life, taken off her guard and limp with horror, she could do nothing at the first instant. Blindly she struggled, gasping, trying to scream but unable to get a sound across because he held her face so close to his and kissed her so fiercely that her breath came only in jerks.