But as might be expected from a group of chattering schoolgirls, they did not progress very rapidly.
"Tell us all about your fun in Philadelphia, Patty," said Adelaide Hart.
And as Patty enthusiastically recounted the gaieties of her visit, the time slipped away until it was five o"clock, and not a word had been written.
"Girls, I must go," cried Patty, looking at her watch. "I have an awful lot of studying to do, and I really oughtn"t to have come here at all."
"Oh, wait a little longer," pleaded Elise. "We must get the outline of this thing."
"No, I can"t," said Patty, "I really can"t; but I"ll come Sat.u.r.day morning, and will work on it then, if you like."
Patty hurried away, and when she reached home she found Kenneth Harper waiting for her.
"I thought you"d never come," he said, as she arrived. "Your school keeps very late, doesn"t it?"
"Oh, I"ve been visiting since school," said Patty. "I oughtn"t to have gone, but I haven"t seen the girls for so long, and they had a plan on hand that they wanted to discuss with me."
"I have a plan on hand, too," said Kenneth. "I"ve been talking it over with Mrs. Elliott, and she has been kind enough to agree to it. A crowd of us are going to the matinee on Sat.u.r.day, and we want you to go. Mrs.
Morse has kindly consented to act as chaperon, and there"ll be about twelve in the party. Will you go, Patty?"
"Will I go!" cried Patty. "Indeed I will, Ken. Nothing could keep me at home. Won"t it be lots of fun?"
"Yes, it will," said Kenneth, "and I"m so glad you will go. I was afraid you"d say those old lessons of yours were in the way."
Patty"s face fell.
"I oughtn"t to go," she said, "for I"ve promised the girls to spend Sat.u.r.day morning with them, and now this plan of yours means that I shall lose the whole day, and I have so much to do on Sat.u.r.day; an extra theme to write, and a lot of back work to make up. Oh, Ken, I oughtn"t to go."
"Oh, come ahead. You can do those things Sat.u.r.day evening."
Patty sighed. She knew she wouldn"t feel much like work Sat.u.r.day evening, but she couldn"t resist the temptation of the gay party Sat.u.r.day afternoon. So she agreed to go, and Kenneth went away much pleased.
"What do you think, grandma?" said she. "Do you think I ought to have given up the matinee, and stayed at home to study?"
"No, indeed," said Grandma Elliott, who was an easy-going old lady.
"You"ll enjoy the afternoon with your young friends, and, as Kenneth says, you can study in the evening."
So when Sat.u.r.day came Patty spent the morning with Elise. The other girls were there, and they really got to work on their play, and planned the scenes and the characters.
"It will be perfectly lovely!" exclaimed Adelaide Hart. "I"m so glad for our cla.s.s to do something worth while. It will be a great deal nicer than the tableaux of last year."
"But it will be an awful lot of work," said Hilda Henderson. "All those costumes, though they seem so simple, will be quite troublesome to get up, and the scenery will be no joke."
"Perhaps Mr. Hepworth will help us with the scenery," said Patty. "He did once when we had a kind of a little play in Vernondale, where I used to live. He"s an artist, you know, and he can sketch in scenes in a minute, and make them look as if they had taken days to do. He"s awfully clever at it, and so kind that I think he"ll consent to do it."
"That will be regularly splendid!" said Elise, "and you"d better ask him at once, Patty, so as to give him as much time as possible."
"No, I won"t ask him quite yet," said Patty, laughing. "I think I"ll wait until the play is written, first. I don"t believe it"s customary to engage a scene painter before a play is scarcely begun."
"Well, then, let"s get at it," said Hilda, who was practical.
So to work they went, and really wrote the actual lines of a good part of the first act.
"Now, that"s something like," said Patty, as, when the clock struck noon, she looked with satisfaction on a dozen or more pages, neatly written in Hilda"s pretty penmanship. "If we keep on like that, we can get this thing done in five or six Sat.u.r.day mornings, and then I"ll ask Mr.
Hepworth about the scenery. Then we can begin to rehea.r.s.e, and we"ll just about be ready for commencement day."
While Patty was with the girls, her interest and enthusiasm were so great that the play seemed the only thing to be thought of. But when she reached home and saw the pile of untouched schoolbooks and remembered that she would be away all the afternoon, she felt many misgivings.
However, she had promised to go, so off she went to the matinee, and had a thoroughly pleasant and enjoyable time. Mrs. Morse invited her to go home to dinner with Clementine, saying that she would send her home safely afterward.
Clementine added her plea that this invitation might be accepted, but Patty said no. Although she wanted very much to go with the Morses, yet she knew that duty called her home. So she regretfully declined, giving her reason, and went home, determined to work hard at her themes and her lessons. But after her merry day with her young friends, she was not only tired physically, but found great difficulty in concentrating her thoughts on more prosaic subjects. But Patty had pretty strong will-power, and she forced herself to go at her work in earnest. Grandma Elliott watched her, as she pored over one book after another, or hastily scribbled her themes. A little pucker formed itself between her brows, and a crimson flush appeared on her cheeks.
At ten o"clock Mrs. Elliott a.s.serted her authority.
"Patty," she said, "you must go to bed. You"ll make yourself ill if you work so hard."
Patty pushed back her books. "I believe I"ll have to, grandma," she said.
"My head"s all in a whirl, and the letters are dancing jigs before my eyes."
Exhausted, Patty crept into bed, and though she slept late next morning, Grandma Elliott imagined that her face still bore traces of worry and hard work.
"Nonsense, grandma," said Patty, laughing. "I guess my robust const.i.tution can stand a little extra exertion once in a while. I"ll try to take it easier this week, and I believe I"ll give up my gymnasium work. That will give me more time, and won"t interfere with getting my diploma."
But though Patty gained a few extra half hours by omitting the gymnasium cla.s.s, she missed the daily exercise more than she would admit even to herself.
"You"re getting round-shouldered, Patty," said Lorraine, one day; "and I believe it"s because you work so hard over those old lessons."
"It isn"t the work, Lorraine," said Patty, laughing. "It"s the play. I had to rewrite the whole of that garden scene last night, after I finished my lessons."
"Why, what was the matter with it?"
"It was all wrong. We didn"t think of it at the time, but in one place Elise has to go off at one side of the stage, and, immediately after, come on at the other side, in different dress. Now, of course, that won"t do; it has to be arranged so that she will have time to change her costume. So I had to write in some lines for the others. And there were several little things like that to be looked after, so I had to do over pretty nearly the whole scene."
"It"s a shame, Patty! We make you do all the hardest of the work."
"Not a bit of it. I love to do it; and when we all work together and chatter so, of course we don"t think it out carefully enough, and so these mistakes creep in. Don"t say anything about it, Lorraine. The girls will never notice my little changes and corrections, and I don"t want to pose as a poor, pale martyr, growing round-shouldered in her efforts to help her fellow-sisters!"
"You"re a brick, Patty, but I will tell them, all the same. If we"re all going to write this play together, we"re going to do it all, and not have you doing our work for us."
Lorraine"s loyalty to Patty was unbounded, and as she had, moreover, a trace of stubbornness in her character, Patty knew that no amount of argument would move her from her determination to straighten matters out.
So she gave up the discussion, only saying, "You won"t do a bit of good, Lorraine; and anyway, somebody ought to revise the thing, and if I don"t do it, who will?"
Patty said this without a trace of egotism, for she and Lorraine both knew that none of the other girls had enough constructive talent or dramatic capability to put the finishing touches on the lines of the play. That was Patty"s special forte, just as Clementine Morse was the one best fitted to plan the scenic effects, and Elise Farrington to design the costumes.
"That"s so," said Lorraine, with a little sigh, "and I suppose, Patty, you"ll just go on in your mad career, and do exactly as you please."
"I suppose I shall," said Patty, laughing at Lorraine"s hopeless expression; "but I do want this play to be a success, and I mean to help all I can, in any way I can."